Julian Barnett
Edinburgh, Part 2

Julian Barnett - Edinburgh, Part 2

- Thank you very much Lauren, and good morning, good afternoon, good evening to everybody there and thank you all very much for joining. This is part two of two on Edinburgh, a town, which, well in my opinion is the United Kingdom’s most handsome city, that’s my firm belief and I go back time and again to Edinburgh. There are very many beautiful, beautiful towns all over the United Kingdom, hundreds of them. But in my travels on the length and breadth of the UK, Edinburgh absolutely re-persuades me every time that there is no more arresting city from the point of view of its skyline and no more beautiful city than Edinburgh. And of course, this part two of two comes on the back of a whole series of lectures that I’ve done on various hidden parts of cities around the world. We had Jerusalem, five parts on Jerusalem, four parts on Cairo, one on Oxford, five on Rome, and there is going to be a whole series coming on London in the autumn, had to do London of course. But here we are in Edinburgh and as you know, last week I looked at the mediaeval part of Edinburgh, the part of Edinburgh that pretty much all of visitors to Edinburgh go to for absolutely the very best of reasons, that incredible skyline, the castle, the royal mile, that beautiful street of Abbey Orchards and then leading up to Lawnmarket and leading up to the High Street and leading up and up and up that volcanic rock until one gets to the castle and the Esplanade in front of the castle itself, all the way down from Holyrood Palace by the Parliament and all the way up. And it is a very beautiful part of Edinburgh, but what part so many people miss is what’s called the New Town, capital N, capital T and that’s what I’d like to concentrate on today. Before we get started, I’d like to read you a couple of quotations that I’ve come across about the New Town.

These quotations are from past and present, let me just read them to you. This is from an architect quoted in “Country Life”, a very well known English magazine. “I identify Edinburgh because its New Town, encompasses the reality of a gigantic total work of art.” Here’s another “In a statement of values rooted in a classical heritage. It is in its rhythms and flow, a statement about connectedness, in its scale, a grandeur of vision, yet not so grand that intimacy is lost and it is a statement about craftsmanship and quality.” And here’s the other one I wanted to read, “If you believe in the rightness of ratio in architecture, then you’ll be immediately comfortable in this beguiling part of Edinburgh with its acre after acre of harmonious civil and humanely proportioned buildings, this is reason expressed in stone, this is the Scottish Enlightenment given physical form.” And it’s on that aspect, the Scottish Enlightenment that I’d like to start this lecture on the New Town. If we can go on to the next slide, please. And ah, there we go. So there you can see the old city of Edinburgh from the new. This is actually taken from the botanical gardens in Edinburgh, which I’m going to come to shortly and you can see what’s going on there. Look at the hills in the background, that is the Scottish hills, it’s in fact to be precise Arthur’s Seat around the back and then you have the mounds of Edinburgh castle and you have the jumble of buildings near the castle.

But then you have this greenery, this verdant centre of space all over the New Town of Edinburgh and to me, that picture really gets the difference between the New Town and the Old Town, both beautiful in their own ways, but both very, very different, one much neglected by people. Okay, let’s move on because the phrase in one of those quotations was the Scottish Enlightenment and I’d just like to say something about that because the New Town of Edinburgh has to be seen within the context of the Scottish Enlightenment. Now, you will have heard of the Enlightenment going on in the main part of Europe, particularly France, particularly Western Russia, the salons of the northern part of Europe. But what is often, once again, overlooked is that an essential ingredient of the European-wise Enlightenment, so we’re talking about the 1650s through to the 1780s, was what was going on in Scotland for historical reasons. The links between the Scots and the French were very deep and very lengthy. So what you had going on was this cross pollination of ideas occurring between France and Scotland, and Germany, and Scotland and Western Russia, and Scotland and indeed the nascent America and Scotland, not yet the America born after the American Revolutionary War, the War of Independence. But the Scottish Enlightenment was a real powerhouse of all of those thought processes, of the development of economics, of human reason, of humanism and I should add that atheism was a very major plank of the Scottish Enlightenment.

