Heart of Midlothian

A heart-shaped mosaic, formed in coloured granite setts, built into the pavement near the West Door of St Giles

This heart shaped mosaic marks the site of Edinburgh’s old Tolbooth, known as 'the Heart of Midlothian' - which in turn inspired the name of an Edinburgh football club, founded in 1874. Already standing by 1403, the Tolbooth was a civic meeting place, administrative centre and a jail, not just for imprisonment, but also execution and torture.

On leaving the “dirty, fetid, cruel torture-house”, debtors were known to spit on the pavement outside the main entrance, a tradition which continues to this day. Though some Hibernian F.C. fans may now be doing so as a declaration of sporting rivalry.

The jail also formed the backdrop to Scott’s famous novel, and the events surrounding the Porteous riots of 1736 during which a lynch mob seized Captain John Porteous from his cell and lynched him on the Grassmarket. In 1817 the buildings were finally demolished following the construction of the new Calton jail, but Scott kept its famous “dismal door”.

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Flodden Wall

16th Century City Walls

The Flodden Wall was erected to protect the city after the Scots’ defeat by the English at the 1513 Battle of Flodden Field. Completed in 1560, the Flodden Wall strengthened the existing city walls which date back to at least the 12th century. The feared English invasion never (yet) materialised, but the wall, 1.2 metres thick and up to 7.3 metres high, did prove very useful for regulating trade and preventing smuggling, as it forced all traffic to enter the city via one of the six gates - the Netherbow, Bristo, Cowgate, Potterrow, West and New Ports.

Initially encircling an area of just under 57 hectares and a population of around 10,000, the Flodden Wall marked the city limits until the 18th Century, by which time the population had multiplied at least five fold and was bursting at the seams.

Though much was dismantled, three sections of the wall still survive: in Greyfriars Kirkyard where it is embedded with tombstones; along the narrow Vennel leading to the Grassmarket, and running down Drummond Street to the Pleasance.

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[Photo Credit: Tom Duffin]

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The Tron Kirk Clock

Early nineteenth-century town clock by James Clark which brought in Edinburgh's New Year, 1820s

The Tron Kirk was built between 1637 and 1647 and took its name from the public weighing beam that stood outside. This was an important gathering point, where goods were weighed, and minor criminals punished. The clock for the tower was salvaged from the old Weigh House at the head of West Bow and was installed in 1658.

On 16th November 1824, the tower was destroyed in the Great Fire of Edinburgh, the clock stopping at twenty minutes to twelve. Five hundred pounds was claimed from the insurer and the new clock was ordered from James Clark of Edinburgh.

For at least 200 years, the Tron Kirk was the focus for the city’s Hogmanay celebrations. In these less commercial days, the citizens of Edinburgh were happy to gather in Hunter Square and ring in the New Year on the stroke of midnight from this famous old clock.

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[Photo Credit: Tom Duffin]

The Netherbow Bell

Bell inscribed with Latin text and the City of Edinburgh coat of arms, made by Michael Burgerhuis, Middelburg, 1621

This bell was made in Middelburg, Holland, an area which had strong trade links with Edinburgh. It originally hung in the tower of the Netherbow port, a grand gateway through Edinburgh’s city walls, half way down the High Street.

Earliest mentions of the gateway date back to 1369 but it was rebuilt many times. It was intended as part of the city’s defences but soon became a port for inspecting trade. The sound of the bell would have regulated Edinburgh lives, rung to summon, announce, herald danger – attack, fire – or call to arms. Heads of executed criminals were often exhibited on spikes above the gate. For many Edinburgh residents this was where their world ended - hence the nearby World’s End pub.

The grand port was demolished in 1764 to allow for the expanding city and traffic. But in 2005 a modern tower was built atop the new Scottish Storytelling Centre to house it, and now it is rung purely in celebration.

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Early 17th century chamber pot

This chamber pot, or ‘chanty’ in Scots, was found below the Tron Kirk during excavations in 1974.

By 1700, upwards of 50,000 souls lived within the city walls, together with an assortment of livestock. Sanitation was basic and human waste was generally disposed of in the street, with scavengers employed to clear up the mess and take it out of the city. Chamber pots were often emptied from the upper stories of houses by maids who would cry out ‘gardyloo’ to those below, a corruption of the French expression ‘Prenez garde a l’eau!’

A Bank of Scotland director protested to the city against the 'abominable habit of throwing water & all manner of nastiness, both by day and by night’. In 1749, the ‘Nastiness Act’ was passed, which decreed waste could only be thrown out at night.

Today, 4.5 billion people in the world live without a household toilet that safely disposes of their waste. The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, launched in 2015, include a target to ensure everyone has access to a safely-managed household toilet by 2030.

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New Town Plan

Plan by James Craig (1739 - 1795) for a New Town street layout, 1766

By the middle of the 18th century, conditions for many residents of Edinburgh were becoming unbearable. The squalid, narrow streets were overcrowded and beset by disease, crime, fires and frequent building collapse. Many of the educated classes of scientists, engineers, artists and philosophers were ready to move south to London. But George Drummond, Lord Provost, convinced the council that a new town should be built on the north side of the stagnant Nor’Loch. In 1766, a design competition was held, won by a young and relatively inexperienced architect, James Craig. The plan was approved in 1767 - 250 years ago.

