Overview of Old Town

Ramsay Gardens and the Old Town from Edinburgh Castle
©2010 Gazetteer for Scotland

The Old Town represents Edinburgh's mediaeval core centred around the Royal Mile. Running from the Castle down to Holyrood Palace, the Old Town includes the previously independent Burgh of the Canongate, which was home to Edinburgh's nobility until the late 18th Century

However, the main part of the old town consisted of the closes of the Lawnmarket and High Street and below the Grassmarket and Cowgate, constrained to the south by the Flodden Wall and to the north by the Nor' Loch.

For reasons of defence and because the extent of the Burgh had been defined at 58 ha (143 acres) on its foundation by David I around 1140, Edinburgh became characterised by overcrowded tenements. It was not until the building of the New Town that the city was able to expand beyond the boundaries of the Old Town and a period of rapid growth took place. The slums which remained in the Old Town were subject to a variety of improvement schemes in the 19th Century and many of the old buildings were replaced, although several of the 17th Century tall 'lands' still survive.

A magnet for tourists, the Old Town includes many notable and historic buildings, some of the older examples including St Giles Kirk (1120), the Castle (1367), John Knox's House (c.1490), Magdalen Chapel (1545), the Canongate Tolbooth (1591) and Kirk (1688), Lady Stair's House (1622) and Moray House (1625). The Old and New Towns together were named a World Heritage Site in 1995.