Unlike the Enlightenment that was happening within France and other parts of the world, it is often thought retrospectively then the Enlightenment was all about the throwing off of religion and the move into an atheistic form of society, that wasn’t the case with many, many Enlightenment thinkers. Enlightenment thinkers in France and other places felt they could juggle belief in some form of supernatural being, even if not a Christian God or whatever God it might be. The Scottish Enlightenment was much more interested in ideas of humanism and atheism and that marked it out very much from the other Enlightenments, plural, going on around Europe at that time. Also because by the 1750s, bearing in mind that the Union with England was formed in 1707 to form the United Kingdom, a piece of legislation passed both in the parliaments in Scotland and in London. Therefore, the Scottish Enlightenment was able to ride on the coattails of the British Empire, which was, at that stage, the largest empire in the world, land empire in the world. So what you had was the ripple effects of the Scottish Enlightenment, went way beyond Scotland and crossed the Atlantic and crossed the Channel, and crossed the Baltic, and crossed all the way across the eastern part of Russia through to the Bering Straits. Scots throughout the world, because they were connected with England through the Army, through the universities and so on, they had a massive effect around the world during the period of the Scottish Enlightenment. Now, that effect then fed back into the capital of Scotland, Edinburgh, and that’s what gave Edinburgh the verve and the confidence and the money to build the magnificent New Town that they built for themselves in those years.

Let’s have a look at a couple of the fathers of the Scottish Enlightenment. He is perhaps the most famous, Adam Smith, Adam Smith was an economist. He was arguably the very first true economist, the man that turned the study of economics into a formal science and the man that insisted that economics had to do with social mores, it had to do with national modes of behaviour, it had to do with anything but the supernatural. This was a huge step. By the way, you will recall from last week the sculpture of Adam Smith. There it is, standing on the Royal Mile right next to St. Giles’ Cathedral with that very immediately identifiable crown steeple, we looked at that last week and that statue of Adam Smith stands proud in the Royal Mile in the old part of Edinburgh. Let’s look at a second major figure in the Enlightenment. And as you can see there, it is David Hume, philosopher, historian, economist as well, essayist. Very liberal in his beliefs about what religion should and should not be, very liberal in his beliefs about the power of women, the power of children, the rights of prisoners, all types of reforms that he pioneered way ahead of his time, many of which have not even now been put into practise. So these are two examples of these very great and influential thinkers of The Scottish Enlightenment.

What we’re going to look at today is how that Enlightenment was channelled architecturally into Edinburgh itself. So let’s move on and let’s have a look at that New Town. And crucial to the New Town were two people, one of them was this man, William Henry Playfair. He was born in 1790 and died in 1857. This is from his portrait that hangs in the National Gallery in Scotland, I showed you a picture of the National Gallery in Scotland last year. Much more beautiful building than the National Gallery just behind Trafalgar Square, not wanting to downplay Trafalgar Square, but I am biassed towards Edinburgh, as I’m sure you’ll pick up. And William Henry Playfair, designed a lot of Scotland and a lot of Edinburgh. Now you can see, he is there with his Masonic tools and with his architectural tools in his left hands and his plans for the city of Edinburgh there to his left. Let’s look at the next picture and you’ll see James Craig. Now James Craig was exclusively involved with the planning of the New Town of Edinburgh, and that is its official name, the New Town. And there once again, you can see him with his plans and with a classical column behind him, which of course emphasises his return to classicism, which was such a hallmark of the Enlightenment and beyond that classical column, the hills of the Highlands. Because what Craig was attempting to do here was to create a very beautiful New Town that was grand, that had vistas, that was on a truly enormous scale, whilst at the same time not losing the intimacy of Scotland. He wanted the hills of Scotland to be always seen from wherever you were within Edinburgh and I’m going to end up today’s lecture with a wonderful quotation by Stevenson about how he feels James Craig achieved that.

