Edinburgh Old Town

The part of Edinburgh which is the Edinburgh Old Town is the entire city centre area that is found south of Princess street.

The old town section of Edinburgh is rather unique in its layout which is still typically medieval. It has many reformation era and other classical buildings that have been preserved, and the area was declared a UNESCO world heritage site in 1995.

The main road is the Royal Mile which has Edinburgh Castle at one end and the ruins of Holyrood Abbey at the other. The Royal Mile forms a kind of spine to the many narrow closes (alleyways) that lead downhill either side in a herringbone pattern and create easy shortcuts for people who are walking around the area.
There are many large squares around the old town neighbourhood and each of these holds public buildings, such as the squares near the St Giles Cathedral, Tron Kirk, or that where the supreme courts are. There are a number of other landmark locations here too, The Queen’s Edinburgh residence the Palace of Holyrood house, the royal museum of Scotland, the University of Edinburgh, and Surgeons hall.

The landscape and topography that make up Edinburgh old town is known as ‘crag and tail’ and was created back in the last ice age when glaciers receded and harder crags of volcanic rock formed the landscape that we see today. It was on the main hilltop crag here that the earliest part of the city began to develop, was fortified, and eventually developed into the castle that we see today.

When the Old Town became overpopulated, the city did it’s best to accommodate the growth by developing some of the earliest high rise residential buildings. These multi storey dwellings were the norm from the 16th century onwards. However sadly, in the Great fire of 1824, many of these buildings were ruined, and when they were rebuilt, many vaults and passages were created underneath the old town section formed by the lower portions of what remained in the rubble of the buildings that were destroyed.

Related pages
The Grassmarket
Victoria Street
The Royal Mile