Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Understand
New Town History
Between the end of the 14th century and the start of the 18th, the population of Edinburgh - still
confined within the walls of the Old Town - increased from 2000 to 50,000. The tottering tene-
ments were unsafe and occasionally collapsed, fire was an ever-present danger and the over-
crowding and squalor became unbearable. There was no sewer system and household waste was
disposed of by flinging it from the window into the street with a euphemistic shout of 'Gardyloo!'
(from the French 'gardez l'eau' - beware of the water). Passersby replied with 'Haud yer haun'!'
(Hold your hand) but were often too late. The stink that rose from the streets was ironically re-
ferred to as 'the floo'rs o' Edinburgh' (the flowers of Edinburgh).
So when the Act of Union in 1707 brought the prospect of long-term stability, the upper classes
wanted healthier, more spacious living quarters, and in 1766 the Lord Provost of Edinburgh an-
nounced a competition to design an extension to the city. It was won by an unknown 23-year-old,
James Craig, a self-taught architect whose elegant plan envisaged the New Town's main axis, Ge-
orge St, following the crest of a ridge to the north of the Old Town, with grand squares at each
end. Building was restricted to just one side of Princes St and Queen St, so that the houses had
views over the Firth of Forth to the north, and to the castle and Old Town to the south.
During the 18th and 19th centuries, the New Town continued to sprout squares, circuses, parks
and terraces, with some of its finest neoclassical architecture designed by Robert Adam. Today it
is one of the world's finest examples of a Georgian cityscape, and is part of a Unesco World Her-
itage Site.