Not an easy thing to pull off, an urban planner, building up a huge area, constructing 29 squares and 16 crescents and eight circles and many other parts of the New Town. Yet also being able to almost bring in the countryside and the beginning of the Highlands into Edinburgh at every turn, a remarkable architect and an extremely clever man. More of him a little later. Okay, let’s move to the next picture and you will see some of their plans. Look at the top in red and the bottom in blue. And you can see the difference between the Old Town and the New Town, that is exactly how they lie together. the New Town built on a grid pattern, you’re going to see some wonderful pictures of that grid from the air very shortly. The Old Town much more higgledy-piggledy. I’ve also circled, I put two green circles on that picture, the green circle on the left is the castle at the top of the Royal Mile. The green circle on the right is Holyrood Palace, both of them connected by that long winding road, by Old Town standards it’s actually rather straight, going from Holyrood Palace to the castle, which we travelled along last week. But look at the New Town in red and you can see a very different matter altogether, circles, crescents, squares, grid patterns and so on. Okay, to the next picture and you can see once again, now in a little more detail, look at the Old Town again, the mounds and the castle, that volcanic rock. You can see also, you’ll recall Edinburgh Waverley Station, not shown in that because that was before the station was built. I’m just using my glasses here, but I believe this map was 1836, the station was 1862 and beyond.

But you can really get the idea that large grey roundish area to the north-east of the Old Town is Calton Hill, which we looked at last week as well, it has the National Memorial to it, the Observatory and so on. But the New Town is very dramatically laid out in that very orderly grid fashion. To the next picture, please, Lauren. And again, the very centre of the New Town. Now, that was the original idea for the New Town, it was a long street called George Street with St. Andrews Square at one end on the right, Charlotte Square at the other end to the left. It was originally designed to be very simple, we only have there one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight side squares on north and south axis, one square on each end, 10 squares in total. Not many, well no crescents there, as you can see. But Craig was buying lands all the time to develop, so the New Town grew at almost an exponential rate so he could really build it up and it became a wonder of Northern Europe the way this took shape. Okay, let’s carry on. And now we’re going to look at, just to put it in context, a few other Georgian towns in England. Because Georgian architecture, it will be an exaggeration to say it’s rare, but it is not overly common because what the Victorians did was they demolished a whole stack of Georgian architecture all over the place. So the biggest single old architecture that one will now come across in the UK is Victorian and Edwardian, Georgian, I would say there is a lot of, but nowhere near as much as Victorian and pre-Georgian, very little.

Think about how many Tudor buildings are there in London, Canonbury Tower, Hampton Court Palace, Lambeth Palace, and a handful of other partial Tudor things, St. James’ Palace, very little Tudor architecture left mainly because the Georgians pulled most of it down just as the Victorians pulled down, so much Goergian stuff down. But I’m going to focus in very quickly on a few other prototype Georgian pieces of architecture around England. Let’s go to the next slide and you will see the first of them. Bath, arguably the most famous, well, not arguably, the most famous Georgian city in the United Kingdom. There is the Royal Crescent to the left, it’s magnificent. It’s 30 terraced houses, it’s this tremendous suite built by John Wood, the Younger and it was built between 1767 and 1774. It’s magnificent, 500 feet long and 114 ionic columns on its front, you can see to the right of that, The Circus, called, for obvious reasons with the tree in the middle. And you can really get the idea of Georgian Bath there, that really is the centre of Georgian Bath, it’s magnificent. Personally, I prefer Georgian Edinburgh and that I think is for three reasons. Reason number one, there’s actually more of it than Georgian Bath. Reason number two, it’s more off the beaten track, if you’re in Georgian Bath, unless you’re travelling on a cold day in January or February completely out of season, Georgian Bath is pretty overwhelmed with tourists. It’s beautiful, there’s no doubt about it, but it’s overwhelmed, it’s simply overwhelmed with tourists. Georgian Edinburgh.

