The most architecturally dramatic capital city in the British Isles and the finest surviving ensemble of medieval Old Town and Georgian New Town in the world. Edinburgh, built on the basalt crag of an extinct volcano, contrasts its medieval Royal Mile (running from the Castle at the top to the Palace of Holyroodhouse at the bottom) with the neoclassical terraces, crescents, and squares of the New Town (the most ambitious urban planning project of 18th-century Britain).
At a glance
The Old and New Towns of Edinburgh (UNESCO WHS 1995; population of Edinburgh approximately 550,000 (the capital of Scotland; the second most visited city in the United Kingdom after London)). The city is built on volcanic crags and ridges, the solidified magma plugs of volcanoes active approximately 350 million years ago, in the Carboniferous. The decisive feature is the Royal Mile ridge, a crag-and-tail formation: the glacier of the last Ice Age, approximately 10,000 years ago, struck the hard basalt of Castle Rock, flowed around it and left a tail of softer volcanic material running east for approximately 1.6 km. That tail is the Royal Mile, the most geologically consequential natural feature in the history of urban Scotland. On it grew the Old Town, the medieval city along the spine of the ridge, with its tenements — the “lands”, the earliest high-rise housing in Europe, some of them 15 storeys by the 17th century and the tallest residential buildings of the pre-industrial world: the most inventive answer to a city hemmed in by walls and a narrow ridge. Off the Royal Mile run the closes, the narrow alleys, approximately 100 of which survive. Each was its own small neighbourhood, with its own street life, its communal well and its waste disposal: the “Gardy-loo” system, by which refuse went out of the upper windows into the close below. The phrase comes from the French “Gardez l’eau!”, “Watch the water!”. The New Town is the Georgian city on the flat plain to the north. James Craig (1744–1795), an unknown architect of 26, won the competition for it in 1766 with a simple grid of three parallel streets — Princes Street, George Street, Queen Street — joined by cross streets: the most important grid plan in British urban history. It took 65 years to build, from 1767 to 1830, under many architects, of whom the greatest was Robert Adam (1728–1792), the finest British neoclassicist. His Charlotte Square, 1791–1807, at the west end of George Street, is the most beautiful Georgian square in Scotland, and its north side is his finest urban elevation and the most perfect neoclassical street facade in Britain: a three-part composition of two identical flanking houses and a central colonnade of Corinthian columns, the most sophisticated play of advance and recession in Georgian design, and a perfect balance of public grandeur with domestic scale.
Key facts
- The Royal Mile: the most historically layered street in Britain. The Royal Mile is the 1.6-km spine of the Old Town, running from the Castle Esplanade, the open plaza at the top, to the forecourt of the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the official Scottish residence of the British monarch. It is really four streets — Castlehill, Lawnmarket, High Street and Canongate, the last named for the Canons of Holyrood Abbey, who had right of passage along it. St. Giles’ Cathedral, the High Kirk of Edinburgh, is the most important church in Scotland and gave the Reformation its most famous moment: in the prayer book riot of 1637, when Charles I tried to impose the Anglican Book of Common Prayer on Scotland, a woman in the congregation, traditionally named Jenny Geddes, threw her stool at the minister. It is the most famous act of religious protest in Scottish history and the single most consequential step in the chain that led to the English Civil War. John Knox’s House, about 1490, is the most intact medieval dwelling in the city and probably the home of John Knox, about 1514–1572, founder of Presbyterianism and the central figure of the Scottish Reformation, the man who confronted Mary Queen of Scots, 1542–1587, in a series of interviews that remain the most dramatic confrontations in Scottish political history. The Palace of Holyroodhouse was built from the 16th century as a royal palace beside Holyrood Abbey, of which only the ruined 12th-century nave survives. Its historic chambers include the apartments of Mary Queen of Scots, the most visited historical rooms in Scotland, with the room where Rizzio was murdered, described below.
- Mary Queen of Scots and the Rizzio Murder: the most dramatic scene in Scottish royal history. The murder of David Rizzio, 22 February 1566, is the most important single event in the history of Holyroodhouse. Rizzio, 1533–1566, was an Italian musician and secretary, the chief confidant and probably the closest companion Mary Queen of Scots had in Edinburgh. On the evening of 9 March 1566, while she was at supper in her private chambers with him and a small party, a group of Protestant lords led by Lord Darnley, her own husband, and by Lord Ruthven burst in. Rizzio was dragged from the room — or from beneath Mary’s skirts, accounts differ — and stabbed 56 times, the most brutal assassination in Scottish royal history. The number of wounds seems to have been deliberate: each conspirator wanted a share in the killing, to bind them all in the same guilt. It happened in the small outer chamber of Mary’s apartments, where a brass plaque now marks the spot and where more visitors stop than anywhere else in the palace. Mary was 8 months pregnant at the time. The child would become James VI of Scotland and James I of England, the first king of a united Britain: the most consequential pregnancy in British royal history.
