About the Old Town Edinburgh Walk in Edinburgh
This walk explores the mediaeval wynds, closes and cobbled streets leading off the Royal Mile, running between the castle and the Palace of Holyrood House, Official Residence of the Queen.
In the background, we'll have the dramatic Salisbury Crags and Arthur’s Seat, part of Holyrood park, the former Royal hunting grounds. The Canongate, once a separate burgh, was developed around the 12th Century Abbey: here the nobles’ houses clustered to be near the King and today, this area reveals delightful secret gardens in courtyards obscured by the jumble of tenements fronting the street. We will admire 17th century mansions owned by luminaries such as Adam Smith; explore where breweries and sugar houses used to be; take a glimpse of the city industrial past as well as the slums, overcrowding and disease which forced the extension to a New Town North of the Nor’ Loch.
Each close has a story to tell: of royal murders; espionage intrigues; former craftsmen’s guilds. The Canongate church, buil
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This walk explores the mediaeval wynds, closes and cobbled streets leading off the Royal Mile, running between the castle and the Palace of Holyrood House, Official Residence of the Queen.
In the background, we'll have the dramatic Salisbury Crags and Arthur’s Seat, part of Holyrood park, the former Royal hunting grounds. The Canongate, once a separate burgh, was developed around the 12th Century Abbey: here the nobles’ houses clustered to be near the King and today, this area reveals delightful secret gardens in courtyards obscured by the jumble of tenements fronting the street. We will admire 17th century mansions owned by luminaries such as Adam Smith; explore where breweries and sugar houses used to be; take a glimpse of the city industrial past as well as the slums, overcrowding and disease which forced the extension to a New Town North of the Nor’ Loch.
Each close has a story to tell: of royal murders; espionage intrigues; former craftsmen’s guilds. The Canongate church, built for the congregation of the Abbey by James VII, is a reflection of the Dutch presence of William of Orange, the ‘safe’ Protestant who inherited the throne when James was forced to flee to France. The 16th Canongate Tolbooth incorporates the legal and administrative aspects of the Burgh. We shall see how this part of Edinburgh is closely connected with Mary Queen of Scots and Bonnie Prince Charlie, both of whom stayed in the palace at different times.
At the end of the Canongate, the Flodden Wall kept the citizens of Edinburgh in and invaders out, as the name of the pub recalls, it was for them The World’s End. The Netherbow Port ,a bridge on which the heads of traitors were impaled formed a barrier across the street . We can see a section of the ancient wall as well as the house John Knox, the first Protestant Minister of St Giles , lived in. This main artery of the Royal Mile speaks of its volcanic past, being the central spine of a town of mediaeval ‘skyscrapers’ criss-crossed by the narrow wynds which we will explore.
