A sixty second mini Edinburgh tour -
The High Street to St Giles
In which I try to justify my previous
blog post about wandering around the
Old Town looking at things in a rather
bizarre and dreamy way. I also take
you on a time-travelling Edinburgh
tour. We will visit the Royal Mile, well,
one tiny section of it anyway!
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This blog post continues from my previous blog
post about me wandering around the Old Town
and letting my imagination take me on my own
Old Edinburgh tour.
We’re going to do this ‘time-travelling tour of
Edinburgh’ in two parts. In today’s blog, I’ll look at
what people can see in this area today. The next
post will describe a very different version of
exactly the same walk. In that post, I’ll reveal how
this area used to look. Hopefully, you’ll see why I
walk about the Old Town imagining how it used to
be!
We’re going to explore the area of the Royal Mile
from the eastern side of George IV Bridge to St
Giles. This section takes about forty seconds to
walk and, today, it features some interesting gold-
coloured bricks in the ground, a plaque, a well,
some strange looking cobbles, a statue and
what’s quite probably Edinburgh’s most important
historic church.
We start our mini Edinburgh tour by crossing over
George IV Bridge. Today the famous Royal Mile is
broken up with various bridges and streets.
George IV Bridge connected the south of the city
with the New Town. The creation of George IV
Bridge, Bridge Street and the Mound allowed easy
access to the exciting new New Town of
Edinburgh.
As soon as your feet hit the pavement of the
eastern side of George IV Bridge, you can make
out three golden coloured bricks just next to the
traffic light. There’s a small plaque explaining that
this was the site of Edinburgh’s last execution.
There was more than one execution which took
place here. More of that in our next blog post!
The last man to be hanged here wasG eorge
Bryce Nicknamed the ‘Ratho Murdered’. Bryce
was hanged here on 24 June, 1864.
A few feet further down the ‘Mile, we pass
through the anti-terrorism arches placed here
recently in a bid to protect the many crowds who
often gather here.
Of more ‘historical’ interest to us is the old well
which sits here. This was one of several which sat
around the Old Town. you can see one at the
bottom of the West Bow (Victoria Street). There’s
another which sits in front of the Adam Smith
statue on the other side of St Giles. Another well
sits in front of the John Knox House and there’s
one just next to Queensberry House in the
Canongate.
Going every day to get the water necessary for a
household would have been taxing enough…and
then you remember the height of some of the Old
Town’s buildings. For the water caddies, serving
girls or daughters of Edinburgh’s families, it would
have been quite a feat to get their heavy buckets
of water up the narrow little staircases and into
the houses. Edinburgh’s ‘lands’ could be
fearsomely high. Jacobite era ‘Fitbit’
smartwatches would have registered some pretty
impressive figures!
We then come to the cobbled area of Parliament
Square (West). This place is often the site of
displays, relatively impromptu shows and
performances and Edinburgh tour groups! I know
because I bring so many groups here.
Right in front of us is the statue of the fifth Duke
of Buccleuch. I never mention him on my tours.
It’s nothing personal Duke; it’s just that there are
so many other things to talk about here!
Make sure you don’t spend too much time looking
up at either the duke’s statue or the impressive
crown steeple of St Giles because you do want to
keep an eye on the ground. A rather pretty little
decorative ‘heart’ shape can be seen in the paving
stones here. This commemorates the Tolbooth
Prison, a place Sir Walter Scott nicknamed ‘The
Heart of Midlothian’
Finally, our forty second walk concludes next to
the imposing bulk of St Giles. Although not
religious, I do think of this building more as ‘The
High Kirk of Edinburgh’ rather than ‘St Giles
Cathedral’. In 1951 the Royal Commission on the
Ancient and Historic Monuments of Scotland –
RCHAMS – put together a fascinating ‘Inventory of
Edinburgh’. It lists some of Edinburgh’s
historically significant buildings…in order of
importance. Can you guess what’s at number 1?
Ok, possibly ‘Edinburgh Castle’ wasn’t the trickiest
answer you’ve ever come up with, but after the
Castle is out the road, guessing the rest of the
buildings, in order, becomes a little more taxing.
St Giles comes in at number 2 on Edinburgh’s
historically important building ‘hit parade’ and for
good reason. St Giles has been a Catholic
cathedral for much of it’s history, it was John
Knox’s Church of Scotland stomping ground
during the turblulent times of the ‘Lang Siege’ of
Edinburgh Castle in the early 1570s and on 23rd
July, 1637, it saw Jenny Geddes throw her stool (as
in chair type thing…) at the Minister who was
doing the King’s bidding by reading the Book of
Common Prayer. Her comment of “Daur ye say
Mass in my lug?” (“Dare you say the Mass in my
ear?”) goes down in Edinburgh’s history as one of
our townspeople’s best ‘one-liners’…
So, a sixty second walk and we’ve seen traces of
Edinburgh’s social past, a link to one of her grisly
hangings, an oft-photographed statue, an
impressive square and one of Edinburgh’s most
historic and impressive buildings. That’s pretty
impressive! But that’s Edinburgh, packed with
things to see and pour-over.
So what happens in our next blog post?
Next time I’ll take you on the same route, and
we’ll look at a different and far more famous
hanging, a long lost street which was popular with
one of Scotland’s most famous characters and
we’ll look in detail at the Tolbooth building.
There’s a lot more to see than the ‘Heart of
Midlothian’!
The three coloured setts’ which mark the site of the
Libberton’s Wynd executoin spot.
This view shows the eastern side of Libberton’s Wynd as the
road was being demolished.
The ‘Heart of Midlothian’ mosaic just outside St Giles.
You can find out more about this part of the Old Town
on our Old Edinburgh walking tour.
This guided tour runs most Thursdays - 10.30am-
12.30pm and 2-4pm and then the same times on
Saturdays. It’s the perfect introduction to Edinburgh’s
history.