- The Scottish Enlightenment: the intellectual revolution that shaped the modern world. The Scottish Enlightenment, from the 1740s to the 1790s, was the most concentrated period of intellectual achievement in British history, and Edinburgh was its centre. David Hume, 1711–1776, was the greatest British philosopher and the most important of the empiricists: his Treatise of Human Nature, 1739–1740, is the most ambitious systematic philosophy written in English, and his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 1748, the most accessible. He was the most radical epistemologist of the 18th century, and Hume’s atheism — or at the least his extreme scepticism about religion — made him the most controversial thinker in British society. James Boswell tried to talk him into converting on his deathbed; Hume refused with cheerful composure. Adam Smith, 1723–1790, founded modern economics with The Wealth of Nations, 1776, the most influential book in the history of economic thought and still the most quoted author in economic policy, for the division of labour and the invisible hand of the market.
- Heritage: UNESCO World Heritage Site, Old and New Towns of Edinburgh, inscribed 1995.
- GPS: 55.9533° N, -3.1883° E.
History
The founding (the rock has been occupied since at least the Iron Age; the first medieval castle on Castle Rock dates to the 12th century; the city grew along the ridge below the castle during the 11th–15th centuries). The medieval city expanded along the closes of the Royal Mile. The Scottish Parliament sat in the Old Town from 1639 and has now returned to the foot of the same street, in the building Enric Miralles designed, opened in 2004: the most important piece of contemporary architecture in Scotland. It came in massively over budget, £414 million against an original estimate of £40 million, and 3 years late, and the overrun together with Miralles’ death during construction in 2000 made it the most controversial public building project in Scottish history — though the building is now widely regarded as a masterpiece. The Reformation came in 1560, with John Knox, the abolition of Catholic worship and the beginning of Presbyterian church governance. The Jacobite risings followed in 1715 and 1745, when Bonnie Prince Charlie entered Edinburgh and briefly held court at Holyrood in 1745–1746: the last Scottish royal court in the city and the most romantic episode in its political history. The New Town was planned in 1766 by James Craig and built between 1767 and 1830. The Victorian age left the Scott Monument, 1840–1846, the largest monument to a writer anywhere at 61 m, whose 287-step internal spiral gives the finest fixed view of the city. The University of Edinburgh was founded in 1583, the sixth oldest in the UK and home to the most important medical school of the 18th and 19th centuries. UNESCO WHS 1995.
What you see
The Old Town circuit (the Castle (allow 2h; the Crown Jewels Room; the Scottish National War Memorial (the most moving single room in Edinburgh)); the Royal Mile (walk the full length; turn into at least 3 closes (Mary King’s Close (now underground and part of the Old Town below street level — the most unusual attraction in Edinburgh; a guided tour of the 17th-century street sealed below the current street level in 1753; the best-preserved example of a historic Edinburgh close); the High Kirk of St. Giles; the Scottish Parliament; the Palace of Holyroodhouse (allow 1h 30min; the apartments of Mary Queen of Scots are the most visited rooms; the gardens (the best view of Arthur’s Seat))); the New Town (Charlotte Square; the Georgian House (the National Trust for Scotland’s reconstruction of a typical 1796 New Town interior); Princes Street Gardens (the formal gardens in the valley between the Old and New Towns; the Scott Monument)))).
Practical information
- Getting there: Edinburgh Airport (EDI; 13 km west of the city centre; tram (Princes Street; 35 min; GBP 8.50 one way); or bus (Airlink 100; Waverley Bridge; 25 min; GBP 4.50 one way; most economical)). Edinburgh Waverley Station (the main rail hub; centrally located under the Royal Mile ridge; the most conveniently located major railway station in Britain; high-speed train from London Kings Cross (LNER; 4h 20min; the fastest option; the Avanti service from London Euston to Glasgow is slower and requires a change; always check if a seat reservation is required; Virgin/LNER trains have mandatory seat reservations on intercity services)).
- The Edinburgh Festival Fringe: the world’s largest arts festival. The Edinburgh Fringe (held annually in August (the entire month; approximately 3,500 shows in 250+ venues; 500,000+ tickets sold in August 2023 — the highest figures since the pandemic); the origin (the Festival began as the Edinburgh International Festival (EIF) in 1947 as a post-war cultural celebration; the Fringe began informally in the same year when 8 uninvited theatre companies appeared alongside the official programme; the “fringe” grew over 75 years to become larger than the official Festival that it originally surrounded)). The accommodation (the single largest logistical challenge of visiting Edinburgh; book any visit in August 12+ months in advance; prices rise 3–5× during the Fringe; the Royal Mile (the main outdoor performance venue; jugglers, comedians, musicians competing for attention every day from noon to midnight; the most intense outdoor street performance scene in the English-speaking world)).