Craig’s plan interspersed wide boulevards with large squares and spacious gardens. His original design, which has been lost, may have included a patriotic diagonal pattern reminiscent of the Union flag. However, the plan that was finally approved follows a gridiron structure. The Nor’Loch was drained and, in 1820, the final section of the first New Town was built: Robert Adam’s celebrated Charlotte Square. Wealthier residents quickly moved into the grand neoclassical buildings and the New Town became the new residence of the Scottish Enlightenment.

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Starred Dome of 36 St Andrew Square

A domed banking hall designed by Peddie & Kinnear, 1857

36 St Andrew Square was originally to have been the plot for the New Town’s church. But Lawrence Dundas, the Governor of the Royal Bank of Scotland, saw James Craig’s plans and before they’d even been approved, had rented the plot and built himself a handsome Palladian villa, completed in 1774.

In 1828, the villa became the head office of the Royal Bank of Scotland. But the business was growing - an extension was needed. Taking inspiration from classical Roman, Greek and Byzantine traditions, architects Peddie and Kinnear created one of the most beautiful banking halls in Britain. Spanning the vast space is a domed ceiling perforated with tiers of tapering glass stars, allowing daylight to stream in and the bank clerks below to work for longer by natural light. As a result, the bank was able to extend its working day – an important competitive advantage for the bank and convenient for its customers.

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[Images: © Royal Bank of Scotland]

St Bernard's Well

An 18th century neo-classical temple over a mineral spring with highly decorative interior pump house

This romantic pillared temple stands on the edge of the Water of Leith, just upstream from Stockbridge and down from Thomas Telford’s dramatic Dean Bridge.  A statue of Hygieia, Goddess of Health, stands at the centre. The rotunda was commissioned in 1789 by the eccentric Lord Gardenston, to house a mineral spring which had been discovered by three school boys. At the time, the Water of Leith’s nickname was ‘tumble-turd’ - and so this spring was a highly valuable resource.

Gardenston, who believed its waters would cure pretty much everything, wanted to create a classical country landscape in the heart of the ‘Athens of the North’. He chose the celebrated landscape artist Alexander Nasymth’s design, based on the Temple of Vesta in Tivoli.   In 1887 local publisher William Nelson, had the entire place restored and commissioned Thomas Bonnar to create a “celestial vault” inside, with extraordinary shining mosaic patterns. 

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New Town maps

Two maps of Edinburgh and the New Town: one by map maker John Ainslie, 1780, the second by booksellers Thomas Brown and James Watson, 1793

These two maps, from the collections of the National Library of Scotland, display Edinburgh’s New Town before and after the construction of the Assembly Rooms. They also show how ordered the modern neoclassical plan was compared to the organically developed Old Town. The medieval Old Town street pattern is often compared to a fishbone, with the castle at its head and the palace at its tail - the myriad narrow closes, wynds, and courts lead off the spine of the High Street.

By contrast the New Town has wide, perpendicular streets with plenty of large green open spaces and public venues. The later map shows the ‘New Assembly Rooms’, based on the winning design for a social gathering venue by John Henderson, who sadly died just before it was completed in 1787.

The social scene was very important to Edinburgh residents: the £6000 required funding for the Assembly Rooms was raised by public subscription. Today it is still central to Edinburgh’s performance arts and is one of the biggest Edinburgh Festival Fringe venues.

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Palace-front at Charlotte Square

Charlotte Square was the grand finale of James Craig’s New Town plan. Intended to be its most prestigious address, the leading neoclassical architect in Britain was employed to design it: Robert Adam (1728 –1792) who had grown up in Edinburgh and studied at the University. This was to be one of his last works.

The north side of Charlotte Square is considered one of the finest pieces of urban design in Europe. Through the use of the palace-front it appears to be one grand country house, such as at Hopetoun near South Queensferry, though it contains numerous different living quarters. Constrained to three storeys, clever use of recessing creates an appearance of different wings on either side of a central pavilion, with Corinthian pillars and tympanum arches at first floor level. The doorways are crowned with fan-pattern arched windows to increase interior light.

Adam died before its completion, but Charlotte Square delighted Edinburgh, becoming the template for statement architecture for years to come.

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Princes Street with the Commencement of the Building of the Royal Institution

An 1825 landscape oil painting by Alexander Nasmyth

This is Edinburgh five years after the completion of the New Town, looking east along Princes Street. We are at the foot of the 'earthen Mound' which was built to scale the steep drop of castle rock, using excavated material from the New Town foundations. The basin is the recently drained Nor’Loch which will form Princes Street Gardens. In the foreground are the first columns of William Playfair’s Royal Institution, now known as the Royal Scottish Academy.

The artist Alexander Nasmyth was born and studied in Edinburgh, originally planning a career in architecture - a subject which appears in much of his work. But he was spotted by the celebrated portrait painter Allan Ramsay who trained him in portraiture, though he then travelled to study landscape painting in Italy where he was influenced by artists like Claude - perhaps why his Scottish landscapes seem to be bathed in golden Mediterranean light. Now referred to as the “father of Scottish landscape art,” Nasmyth also designed the temple on top of St Bernard’s Well.