Well, Edinburgh has a lot of tourists, but they all go like bees to a honey pot to the Old Town and you have the New Town almost entirely to yourself. Reason number three, aesthetically I prefer the dark, atmospheric, brooding stone of Georgian Edinburgh, to the, I always think it looks a bit like a massive Christmas cake, of Georgian Bath. It’s beautiful, but Edinburgh is much more to my taste. To each their own and I’d be very, very happy if everybody watching here makes a pilgrimage to Edinburgh and Bath and make your own decisions on that. Let’s have another quick look at aspects of Bath, there’s a closeup of the magnificent Royal Crescent, and to the next one, please, Lauren. Closeup of the Crescent and actually it’s a closeup of part of The Circus within Bath. That gold, beautiful golden hamstone quarried from quarries in Somerset and in Wiltshire and in Dorset and the stone was then brought to Bath. It subsequently became known as Bath Stone, but it’s not from Bath and it was quarried from West country quarries all over the place. And there are many beautiful towns in the West of England that are entirely built of this gorgeous honey coloured stone. Okay, and a couple of examples of streets within Georgian Bath, it’s a very hilly city. To the next picture, please. And they’re built up and downhills all over the place and to the next one and the next one. Now we’re in Georgian Brighton, there is the long dead West Pier. Actually that’s Hove more speaking, but Georgian Brighton came later, came in the Regency period. So we’re talking about 1818, 1820 onwards, whereas Georgian Bath was 1780s and Georgian Edinburgh was 1760s onwards.

But it’s the same idea, these large squares, elegant buildings either built out of Bath stone or built out of stone and brick, and then stuccoed with paint on the outside, looking out towards the English Channel. And to the next picture. Another aspect of Regency Square in Bath, these are brick buildings rather than stone buildings and then stuccoed and then painted. Okay, to the next one. Kemptown in Brighton, looking out again to the sea, I love this picture. And Kemptown is a wonderful part because it’s one of those rare examples of Georgian architecture that’s not overly grand. So it’s been Victorianized a bit, some of the fronts have been ripped out and have had 1970s windows put on. It’s all a little bit ramshackle and downtrodden and that’s why I particularly love Kemptown in Brighton. But you get* still that feel of uniformity, which was such a hallmark of Georgian architecture. I should add uniformity from the front because Georgian buildings from the back are a very different matter altogether. When you’re walking around Georgian Edinburgh, Regency Edinburgh, make sure go around the backs because although uniformity is everything. At the back, some of the houses are shallow, some are deep, some are high, some are tall. Because the way the Georgians built was they bought a plot of land as developers, they would put up the frontage and then sell the back plot separately. If you had a lot of money, you’d build an enormous house on the back, if you didn’t have so much money, but you wanted to live on the right street keeping up with the Joneses, you’d have a shallow house on the back, but you were living on the right street. So Georgian architecture has this glorious uniformity from the front, but is all higgledy-piggledy from the back.

Okay, to the next one, a bit of Georgian London. There it is Cumberland Terrace on Regents Park. Now that’s on the western side of Regents Park, it’s magnificent. Regents Park designed by a number of people. But the terraces were designed by John Nash and Cumberland Terrace I think was built in 1826, I think that’s the date. Regents Park has lots of terraces built around it. Cumberland Terrace, Chester Terrace, Sussex place, so on. They’re pretty magnificent, they are now seen as the height of classicism of British architecture. But John Nash in his time was absolutely panned, because horror of horrors, he puts Corinthian capitals on top of Ionic columns and he put Doric columns next to Ionic capitals and so on, he mixed up the orders. Now it’s seen as beautiful stuff. In his time, he got a hard time, but it’s all pretty magnificent now and kept really beautifully as you go around the south and the east and the west side of Regent’s Park. Okay, now let’s move on and there you can see again another of the terraces at Regent’s Park, Chester Terrace and to the next picture, another one, and to the next one, Sussex Place in Regent’s Park. You get the impression from this, London is permanently sunny, but believe me it’s not as I’m sure many of you know. Okay, let’s now move to Edinburgh and that is a reminder of the mediaeval part of Edinburgh, higgledy-piggledy all over the place. Layer upon layer, you remember the pictures of Victoria Street I showed you last week, some aspects of the backs of the Royal Mile, some aspects of Greyfriars, some of the cemeteries in Edinburgh. It’s built layer upon layer, it has evolved, it’s secreted one part upon another. It’s a magnificent, chaotic mass of brooding stone and brick buildings.