- The whisky trail: Scotland’s defining contribution to world culture. Edinburgh is not in the whisky heartland — that is Speyside and Islay, north and west — but it is the best place to understand whisky. The Scotch Whisky Experience on the Royal Mile is the most comprehensive museum and tasting centre of its kind, and its 281-bottle collection holds examples from every distillery in Scotland. The Caledonian Brewery is the largest independent craft brewery in the country, and Edinburgh’s Deuchar’s IPA is the most important Edinburgh beer. The local tradition is cask ale, “real ale” served at cellar temperature from a hand pump, which is the most specifically Edinburgh pub experience there is. The Bow Bar on Victoria Street is the finest traditional pub in the city: 150+ whiskies, the best-kept cask ale, and the most complete whisky-and-ale combination anywhere in town.
Getting there
Edinburgh Airport EDI (tram 35min GBP 8.50). Waverley Station: LNER from London Kings Cross 4h20. The Old Town and New Town are both walkable. GPS: 55.9533, -3.1883.
Nearby
- Stirling Castle and the Wallace Monument. 55 km north-west of Edinburgh (1h by train). The most historically charged castle in Scotland and the most important symbol of Scottish independence. Stirling Castle is the finest Renaissance royal palace in Scotland. Its Great Hall, built for James IV, r. 1488–1513, is the finest medieval feasting hall in the country and was the most ambitious royal building project before Holyroodhouse. The Chapel Royal was raised by James VI in 1594 for the baptism of his son Prince Henry and carries the finest decorative painting programme in any Scottish building of its time. On the volcanic Abbey Craig above the town stands the Wallace Monument, a Victorian tower of 1869 to William Wallace, about 1270–1305: Guardian of Scotland, leader of the resistance to English conquest from 1297 to 1305, and the most important non-royal figure in Scottish history. His capture and execution in London in 1305 was the most gruesome public execution in English history — hanged, drawn and quartered, the body then divided between Berwick, Perth, Stirling and Aberdeen as a warning — and it made him the defining martyr of Scottish nationalism. The monument holds Wallace’s two-handed broadsword, the most important object in the collection: 5 feet 4 inches, 163 cm, the largest surviving personal sword from medieval Scotland.
- St. Andrews and the East Neuk of Fife. 80 km north of Edinburgh (1h 30min by bus). The home of golf and the finest collection of fishing villages in Scotland. St. Andrews (the most important university town in Scotland after Edinburgh (University of St. Andrews; founded 1413; the oldest university in Scotland; the most famous student of the 21st century: Prince William met Catherine Middleton here); the Golf (St. Andrews Links (the Old Course; the most famous golf course in the world; 600 years of continuous play; the home of the R&A (the oldest golf club in the world; the rules of golf were codified here); the Swilcan Bridge (the most photographed single piece of golf infrastructure in the world; the 700-year-old medieval bridge that crosses the Swilcan Burn at the 18th hole); the Cathedral ruins (St. Andrews Cathedral; the most important medieval religious complex in Scotland before the Reformation; the largest church ever built in Scotland (119 m long); destroyed in the iconoclasm of the Reformation; the most important single casualty of the Scottish Reformation in built heritage terms; the ruins include the remarkable Square Tower and Sea Tower; the most atmospheric medieval ruins on the east coast of Scotland)))).
- The Highlands and Loch Ness. 170 km north of Edinburgh (2h 30min by train to Inverness). The most dramatic landscape in Britain and home to the world’s most famous monster. Loch Ness (the most famous lake in the world (for one reason only); the statistics (37 km long × 2.7 km wide; maximum depth 227 m; the deepest lake in Britain; the volume (7.45 km³ — more water than all the lakes in England and Wales combined)); the monster (the first reliable written record of a strange creature in the loch dates to Adomnán’s Life of St. Columba (c.565 CE; the saint reportedly drove a “water beast” back into the loch; the most ancient written reference to Nessie); the modern myth (the 1933 newspaper photograph by John Macgregor (the first widely circulated “sighting”; the most important single media event in creating the Nessie tourism industry); the famous 1934 “surgeon’s photograph” (revealed in 1994 to be a hoax using a toy submarine with a plasticine head)))).
Sources
- Wikipedia, Edinburgh. Royal Mile. Edinburgh New Town. Scottish Enlightenment, accessed June 2026.
- UNESCO, Old and New Towns of Edinburgh, WHS reference 728, inscribed 1995.
- Charles McKean, Edinburgh: Portrait of a City, Century, 1991.
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