Edinburgh's Royal Mile (it is actually one mile and 107 yards from entrance to Edinburgh Castle to the gates of the Palace of Holyrood House) is not only a popular tourist attraction but also provides a fascinating insight into the history of the City and of Scotland itself. It was described by Daniel Defoe as the "Largest, Longest and Finest Street in the World"
Edinburgh Castle sits on top of what was, at one time, a volcano. It has been used as a fortification for over 2,000 years - there was a hill fort there in the time of the Romans. What is now Princes Street Gardens was originally a loch - the Nor' Loch - which added to the defences of the rock.
The Royal Mile runs east down the shoulder of the hill from the castle. The shoulder itself was formed when the whole of Scotland was covered by an ice sheet and the flow of the glacier ran from west to east - dropping rubble and earth in the lee of the rock. The castle esplanade (the location for the annual Edinburgh Military Tattoo) leads to the Royal Mile itself. The Royal Mile consists of a number of connected streets, starting at Edinburgh Castle and its esplanade, and runs downhill from west to east, starting with Castlehill, followed by
- Lawnmarket
- High Street
- Canongate
- Abbey Street
The Camera Obscura on Castlehill is a giant camera capturing a live moving image of the world outside. The original building contained a Camera Obscura in the middle of the 19th century and was expanded by Sir Patrick Geddes a sociologist and a pioneer of town planning.
The Free Church of Scotland College and Assembly Halls on Bank Street, overlooking Princes Street Gardens, extend all the way back to the Royal Mile, down a considerable length of Castlehill. The Assembly Halls, with its skyline of towers and turrets was built as "recently" as the latter half of the 19th century, designed by the architect William Henry Playfair. The Assembly Halls have leapt to prominence in 1998 because they were selected as the temporary home of the new Scottish Parliament until a permanent building was constructed at the other end of the Royal Mile at Holyrood.
Early in his reign, King David (1124-1153) granted resonsibility for a parish church at St Giles (the Patron Saint of Edinburgh) to the Lazarites, a religious order dedicated to helping lepers. St Giles is regarded as the patron saint of lepers. This church was burned down by the English in 1385. Much of the present building dates from 1829 but the famous crowned steeple dates from 1495 - extensions have been added over the centuries. John Knox was minister in St Giles 1559 and as a result of the Reformation, the last mass to be sung in the "High Kirk of St Giles" was in 1560. In 1637, when the Bishop of Edinburgh attempted to read a newly-introduced English Liturgy, legend has it that Jenny Geddes, a vegetable seller, threw a stool at the preacher who dared to "sing masse in ma lug" (ear). The most recent extension was in 1911 when the knights of the Thistle, Scotland's highest order of chivalry, built a chapel dedicated to the Order.
Mary King's Close was a 17th century street in the old city of Edinburgh. Much of the Close is still intact and in its original state. Shops and houses can be inspected - and some ghostly figures have been experienced over the years in this 'Street of Sorrows.' It runs from the High Street northwards underneath the present City Chambers (pictured here). Before the building of Cockburn Street the close had continued down to Market Street where the north most exit is marked, these days, by the Hebrides Bar!
The residents of Canongate originally worshiped at Holyrood Abbey but Canongate Church (illustrated here) was built for them in 1688 - by the Catholic-leaning King James Vl after he turned Holyrood into a Chapel Royal for use by the Knights of the Thistle.
After the Battle of Prestonpans in 1745 Prince Charles Edward Stuart's prisoners were confined here. The churchyard contains the graves of a number of famous people including Adam Smith (author of "The Wealth of Nations"), Mrs Agnes McLehose ('Clarinda' of Robert Burns), James Gregory (inventor of "Gregory's Mixture" - a purgative!) and the poet Robert Fergusson. Burns was influenced by Fergusson and wrote of him - "Rhyme I had given up, but meeting with Fergusson's Scotch poems I strung my wildly-sounding rustic lyre with emulating vigour". Burns paid for a gravestone for Fergusson which is inscribed:
- No storied urn nor animated bust
- This simple stone directs pale Scotia's way
- To pour her sorrows o'er her Poet's dust
- This simple stone directs pale Scotia's way
No sculptured marble here nor pompous lay
Edinburgh grew as a merchant city and was crammed with buildings long before King's and Queens could make their mark on the city (other than in the castle). Many other locations housed the capital before Edinburgh. So the Royal Palace of Holyroodhouse had to be built outside the city walls beside the Abbey of the Holy Rood (Holy Cross) at the foot of the Royal Mile. It was started in 1501-1505 by James IV (who was King of Scotland 1488-1513 and defeated at Flodden in 1513) and was added to by James V and Charles II. The murder of Mary Queen of Scots' secretary, Rizzio, took place in the Palace as did her marriage to Lord Darnley. After King James VI left Scotland after the Union of the Crowns in 1603 its importance diminished. It had to be extensively repaired when George IV visited Edinburgh in 1822 but it only regained its status as a Royal Palace when Queen Victoria became a regular visitor in the 19th century. The Palace is now the official residence in Scotland of Queen Elizabeth II. The ruins of Holyrood Abbey are all that remain standing beside the Palace.