A veritable mediaeval skyscraper of a city remarked upon by many travellers in the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th century, the sheer height of the buildings and the amount of high buildings all just holding each other’s up. Let’s go over to the next picture and you can see what I mean, we looked at this last time, Look at that! Again, street after street, back after back. You can see to the right of that picture the crown steeple of St. Giles on the Royal Mile. And then layer after layer eventually going down into that drained out loch that I described last week where Edinburgh Waverley sits and that’s where the Jacob’s Ladder steps were, where I took you up last week, so it’s a wonderful thing. But now let’s go to our next and our main section, which is the New Town itself. So let’s have a look at some of those pictures of the New Town. So there is Moray Place. And that is Moray Place in the New Town, looking over to the Old Town, there’s Arthur’s Seat, you can see the spire of St Margaret’s Church on the Royal Mile, you can see the castle on top of the volcanic rock on the right and you can see various other spires going off to the left, you can also see the long, long gardens of the New Town that run along York Place. All is greenery in the New Town. Greenery, punctured by circuses, by crescents and by squares, it’s a beautiful thing. And you’ll see what I mean there by the backs of Moray Place, look at Moray Place and you can see that the uniformity is rather different when you see it from the back. Moray Place is this fantastic circle, one of the six circles within Edinburgh, Bath only has one Georgian circle, Edinburgh has six.

So it really is an absolutely very, very grand and beautiful place and enormous. Just look at the cars parked in Moray Place in that circle and you begin to get a sense of the proportions of this huge structure planned by Playfair and built by Craig. That pair, Playfair and Craig worked very, very well together, although Craig carried on considerably afterwards. Okay, let’s move on and let’s have a look at some of this. Fantastic, now you get that sense of the maps that you saw, the plans that you saw, put into practise and if I can emphasise, the vast majority of tourists never go to what you are looking at now, street after street, crescent after crescent, square after square of beauty and harmony and perfectly built buildings. They stay on the right hand side of that picture where you see Princes Gardens, you see the dip in the valley, you see the castle there on the hill and just to the left of the castle, at the end of those gardens you can see Edinburgh Waverley and the train tracks coming to a almost a triangle shape. Edinburgh Waverley there in that valley between the Old Town and the New Town. Go, I urge you to go to that New Town when you’re next going to Edinburgh on your maiden trip to Edinburgh. You can also see in the distance Leith, which is in effect the Port of Edinburgh where the royal yacht Brittania is permanently moored. and that eventually curls round into the Firth, and the magnificent bridge of the Firth of Forth. So it’s a great picture because it really just shows that difference between the old and new, let’s go to another picture.

And that’s Calton Hill. But you can already see, although Calton Hill was a place of old settlement way before the New Town, you could see those Enlightenment ideas already feeding in to Edinburgh. The Nelson Monument, which we looked at last week, shaped like an upturned telescope, the National Memorial, incomplete based upon the Parthenon in Athens and built to memorialise the Scottish soldiers, the Scottish regiments of the British army who died in the Napoleonic Wars. And we had a couple of comments last week from viewers who talked about the various purposes that the building there is about to be turned into. It was built as the Parliament, was hardly used at all of the Scottish Parliament, then became Edinburgh Grammar School and has served various other purposes and is now being reconstituted for other purposes too, but there it sits. And now you can see how Edinburgh was called the Athens of the North, because it was the seat of the Enlightenment within the British empire and that Enlightenment fed into the Enlightenment of France, which had come from ideas of bringing about, again, ideas of ancient Greece. So it all fed into these ideas, as I mentioned, this cross-pollination of ideas, of a revival of architecture, of types of religious thinking, scientific thinking, botany, zoology and so on. Okay, moving on. And the New Town again, looking straight down George Street from Charlotte Square. Charlotte Square at the very bottom and you can really get that idea of the planned town. To the right, you can see the train tracks, those train lines are starting on their long journey to Glasgow from Edinburgh.