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[Credit: Alexander Nasmyth, Princes Street with the Commencement of the Building of the Royal Institution, 1825 © National Galleries of Scotland. Photography by Antonia Reeve.]

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The Haymarket Milepost

Until 1842, the connection between Edinburgh and Glasgow was horse drawn - by stagecoach or canal boat. In 1838 it was settled by an Act of Parliament: the passenger steam train was coming. The 46 mile route took four years to build with three major tunnels and four viaducts needed to level the line. On New Year’s Day 1842 the public were invited to walk through the newly completed Queen Street tunnel, gas lit specially for the occasion.

Next month the railway opened, running into a terminus at Haymarket, to the west of Edinburgh. Four services ran daily in each direction, with a journey time of 2.5 hours. And despite much vocal opposition from religious groups, two trains ran on Sunday. Rail travel was an instant success, with passenger demand three times greater than expected. Four years later, railway mania outweighed concerns for Princes Street gardens' disfigurement and the line was extended to join what is now Waverley Station.

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Siri Guru Granth Sahib Ji

A copy of the Guru Granth Sahib, the Sikh faith’s sacred scriptures, kept in Edinburgh’s only Gurdwara - the doorway to the Guru

Sikhs revere the hand bound volume as the living Guru which is respected and worshipped as an actual presence.

Each morning the Guru is brought out from the Sach Khand (resting room) and placed on a Takht (throne) decorated with flowers and ornamental swords.

A Granthi (priest) or indeed anyone who is able, reverently folds back the covers, clasps the pages - known as Angs (limbs) & allows them to gently fall open at random, revealing the prayer of the day.

This Gurmukhi script is chanted to the congregation. The limb number & stanza is chalked up at the Gurdwara entrance, so visitors can consider the Guru’s wisdom throughout the day.

The Edinburgh Gurdwara, established in 1976 in the former St. Thomas’s Church is in the heart of Leith. This Sikh congregation is celebrating its 40th anniversary and its doorway is open to all faiths.

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Sir Patrick Geddes bust

Bronze bust of Sir Patrick Geddes by Kenny Hunter, 2012

Patrick Geddes (1854–1932) was a biologist, philosopher, and sociologist who became the “father of town planning.”

By the end of the 19th century, most of Edinburgh’s wealthier citizens had moved into the New Town. Tasked with solving the slum housing and sanitation problems they’d escaped, Geddes approached the Old Town in the way that one might a garden - believing that you had to live there and study it.

Geddes observed the movement of people from the Camera Obscura in Outlook Tower and in 1886, moved from his grand New Town house into James Court on the Royal Mile - described as “a spot where unredeemed squalor had reigned for at least half a century.”

Instead of demolishing swathes of buildings and starting from scratch, Geddes took a sustainable approach: gently weeding out derelict buildings and organically adapting the existing architecture. His approach, and the term given to it - ‘conservative surgery’ - was adopted by city planners across Europe. He created green spaces and preserved historic buildings, ensuring the conservation of the Old Town.

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The Ross Fountain

The Ross Fountain is among the largest and most ornate cast-iron water fountains in the UK. Sculpted by artist Jean-Baptiste-Jules Klagmann at the world-famous Val d’Osne foundry in France, it features cherubs, mermaids, walrus and lion heads and four voluptuous female figures representing science, arts, poetry and industry. It was exhibited at the London Exhibition of 1862 and bought by gunsmith Daniel Ross, to be gifted to the people of Edinburgh.

Arriving at Leith Docks in 1869 in 122 pieces, it languished for several years until a site could be agreed for what had become a controversial piece. Dean Ramsay, the minister of St John’s Episcopal Church, described it as ‘grossly indecent and disgusting; insulting and offensive to the moral feelings of the community and disgraceful to the city.’

More recently, the fountain has undergone major conservation which took over 40,000 hours at a cost of £1.9 million. 650 litres of paint were used to recreate the original colour scheme, which closely matches that of other French fountains from the same period.

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The Scotsman Steps

104 steps made of different marbles, by the artist Martin Creed

Like a piece of Escher architecture, the Scotsman Steps wind down the different levels between two distinct Edinburgh worlds - the Old Town and the New. They run along the side of what used to be the headquarters of The Scotsman newspaper, which is celebrating its 200th anniversary this year. The sealed windows used to open into their offices and Edinburgh residents could buy copies of the paper hot off the press on their way to work.

In 2010, the artist Martin Creed was commissioned by the Fruitmarket Gallery to turn the historic stairwell into a permanent art work. He clad each of the 104 steps in a different marble, each with unique colours, swirls and mottlings, and named it ‘Work no 1059’.  Edinburgh struck Creed as being full of staircases, this being the longest of many which wind down either side of the Royal Mile.

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The Trinity Altarpiece

These luminous panels feature the Holy Trinity and the Scottish royal family in 1478 - King James III and Queen Margaret, accompanied by St Andrew and the Archangel Michael. The child may be the future King James IV. The 4th panel depicts the Provost of Trinity College Church, Edward Bonkil. It is thought that there was a missing central panel, featuring the object of their devotion.

