Scotland’s Architecture

Edinburgh Old Town, Canongate and Holyrood

Edinburgh’s Old Town occupies the long ridge running eastwards from Castle Rock towards Holyrood. The ridge determined the main street; steep ground and narrow plots determined much of the building pattern. The Canongate grew towards the abbey as a separate burgh, while Holyrood developed from monastic precinct into royal palace. Later fires, improvements, railways and redevelopment altered the fabric, but the route from Castle to Palace still gives the district its form.

Castle Rock and the medieval royal burgh

The volcanic crag of Castle Rock provided a defensible position overlooking routes across southern Scotland and the Forth. The royal castle’s presence encouraged the growth of a burgh on the ridge below. Edinburgh was a royal burgh by the early twelfth century: a charter of 1127 refers to ‘my burgh of Edinburgh’, though the original founding charter has not survived. The High Street developed between the castle approaches and the lower ground to the east.

The street was wide by medieval Scottish standards, but building land on either side was constrained by the steep fall away from the ridge. Long, narrow plots, or tofts, led down to closes and courts. The resultant ‘fishbone’ street plan survives in the sequences of wynds and closes branching from the Royal Mile. At different levels, the same plot could contain houses, workshops, stores and yards entered from different streets.

Tenements, closes and town houses

As population and wealth grew, housing rose vertically on the limited land. Edinburgh’s tall stone tenements accommodated merchants, craftsmen, tenants and servants, frequently within the same building. Surviving late-medieval and early-modern stonework exists beside later façades, added storeys, rebuilt stairways and nineteenth-century roofs. The stepped topography means that storey counts change depending on the side from which a building is seen.

Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century merchants’ houses survive at Gladstone’s Land and elsewhere along the High Street. Stairs, painted ceilings, shop premises and domestic rooms register the combined commercial and residential use of the street. The closes connect the principal frontages to courtyards and less formal working buildings behind them.

The High Street: church, parliament and burgh administration

St Giles’ was rebuilt and enlarged through the late medieval period, acquiring chapels and a distinctive open crown spire. Its relationship to the street changed repeatedly: the Mercat Cross, tolbooth, shops and law-court buildings occupied adjacent ground, while the church’s interior was divided and refashioned for different congregations after the Reformation.

Parliament Hall was built in the 1630s beside St Giles’ and gave the Scottish Estates a formal meeting place. After the Union of 1707 its later legal use shaped the surrounding court buildings. The City Chambers, completed in the eighteenth century, introduced a large classical courtyard building to the High Street. The present civic ensemble is the product of several centuries, rather than a single medieval square.

The Canongate as a separate burgh

The Canongate developed east of Edinburgh’s main burgh, connected with the Augustinian community founded at Holyrood in 1128. It was governed separately for centuries. Its long main street followed the descending ridge towards the abbey and palace; houses of courtiers, merchants and noble families stood among workshops, taverns and tenements. Backlands and wynds extended north and south towards lower streets and gardens.

The Canongate Tolbooth, erected in 1591, was the burgh’s court, jail and council building. Its stepped tower, bartizans and clock project into the street. Other buildings retain the scale of once-grand houses: Moray House, Queensberry House and the buildings now occupied by the Museum of Edinburgh preserve fragments of the early-modern Canongate.

Canongate Kirk was built in 1688–91 when worship was displaced from Holyrood Abbey. Its gabled frontage, great circular window and portico make a notable post-Reformation parish church. The burial ground behind it occupies the sloping land towards Calton Road. In 1856 Canongate was absorbed into the unified burgh administration of Edinburgh, although its separate townscape remains legible.

Holyrood Abbey and the royal residence

David I founded Holyrood Abbey in 1128 for Augustinian canons. A relatively modest first church was superseded by a larger church built mainly between about 1195 and 1230, with a long vaulted nave, twin-towered west front and monastic buildings south of the church. The surviving ruins include later medieval Gothic work and a west façade of unusual richness. The abbey’s cloister precinct became increasingly associated with royal residence.

James IV began the conversion of the royal lodgings into a palace around 1501–03, and James V enlarged the accommodation; the surviving north-west tower is part of this early sixteenth-century residence. The palace became closely associated with Mary, Queen of Scots and the court of the 1560s. After damage and rebuilding in the seventeenth century, Sir William Bruce directed the major reconstruction of 1671–79. The courtyard plan, paired western towers, formal west front and richly ornamented state rooms are principally from this campaign.

The abbey church remained in religious use after the Reformation for a time, but its later history involved damage, altered worship and eventual ruination. The palace and abbey ruins stand against the rising land of Holyrood Park, whose volcanic crags form a markedly different setting from the dense upper town.

Nineteenth-century improvement streets and reconstruction

Population growth, overcrowding, fire and pressure for better access led to major changes in the Old Town. South Bridge, George IV Bridge and Victoria Street cut new routes through and around older blocks. The curved line of Cockburn Street, made in the middle of the nineteenth century, opened a route from the High Street to the railway valley while introducing a coordinated Baronial streetscape. Later civic improvements associated with Chambers Street, Jeffrey Street and St Mary’s Street replaced further sections of the inherited town.

New institutional buildings were erected alongside these improvements, and some closes were truncated or opened out. David Cousin and John Lessels were among the architects of mid-Victorian interventions. These projects improved circulation and conditions for some residents but also removed historic housing and altered older plot boundaries.

Twentieth-century redevelopment and Holyrood’s eastern end

The Canongate and surrounding streets continued to change as housing, commerce and industry gave way to redevelopment and conservation schemes. The modern Scottish Parliament building, designed by Enric Miralles with RMJM and opened in 2004, occupies a site at the foot of the Royal Mile near the Palace and Holyrood Park. It incorporates restored Queensberry House within a contemporary architectural ensemble of debating chamber, offices, courts and landscaped spaces.

The Old and New Towns of Edinburgh were inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 1995. Their contrasting urban forms are joined by roads, bridges and the valley of Waverley Station. The Georgian New Town guide follows the planned growth across that valley.

Sources and further reading