And where the train tracks widen, top right part of the picture, they’re going into Edinburgh Waverley station, which you’ll recall is the second biggest station in the United Kingdom from the point of view of area and then those trains will then carry on south of 434 miles down to London Kings Cross. So Edinburgh really is that real crossing point of trains from north to south. Okay, to the next. Now you see some of those crescents, look at the scale of this. Now the church you are looking at is Saint Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral, which is the Anglican Scottish Episcopal Church and it recognises the Archbishop of Canterbury as its head, although it is a separate church. There are other Scottish reformed churches that do not recognise the jurisdiction of Canterbury over them, but this particular one does, it’s an enormous structure. Victorian cathedral built in the Gothic revival style with three spires, transepts, it’s got ‘em all. And you can see that it sits at the very top of a set of crescents there. Look at those beautiful curves within the crescents. You could walk tens of miles in the New Town and not cover it all, there is so much to see and it’s all so beautiful. And what is remarkable that unlike other Georgian areas of other towns in the United Kingdom, the Scottish New Town has changed so very little. So what you are looking at now is more or less what it would’ve looked like 250 years ago when it was planned and then built. And it was built at a remarkably rapid rate, we are talking about from the 1760s through to the 1820s.

Okay, moving on, we’re now going to go in and look at some of these. There we have two circles and a crescent, again that idea of planning, as you can see. What you’re looking at on the right is Charlotte Square with its green domed building. It has number 6 Charlotte Square is Bute House, which is the official residence of the first Minister of Scotland and then that goes around the back to Moray Place, the larger of the three circuses, which then feeds into the second circus and then feeds into the crescent as you can see. Real beautiful planning, a real sense of harmony coming into those structures, yet it’s on a human scale. One of those three quotations I read to you at the start talks about how the fact that remarkably Edinburgh manages somehow and it never quite worked out how it does, it is so grand, the New Town is so grand, yet it’s also very intimate and that is something remarkable that Playfair and Craig were able to pull off. To the next one please. And we’re going to have a look at a close up of Calton Hill, as you can see there. As you can see, this photo isn’t taken by me, copyright Ian Masterton and you can see Calton Hill from a very unusual view, with Regent’s Place curling its way around there, beautifully hugging the side of the hill. This enormously long or could you call it a crescent? I don’t know, it’s a unique shape for a unique hill and it was built for that hill. Okay, moving on again, please. Now we’re looking from the New Town to the old, looking at the Scottish Royal Academy and looking up to the twin towers of the New College, which is all part of the Department of Theology at the University of Edinburgh. Beautiful symmetry again, we looked at that last week. And the next picture, Lauren, please. A close up of again, drawing upon ideas of the revival of classical architecture, the Scottish Royal Academy itself.

And the next. And the next. And this is Regent’s Bridge. Now, although when the New Town was built, it had or it was all very well building a New Town, but Craig and Playfair realised that if the New Town was to be financially viable, it had to give access. And those people that were buying plots of land in the new land, in this new clean, bright, forward-looking modern town. But they had to be able to get to other places and the New Town was built surrounded by valleys, so they had to build a series of bridges and tunnels and that they brilliantly did. But even in the buildings of the bridges and the tunnels, this one being the Regent’s Bridge, named after the Prince Regent who came to visit Edinburgh. The Regent’s Bridge in itself, these bridges were handsome Georgian structures in themselves. Let’s have a look at some close up pictures, there’s another view of that bridge. Let’s look again, it’s of epic proportions as you can see. Look at the cars at the bottom, then you get an idea of its size. Now that’s very Old Townish, look at the buildings there. There’s no straight roads there, but it feeds into the New Town. Let’s have a look at the closeup of the bridge itself. Beautifully structured. There it is, almost saying farewell to the stone of the Old Town and moving in with its Corinthian capitals and its simple columns and its classical arches into the New Town. The building on the left is very much of the Georgian period, the building through the arch, the buildings to the right are very much mediaeval period. So I particularly like this picture because it was almost like saying, you know, farewell to the old and moving in to the new. Moving on, one more picture of that.