In the 15th Century the Scottish Royal Family wanted to be seen as major European Monarchs and patrons of major works of art, and Flemish artists were considered the finest in the world. Bonkil would have made contact with the artist Hugo van der Goes - he had good connections in Bruges - his portrait far more lifelike than his royal and holy counterparts.

The panels once adorned the altar of the beautiful 1460 built Trinity College church, founded in 1462 by Mary of Guelders, the 27-year old widow of James II, after his sudden death from exploding cannon. The church was sadly demolished in 1848 to make way for Waverley Train station.

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[Credit: The Royal Collection Trust © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2016]

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Pastoral Pipes

When we think of Scottish bagpipes, we usually think of the Highland Pipes. However pipes are among the world’s oldest musical instruments and there are many variations. These Pastoral Pipes were popular in the Lowlands of Scotland from the mid-eighteenth to the early-twentieth centuries. Their sound is more gentle and sweet than their Highland relative, and so suited to indoor use, usually played in pubs and at social gatherings.

At the time, the pipes were part of the popular bucolic idyll of a shepherd playing folk tunes while tending his hillside flocks. Said romantic shepherd would not have blown them by mouth but instead used bellows, held under one arm, while under the other is the sheep skin bag which feeds the chanters and drones. Though this model’s ivory pipes and silver keys would have delighted a shepherd, it was most likely owned by an Edinburgh musical connoisseur.

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The Skating Minister

Sir Henry Raeburn, Revd Dr Robert Walker (1755 - 1808) Skating on Duddingston Loch, National Galleries of Scotland

Raeburn’s portrait of Robert Walker is an iconic Scottish painting that has caught the public imagination - but why? In part the starkness of the figure against a plain background is appealing to a modern eye, but it must also be the amusement of seeing such an authority figure engaged in play.

Walker (1755 – 1808) was Minister of Canongate Kirk from 1784, but also an Edinburgh socialite who skated in very enlightened circles. He counted not only Henry Raeburn as a close friend, but also the architect William Playfair, the artist William Turner and the writer Sir Walter Scott.

Skating was one of Walker’s favourite pursuits - he had learned to skate during his childhood in Holland and was a founder figure of Edinburgh’s Skating Club. This was a time when the lochs froze over more dependably and winter sports were very popular. With the Nor’Loch being drained, they would gather instead on Duddingston Loch. This was also the home rink of the Duddingston Curling Society, which in 1803, agreed with Lochmaben the rules of the sport.

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[Image credit: Antonnia Reeve]

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Broadwood Harpsichord

Edinburgh’s music scene was thriving in late 18th century. Concerts were the main form of social entertainment, and hit compositions were sold as sheet music to be played at home. In 1763, the Edinburgh Musical Society opened St Cecilia’s, now Scotland’s oldest purpose built music hall. International musicians would play there and the latest musical instruments were shipped up from London via Leith docks.

Highly prized arrivals included harpsichords like this one made by John Broadwood, one of the most important keyboard makers of the time. Though his company was in London, he was actually Scottish, having grown up near Cockburnspath in East Lothian. His harpsichords, and later pianofortes, were much in demand by aristocrats and royalty; seen as fitting for an eligible young woman to play as she could remain elegant and passive while displaying her skills, not disfigured by limb stretching or, heaven forbid, puffing...

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Processional Frieze

Decorative murals by William Hole, late 1890s

Marching high around the arched Great Hall of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery is a shining painted mural procession of who’s who in Scottish history. At its head is Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle, whose claim that “History is nothing but the biography of the Great Man", inspired the creation of this 1885 red sandstone Gothic revival building - the world’s first purpose-built portrait gallery.

Lining up behind Carlyle we see a very Victorian view through history as far back as the Stone Age. Scientists like James Young Simpson and James Hutton, poets like Walter Scott and Robert Burns, romantic heroes like Bonnie Prince Charlie and William Wallace.

The only great women to make it to the march are Flora MacDonald, and a deck of eight Scottish queens, from Mary Queen of Scots, back to Gruoch, Queen of Macbeth. Above them all, golden stars twinkle in a map of the night sky.

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[Image credit: Keith Hunter]

The First Edinburgh International Festival Programme

The Edinburgh International Festival was originally the idea of Rudolf Bing, who fled Nazi Germany and became director of Glyndebourne Opera. He wanted to create a festival of the Arts somewhere in Britain that could inspire arts tourism in war-torn Europe. Henry Harvey Wood, the Head of the British Council in Scotland, persuaded him that Edinburgh, with its beautiful backdrop, many grand venues and tradition of music societies, was the ideal location.

The International Festival of Music and Drama opened on 24 August 1947 with a line-up of major international players including The Old Vic, The Vienna Philharmonic, Sadler’s Wells Ballet and Paris’ Jouvet Theatre Company. Already The Scotsman was advertising that “Music and Drama Criticism of the Highest order” would appear in its pages. A programme of films sowed the seeds of the Edinburgh International Film Festival, while Piping and Dancing on the Castle Esplanade became The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo. And unofficial theatre groups performed alongside the main events, creating what would become the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Seventy years on, there are now 11 major annual festivals held in what is known as the Festival City.

