Qualla: Edinburgh New Town

Edinburgh New Town: Introduction

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Spike, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 1767 the Edinburgh Town Council, despairing of the Old Town's stench and overcrowding, ran a competition for the plan of a new district on the boggy fields north of the Nor Loch. They picked a 28-year-old named James Craig. His drawing was simple and audacious: a grid of three parallel streets - George, Princes and Queen - bracketed by two grand squares, all laid out on the rumpled hillside as if the geography didn't exist. Within sixty years it was the most elegantly planned new city in Britain. UNESCO has protected it as a World Heritage Site since 1995. Eight times larger than Old Town, it took the Enlightenment and built it in honey-coloured sandstone.

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Image: Spike | CC BY-SA 4.0

Edinburgh New Town: Why a New Town at All

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kim Traynor, CC BY-SA 3.0. By the early 18th century Edinburgh was choking on its own success. Within the Flodden Wall the medieval city had nowhere to grow except upward - tenements rose to eleven and twelve storeys, with chamber pots emptied from upper windows accompanied by the warning shout of 'gardylo...

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Image: Kim Traynor | CC BY-SA 3.0

Edinburgh New Town: Robert Adam and Charlotte Square

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit SylviaStanley, CC BY-SA 4.0. By 1820, Craig's grid was lined with private houses, each built by a different developer, each with its own facade. Charlotte Square at the west end of George Street is the masterpiece of the first phase. Robert Adam - perhaps the most influential British architect of the 18th ce...

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Image: SylviaStanley | CC BY-SA 4.0

Edinburgh New Town: The Gardens and Their Owners

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sir Gawain, CC BY-SA 3.0. Private shared gardens were central to the New Town concept. Princes Street Gardens began as one - the owners of houses along the south side of Princes Street took possession of the drained loch valley and fiercely defended their view of the Old Town across the gap. When the rail...

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Image: Sir Gawain | CC BY-SA 3.0

Edinburgh New Town: The Mound and the Scott Monument

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ronnie Macdonald from Chelmsford, United Kingdom, CC BY 2.0. Two structures define how the New Town meets the Old. The Mound is the artificial ridge of clay and rubble heaped up during construction from 1781 onwards - the leftover spoil from digging foundations and basements, dumped across the drained loch to make a thoroughfare. It carrie...

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Image: Ronnie Macdonald from Chelmsford, United Kingdom | CC BY 2.0

Edinburgh New Town: What Survives, What Doesn't

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Finlay McWalter, CC BY-SA 3.0. Princes Street itself is the great disappointment of the New Town - its retail strip has been chipped away across the 20th century to a chain-store mediocrity, redeemed only by the view south. East of St Andrew Square, the original grid was bulldozed for the St James shopping cen...

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Image: Finlay McWalter | CC BY-SA 3.0