Qualla: Princes Street

Princes Street: Introduction

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ad Meskens, CC BY-SA 3.0. When the New Town was first laid out in the 1760s, the architect James Craig pencilled in a name for the southernmost street: Saint Giles Street, after Edinburgh's patron saint. King George III saw the drawing and refused. He associated Saint Giles with the notorious London slum of the same name and would not have it. At the suggestion of Sir John Pringle, the street was renamed for the King's eldest son, Prince George, Duke of Rothesay - the future George IV. Princes Street, three quarters of a mile of Edinburgh's most famous frontage, takes its name from a royal whim about a London bad neighbourhood.

Read more: Princes Street on Qualla

Image: Ad Meskens | CC BY-SA 3.0

Princes Street: The One-Sided Street

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sourav Niyogi, (WT-en) P.K.Niyogi at English Wikivoyage, CC BY-SA 4.0. Princes Street is famous for what it does not have. The south side is almost empty of buildings. Instead it looks across Princes Street Gardens to Edinburgh Castle and the Old Town beyond. The reason is legal. In 1771, when the city council started feuing the land south of Prince...

Read more: Princes Street on Qualla

Image: Sourav Niyogi, (WT-en) P.K.Niyogi at English Wikivoyage | CC BY-SA 4.0

Princes Street: Hotels at Either End

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kim Traynor, CC BY-SA 3.0. Two enormous railway hotels anchor the street. At the east end, looming above Waverley Station, stands the Balmoral - originally the North British Hotel when the North British Railway built it in 1902. Its clock tower is famously kept three minutes fast to nudge travellers toward...

Read more: Princes Street on Qualla

Image: Kim Traynor | CC BY-SA 3.0

Princes Street: Jenners and Joyride Architecture

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ronnie Macdonald from Chelmsford, United Kingdom, CC BY 2.0. Princes Street was the great Scottish shopping street. Jenners, founded in 1838 and rebuilt in 1893-1895, was the Harrods of the north - a department store whose ornate stone facade carried its own architectural reputation. Forsyth's opened in 1906-1907. Through the 20th century,...

Read more: Princes Street on Qualla

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

Princes Street: Darwin's Rockfield

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ronnie Macdonald from Chelmsford, United Kingdom, CC BY 2.0. The young Charles Darwin studied at the University of Edinburgh between 1825 and 1827, walking down Princes Street regularly. Years later, during the voyage of the Beagle, he encountered a stone run on East Falkland in the South Atlantic - a long ribbon of broken rock left behind...

Read more: Princes Street on Qualla

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

Princes Street: The Battle of Princes Street

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stanley Howe, CC BY-SA 2.0. In July 2005, during the 31st G8 summit at Gleneagles, anti-globalisation protests in Edinburgh turned violent. Rioters clashed with police along Princes Street; the press christened the events the Battle of Princes Street. The opening scene of Danny Boyle's 1996 film Trainspotti...

Read more: Princes Street on Qualla

Image: Stanley Howe | CC BY-SA 2.0