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The Tattoo Drumstick

This drumstick was dropped by a drummer at the end of a military parade held at Edinburgh Castle in 1948, which evolved into the world famous Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo in 1950.

The drumstick landed tantalisingly close to seven year old Patricia Wilkins, who jumped up to retrieve it and was followed back to her seat by a spotlight. She tucked it into her coat pocket and took it home. Sixty-two years later she contacted The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo to confess and send back the precious keepsake.

Edinburgh’s Tattoo, enjoyed live by over 14 million people each taking home their own story, was created first and foremost to support services and arts charities, but the tradition has its origins in the Low Countries in the seventeenth century, when army drummers would signal inn keepers to stop serving beer and send the soldiers home. The nightly ritual became known as ‘doe den tap toe’, meaning ‘turn off the taps’, shortened to ‘tap toe’ and then ‘Tattoo’.

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Paolozzi's Studio

A recreation of the artist’s studio, 1994

This recreation of Sir Eduardo Paolozzi’s famously chaotic London studio allows us a glimpse into the extraordinary diversity of the artist’s sources of inspiration. Paolozzi (1924 – 2005) was born in Edinburgh to Italian immigrant parents who ran an ice cream parlour in Leith. When Italy sided with Germany in World War II, the sixteen year old Paolozzi was interned for three months at Saughton Prison, while his father and grandfather were drowned being deported in a ship which was torpedoed by a German U-boat.

Paolozzi first studied at Edinburgh College of Art and went on to become one of Britain’s leading post war artists, working primarily in sculpture. Much of his work explores the impact of popular imagery on the world we live in and the relationship between man and machine His dissected human/machine sculptures are all over Edinburgh - The Manuscript of Monte Cassino at the top of Leith Walk, Parthenope and Egeria at the King's Buildings, and his Master of the Universe outside Modern Two.

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The 1956 Edinburgh Festival Fringe Programme

Edinburgh Festival Fringe Programme, 1956

This is an early version of what is now called the Edinburgh Festival Fringe programme. Previously, Fringe performers would advertise their shows on their own, in shop windows, newspapers and any way possible.

The Fringe story dates back to 1947, when eight theatre groups turned up uninvited to perform at the newly formed Edinburgh International Festival, an initiative created to celebrate and enrich European cultural life in the wake of the Second World War.

Not being part of the official programme of the International Festival didn’t stop these performers; they just went ahead and staged their shows on the fringe of the Festival anyway, coining the name – the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Since the dawn of this spontaneous artistic movement, millions have flocked to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe to produce, and to enjoy art of every genre. Anyone can be part of the Fringe, as long as they can find a space to perform. Last year there were 3,269 shows taking place at 294 venues.

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Bay City Rollers Fan Photo

The Bay City Rollers were an Edinburgh teen boy band who, in the mid seventies, were an international pop phenomenon bigger than today’s One Direction. The first of many to be called ‘the biggest thing since the Beatles’, they sold over 120 million records and incurred an outbreak of ‘Rollermania’. The boys had a distinctive, Scottish look - tartan trim on their wide collars, cuffs, and ankle length trousers - easily reproduced by adoring teenage girls the world over.

This fan photo was donated by Seonaidh Guthrie to the Living Memory Association, a fantastic museum of local memorabilia based in Ocean Terminal in Leith (find them on the 1st floor next door to Debenhams). There you will stumble into an amazing collection of everyday objects mostly donated by Edinburgh folk. A docker’s hook from the busy port of Leith, a tin of McVitie’s biscuits (the digestive was invented in Edinburgh), a teapot from Portobello’s Buchan potteries - well over 101 objects, each with their own personal history.

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Women's Film Festival 1972 Catalogue

A catalogue describing the programme for the 1972 Edinburgh International Film Festival

The Edinburgh International Film Festival is celebrating its seventieth birthday this year. It started life in 1947 as the International Festival of Documentary Films, opened by the founder of the British documentary movement John Grierson. Based at Filmhouse on Lothian Road, every year it hosts a fortnight of film screenings, talks and industry events which celebrate Scotland and the world's screen creativity in fiction, animation and documentary.

In 1972, Lynda Myles, Laura Mulvey and Claire Johnston programmed a season of films dedicated to women directors that was truly ground-breaking, and the first of its kind in Europe. It featured films from various decades, nations and genres, talks by film-makers and a symposium. They also prepared an edition of “Late Night Line-up” for the BBC with content by a cooperative of women filmmakers. The next year, Lynda Myles was appointed Artistic Director of EIFF – the first female director of a film festival anywhere in the world.

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Fringe Schools Poster Competition

Original winner of the Fringe Schools Poster Competition by Sharon Watts

The Fringe Schools Poster Competition is one of the longest running arts outreach projects in Scotland. Since its launch in 1980, it has inspired over 100,000 young people from across Scotland to put their artistic and creative talents to the test and create a design that reflects the spirit of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Sharon Watts of Drummond High School won the first competition and her design of a harlequin jester featured on the 1980 programme cover. To date we have seen a variety of unique designs that explore the vibrant and extraordinary world of the Fringe.

