Ministerial Positions
Alexander John Youngson opens his seminal work The Making of Classical Edinburgh 1750 to 1840 with: “Europe is full of beautiful cities. Edinburgh is one of the most beautiful of all.” That was 59 years ago and still rings true, devoid of overstatement. “The New Town even now retains its late 18th and early 19th century public buildings, terraces, crescents, squares, palace fronts, churches and gardens almost as they were planned. They were all designed over 150 years ago, and the tour ensemble is without parallel in scale, uniformity of general style, and status of preservation.” Unlike Georgian Dublin which is so much given over to office use, most of the 12,000 properties in Georgian Edinburgh are still residential. The Robert Adam designed 6 Charlotte Street is the official residence of the Scottish First Minister, an address rather more impressive in architecture and setting than the British Prime Minister’s official residence in London of 10 Downing Street. Corner ground floor units are more likely to be commercial use such as Cairngorm Coffee Shop on the corner of Melville Street and Randolph Place or The Magnum Wine Bar at the junction of Albany Street and Dublin Street.
While the medieval Old Town of Edinburgh is surprisingly tall – many buildings are eight or more storeys – the New Town is mostly three or four visible storeys. There are lots of later dormer additions. Horizontality of neoclassical architecture versus high gradients of topography. Glimpses can be captured of the Firth of Forth at intervals – nature is never far away in Scotland. Even the built form often resembles rocky outcrops. Retained details hint at the social hierarchy and habits of times past. Rough stone for the servants’ basement; smooth stone for the masters’ piano nobile and accommodation above. Trumpet shaped openings in the cast iron railings would have once been used by ‘link boys’ to snuff out the flamed torches they carried to illuminate residents’ journeys home after dark. Very high double kerbs permitted easy access to carriages from raised pavements.
New Town is all the more remarkable as it was designed by a 27 year old. James Craig, the only surviving offspring of a family of six children, won the Edinburgh Town Council competition in 1766 to design the New Town. It would be a 15 year long project. “The principle reason for Craig’s success is the excellent use of the site,” Alexander reckons. “The two outer streets – Princes Street and Queen Street – have houses on one side only, and these look outwards across the street, in the one case over the low ground towards the Castle and High Street, in the other down the slope towards the Firth of Forth and the distant hills of Fife. The feeling of spaciousness combined with order is no doubt enhanced by the good proportions of the streets and buildings.”
Archibald Elliot’s Waterloo Place of 1819 provides a Greek Revival link between the earlier New Town and later Calton Hill. Regent Terrace is one of several rows of grand houses around the rise of Calton Hill, the city’s answer to the Parthenon in Athens. William Stark’s layout made use of natural contours and tree planting. It’s the ultimate architectural set piece – pure theatre in grey stone to celebrate Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar. Old Royal High School is almost Brutalist in its powerful massing. Thomas Hamilton’s 1820s Greek Revival tour de forcefulness is currently vacant. The façade looking down over the city (in theory only: it is almost windowless on this elevation) is Palladian in form with a Doric temple main block flanked by columned colonnades terminated by wings. Plans are afoot by the Royal High School Preservation Trust for Richard Murphy Architects to convert the building into a concert venue and Tom Stuart-Smith to create a new garden. The Political Martyrs Monument rises 27 metres high above Old Calton Burial Ground. Designed by Thomas Hamilton and erected in 1844, this obelisk is dedicated to five freedom fighters: Joseph Gerrald, Maurice Margarot, Thomas Muir, Thomas Palmer and William Skirving.
The Nelson Monument completed in 1816 to the design of Robert Burn is another tall slender structure: it is in the shape of a telescope pointing skyward. Alexander considers it to be “a somewhat Gothic design of dubious architectural merit”. The 1831 Burns Monument stands opposite the Royal High School, teetering on the hillside edge. Thomas Hamilton also designed this circular Corinthian temple standing on a high polygonal plinth. It was built in honour of Scotland’s national bard Robert Burns who had died 35 years previously. Another circular Corinthian temple is uphill from the Burns Monument. Designed by William Playfair, the 1831 Dugald Stewart Monument is dedicated to the Scottish philosopher. The City Observatory predates the other buildings and monuments of Calton Hill. This 1776 mock castle was designed by James Craig proving he was as good an architect as he was town planner.
The only remaining part of what was once Scotland’s largest gaol which stood to the south of Nelson Monument is the 1815 to 1817 Governor’s House designed by Archibald Elliot. Alexander clearly was not a fan of design that wandered too far from the classical fold: “Castellated and battlemented, it is rather absurd; yet it adds piquancy and variety to the scene.” Most modern viewers would surely consider it an architectural highlight of the Hill. Lawyer Henry Cockburn described Edinburgh in the opening decades of the 19th century as “the second city in the Empire.” Two centuries later, Edinburgh is the second city of the Kingdom.