In 2017, to celebrate the Fringe’s 70th anniversary, Scotland’s young people have been tasked with designing the front cover of the official Fringe Programme. Three designs will be showcased on three different covers to mark this milestone year.

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Trainspotting Screenplay

The screenplay for ‘Trainspotting’, signed by Ewan McGregor

The dark cult comedy movie ‘Trainspotting’ was made in 1996, an adaptation of Leith born writer Irvine Welsh’s debut novel about a gang of Edinburgh heroin users. Screenwriter John Hodge met producer Andrew MacDonald at Edinburgh International Film Festival, and with Director Danny Boyle, they revived the Scottish film Industry. These were breakthrough roles for Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller and Kelly MacDonald - in her acting debut. The opening exterior locations were shot in Edinburgh’s Princes and Hanover Streets and Calton Road.

Opium had been part of Edinburgh’s dark side since its arrival in 1693. Edinburgh became a centre for production and it was quite fashionable amongst the wealthy in the late nineteenth century. But one hundred years later, cheap heroin took hold amongst the unemployed in the housing estates that surround the city. With the industries and transportation structures which once served them dismantled, the 80s anti-drug ‘Choose Life’ campaign didn’t ring true.

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Landform

Landscaping of  lawn to create a stepped, serpentine mound with three crescent-shaped water pools, by Charles Jencks, 2001

The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art comprises two buildings: Modern One and Modern Two, located directly opposite each other. In between them is a piece of art in earth form: a swooshing S curve repeating in ripples - from mosaic pebbles, contoured grass mounds to reflective water pools.

Charles Jencks’ work shows his fascination with the science of nature - fractal symmetry, the double helix of DNA, nuclear division. This piece has a practical application - to create a noise barrier - but it also breaks up the stately lawn of Modern One’s grand Baronial 1825 building. Jencks was the leading theorist of postmodern architecture, suggesting that instead of imposing structure on nature, architecture should be in harmony with it. When Jencks’ wife Maggie Keswick died of cancer, he helped found the Maggie's Centres which use architecture and landscape to provide soothing, caring environments for those coping with cancer.

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'Still' by Alison Watt

A monumental painting in four parts by Alison Watt, commissioned by Ingleby Gallery, 2004

Watt wanted to create an image which conveyed the overwhelming sadness she felt upon entering this memorial chapel for those lost in the World Wars. The result was a twelve foot high image of hanging folds of fabric, painted in soft whites and greys. The panels are suspended above head height and seem to glow, despite being only dimly lit by the natural light from the adjacent window. The space between the panels forms a cross and the drapes of material seem to suggest the ghostly traces of a human presence now absent, echoing with the history of fabric in religious paintings.

Members of Old Saint Paul’s were involved in the Jacobite Risings of 1715 and 1745. One member of the congregation brought the news of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s victory at Prestonpans to Edinburgh, shutting the town gates against the defeated Hanoverian army.

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The Golden Boy

A 6 foot gilded bronze figure, John Hutchison, 1888

The golden figure of youth, known locally as the Golden Boy, is the academic star of the Edinburgh skyline - standing atop the University’s Old College dome, his ‘Torch of Knowledge’ held high. Despite his scholarly symbolism, he was modelled on the Edinburgh boxer Anthony Hall, who was primarily known for his impressive physique, and became a leading artists' model - more in demand in social circles than in the ring.

The boy almost never made it to his place in the rooftops. The Dome he stands on was part of Robert Adam’s original 1789 design for the quadrangle of lecture theatres, halls and libraries. But three years in, building work stalled with the outbreak of the Napoleonic wars and the death of Adam. In 1817, William Playfair was brought in to sort things out. His amended design was completed in 1831, without the costly dome. But it was finally funded in 1887, to a design by Sir Robert Rowand Anderson. All that was missing was a golden boy.

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[Image credit: Digital Imaging Unit, Library and University Collections, © The University of Edinburgh]

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David Hume's Lucky Toe

Bronze statue of David Hume by Alexander Stoddart, 1995

A large shiny bronze toe protrudes from the statue of the philosopher David Hume (1711-1776), on the corner of the Royal Mile and the Mound.   It’s only been there since 1995 but already a superstitious tradition has taken hold. Students about to sit their exams, gamblers choosing their bets, tourists seeking travel fortune, all give the appendage a passing rub for luck.  And though he would be sorely tempted to give them a kick in the head, there’s nothing that David Hume, one of the world’s greatest rationalist philosophers, can do about it.

Born in Berwickshire, Hume attended the University of Edinburgh at 12 and started to write the ground-breaking, A Treatise of Human Nature, when he was just 23. In an age when the old religious certainties were being undermined by new scientific discoveries, Hume disentangled philosophy from religion and applied reason to morality, forever changing the way the world thought about thought. 

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The Burns Monument

Pillared rotunda temple by Thomas Hamilton, 1830

Scotland’s most famous poet Robert Burns (1759 - 1796) lived for only two years in Edinburgh, but he arrived from Ayrshire in 1786, just as his star was ascending and made a huge impact on the city.   His monument at the foot of Calton Hill was designed by Thomas Hamilton to house a marble sculpture of Robert Burns by John Flaxman, the leading sculptor of his day. Hamilton based his design on the Choragic (for the chorus) Monument of Lysicrates, a Corinthian pillared rotunda which stood in celebration of the Arts, near the Athenian Acropolis.

Across the road is the Royal High School - another great pillared work of neoclassical architecture by the same architect, Thomas Hamilton - Scotland’s leading Greek Revivalist.   And above it, the National Monument tops Calton Hill, with its fluted columns an exact replica of the Parthenon.  While London was recapturing the Roman style, Edinburgh was keen to adopt all things Athenian, as an architectural announcement of its great advances in philosophy, science and the arts.

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The Scott Monument

61 metre high monument to Sir Walter Scott (1771 - 1832), designed by George Meikle Kemp

The Scott monument is famously the largest monument to a writer in the world. The question is, why was Walter Scott so important?

Born and raised in Edinburgh, from a young age Scott collected the folk tales of the Borders - tales considered so lowly that it was frowned upon to write them down. They became his source for poetry and his series of novels, starting with Waverley which Scott published anonymously in 1814. It was an instant success and even the regent King George IV wanted to meet him.

Scott’s romantic tales created a new genre - the historical novel - which became key to Scottish and world literature influencing writers as diverse as Tolstoy and Victor Hugo. Almost single-handedly, he rehabilitated the international image of Scotland - at a time when many considered it dangerous and backwards. He ‘discovered’ the Honours of Scotland, helped reinstate outlawed tartan, and orchestrated the first visit of a monarch to Scotland in 171 years. In many ways, the romantic image of Scotland that many people around the world hold today is a result of Scott’s genius.

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A Unicorn Rampant

A carved stone unicorn Sir James Gowans, 1886.

In medieval and Renaissance folklore, unicorns are depicted as wild woodland creatures, a symbol of purity and grace, which could only be captured by a virgin. Some traditions suggest that the unicorn was chosen as a symbol of Scotland due to its proud and haughty character, and preference for death over capture. It has appeared in heraldic representations since the 12th century. Today, the Arms of Queen Elizabeth used in Scotland has a unicorn on the left side, with a lion on the right. The two beasts appear the opposite way around on the Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom.

Edinburgh has several dotted around the city. One of the most notable stands at the west entrance to the Meadows, a short walk south of the Old Town. It was sculpted by Sir James Gowans for the Edinburgh International Exhibition of 1886, which was held in an immense exhibition hall built on the middle of the park. On the opposite side of Melville Drive stands the unicorn’s mortal enemy, the lion.

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The Scotsman Printing Press

A Victorian scale model of a Foster stereo printing press

The original building of the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art, opened on Chambers Street in 1866. Among the subjects on display were the great machines that powered industry and empire. To overcome the problem of size, the museum’s workshop used the manufacturer's specifications to make beautiful scale models, which could be geared into action at the press of a button.

This Foster stereo printing press is a third of the size of the original, which was used to print and fold Scotland’s daily newspaper, ‘The Scotsman’, founded 200 years ago in 1817. Over two centuries it has reported on the trial of Burke and Hare, Zeppelin bombs landing on the Grassmarket, and the opening of the new Scottish Parliament. Ex journalist Andrew Marr describes the heavy drinking culture of the eighties. And Lesley Riddoch gave the paper a sex change on March 8th 1995, when it was entirely female-edited and printed as ‘The Scotswoman.’

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Aftermath, by Siegfried Sassoon

‘Look down and swear by the slain of the War that you’ll never forget’.

‘Aftermath’ was written in 1919, soon after Sassoon was retired from the Army. The meaning of the title is ambiguous, but probably refers to the lingering guilt and trauma felt by those who survived the war. The poem recalls Sassoon’s experience of fighting at Mametz Wood, during the Battle of the Somme, and contains allusions to shell shock, or what is now termed Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD).

Craiglockhart War Hospital, where Sassoon was treated and where he met Wilfred Owen, was at the forefront of the treatment of shell shock. Sassoon’s doctor, William Rivers, practiced 'autognosis', an early form of cognitive therapy. While at the hospital, Owen was encouraged to write and teach. Sassoon died in 1967.

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A Masonic Symbol

Head of Hamish Henderson

A papier mâché bust of Hamish Henderson sculpted from the pages of his books (with bottle Lagavulin) by Jan Miller, 2002

Hamish Scott Henderson (1919 – 2002) was a Scottish poet, collector of folk music, catalyst of the Scottish folk revival, intellectual, socialist agitator, war hero, co-founder of the University Folksong Society, and senior lecturer at the School of Scottish Studies, whose alternative office was round the corner in Sandy Bell’s pub. Which is why a sculpture of him remains there above the bar, cheerily nestled against a bottle of his favourite whisky.

Hamish was a great Scots language poet who wrote what is considered an alternative Scottish National anthem, ‘Freedom Come All Ye’. But he also inspired many people to produce great work. Commissioned in the 50s by American folk archivist Alan Lomax to collect Scottish folk music, he travelled Scotland looking for voices, finding and championing folk singers like Jeannie Robertson, Flora MacNeil and Calum Johnston. And he brought them all to play in Sandy Bells - still famed internationally as “the” Edinburgh folk music bar.

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The Book Sculptures

In March 2011 a librarian at the Scottish Poetry Library found a small box containing this miniature tree sculpted from the leaves of a book. “This is for you,” explained an accompanying note, “in support of libraries, books, words, ideas… a gesture (poetic maybe?)”

The Poetree was the first of ten mysterious book sculptures which popped up across the city, referencing great Edinburgh writers like Edwin Morgan, Robert Louis Stevenson, Conan Doyle and Ian Rankin. They were found in libraries and cultural venues such as the Writers' Museum, the Book Festival, and the Filmhouse cinema.

In 2004, Edinburgh was the first city to be named City of Literature by UNESCO, who hinted at another Edinburgh writer, J.K. Rowling, when they said “With its rich legacy of literature spanning centuries, its geniuses of the Enlightenment and its contemporary stable of beloved writers, Edinburgh is a wizard city of literature.”

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Beachcomber

A steel cut illustration by Astrid Jaekel of George MacKay Brown’s poem ‘Beachcomber’ commissioned by Essential Edinburgh

Like a paper doily turned to rusted metal, the ornamented words to George MacKay Brown’s poem adorn the seven arched windows of the former telephone exchange at the west end of Rose Street - an arch for each day of the Beachcomber’s week.

In the fifties and sixties, Rose street was the favoured hangout of a literary drinking group - new wave poets Hugh MacDiarmid, Norman MacCaig, Sorley MacLean, Robert Garioch and others - who debated poetry and politics in pubs like Milne’s Bar, the Abbotsford and the Café Royal. Stella Cartwright, who was muse and lover to most of them, could drink them under the table, but the romantic MacKay Brown proposed. Though their engagement didn’t last long, he wrote a poem for her every year on her birthday. Stella died at 47, having sold George’s letters to pay for the drink that killed her.

Poet, Filmmaker and University of Edinburgh graduate Margaret Tait, a close friend to the Rose Street poets, also established Ancona Films on Rose Street. Frequently describing her distinct works as 'film poems', Kirkwall-born Tait's work has been shown around the world.

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Napier's Bones

Carved ivory manual calculating device (replica)

Napier’s Bones are an ingenious calculating device which Edinburgh mathematician John Napier (1550 – 1617) invented 400 years ago in 1617. Rods inscribed with vertical times tables are placed into a frame, allowing large numbers to be quickly multiplied or divided by simple addition or subtraction. For instance, if you want to multiply 425928 by 7, you simply place the rods 4, 2, 5, 9, 2 and 8 into the frame and then add together the numbers on the seventh row down. More advanced use of the rods can calculate square roots. The bones were in popular use right up until the twentieth century when slide rules, and eventually digital calculators, took over.

Napier’s even greater contribution to mathematics was the invention of Logarithms in 1614 and the popularisation of the decimal point. Logarithmic calculations had a profound impact on astronomy and navigation, allowing us to explore the earth and space. The 15th century castle where John Napier was born, Merchiston Tower, still stands today - in the grounds of Napier University.

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[Image credit: National Museums Scotland]

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Adam Smith’s Grave

Grave of the economics philosopher Adam Smith, 1723 – 1790

Canongate Kirkyard is strewn with the bodies of the Scottish Enlightenment. Here lies Adam Smith, father of modern economics and author of The Wealth of Nations, one of the most influential books ever written. For his last fourteen years, Smith lived round the corner in Panmure House and worked up the hill at Customs House in the City Chambers.

It was in Edinburgh that Adam Smith first made his reputation and met one of his philosophical heroes, David Hume - whose writings he had been punished for reading at Oxford. Together they would become part of an Edinburgh intellectual circle that revolutionised the world’s thinking.

Elsewhere in the graveyard lie many of their colleagues: philosopher Dugald Stewart; founder of the New Town George Drummond; botanist Charles Alston; judge William Craig; novelist Mary Balfour, and two people who were great inspirations to the poet Robert Burns: the poet Robert Fergusson, who died tragically young at 24, and Agnes Maclehose, aka ‘Clarinda’, for whom Burns wrote Ae Fond Kiss.

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Hutton's Section

An outcrop of dolerite and sandstone

There is a section of Salisbury Crags, the volcanic intrusion in the middle of Edinburgh, named after James Hutton (1726 -1797), the 18th century geologist. Seams of hard red dolerite are twisted up through layers of sandstone, which to the untrained eye are simply… rocks. But to Hutton’s, it proved that the formation could not have just been laid down in chronological layers by ancient oceans (the Neptunist theory), but had been disrupted by forces deep underground , molten rock intruded under intense pressure (the Plutonist theory) like that which formed Arthur’s seat.

And it also proved, an earth shattering idea for 1788, that the Earth must be ancient beyond comprehension. Hutton’s ‘Deep Time’ theory, and of continuous evolution were hugely influential not only to scientists such as Charles Darwin, but also to philosophers and theologians. If Hutton’s theories were true, then the traditional creationist, man-centred view of our origins was clearly misleading.

Hutton’s Unconformity, his most famous discovery, where a 65 million year gap in time exists between contiguous rocks, is just forty miles east along the coast at Siccar point.

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