There it is, now you’ve got a sense of the people next to it of the size of that, the Georgian architecture on either side, the mediaeval behind. Okay, let’s now go to after that picture with the sun catching it, let’s now move on to a rather unexpected side to the New Town and that is the Royal Botanical Gardens in Edinburgh. Now the Royal Botanical Gardens are the oldest botanical gardens in the world, they were founded in 1670. Botanical gardens in Oxford, you’ll remember I did a tour of Hidden Oxford were 1621, so you know pretty remarkable there. And Kew, 1759. Kew is the most famous. So you know, it’s really remarkable that Edinburgh hosts these. Let’s have a quick look at some of the aspects of the gardens, real beauties, an oasis within the New Town, although the New Town itself is a complete oasis. Next picture, please, Lauren. And there are modern parts to them. And the next picture please, and much more traditional, your traditional temperate and palm houses. And to the next picture. Lily house and to the next one. So now we’re starting to look at some of these terraces, I’m going to take you through quite quickly to give you an idea of the uniformity of design. You’ve seen lots of aerial views. Now you’ll get an idea of what I mean by the elegance of this New Town in this dark brooding stone as I mentioned. Notice the lights, all the original light fittings are on these, now they’re now electric, but they were originally gas or in fact before then they were methane powered from the sewers, then they became gas and then they became electric. But all the fittings are still there, it’s just such an incredible survivor, the New Town of Edinburgh. Let’s go through these pictures quite fast please, Lauren.

This is Charlotte Square, as you can see. Uniformity, the flagstones, the original flagstones. Moray Place, the beginning of the circus itself and to the next one please. There it goes, snakes round. Look at the flagstones and look at the cobbles snakes it’s way around. Now can I mention one thing, just that one picture please. In fact, back two pictures. Sorry Lauren, thank you. Look at the size of the cars there, they’re not very ostentatious, they’re not very pretentious and yet the houses are very grand houses. Now a lot of these houses are converted into flats. If this was in London, almost every house would be converted into about 17 flats. But in Edinburgh, a very large proportion of these houses are still houses and I asked an old Edinburgh family, tell me about who lives in these places. I had noticed that there were very few pretentious cars in front of them, very few huge cars, there were quite small cars. In fact, lots of the residences have no cars in front of them. Let’s just go ahead now to a picture. Back to that one. Oh yes, thank you. Look at the cars again. And I was told the following, that the people that live in so many of these beautiful houses are the great, great, great, great, great grandchildren, however many generations, of those that built the houses. And they are asset rich but cash poor and they live sort of in magnificent penury in these beautiful grand regency houses, but they don’t have very much money. So a lot of them don’t own cars and a lot of 'em just walk around or even cycle around. In fact, I saw a lot of bikes in corridors in these houses when people opened their doors, which is so wonderful, the people living in the houses of their ancestors built to order. When Playfair and Craig and others were given the architectural commissions to build these houses, the descendants are still living in those houses, but they’re living in sort of rather dilapidated grandeur. When one wanders around the New Town of Edinburgh on winter evenings when the lights are on inside the rooms, if you are shameless, you can just poke your head through the windows and have a look in.

And there’re tremendous structures within the buildings and these people living as they had maybe a century ago, but not with much cash between them to buy very big cars. It’s a very charming side to the New Town of Edinburgh. Let’s carry on and look at these beautiful streets, street after street. Saxe Coburg Place, named after Prince Leopold of Sax Coburg, the cousin of Queen Victoria. Well a cousin of Prince Albert who came to Edinburgh in 1819 and there was a surge in building in Edinburgh, almost like a second flowering of the Enlightenment to celebrate Leopold of Saxe Coburg coming to Edinburgh. He stayed in Edinburgh for over a year and you had Saxe Coburg Street and Saxe Coburg Place, wonderful names to live in. Let’s carry on please and have a look at some of these beautiful, beautiful streets. There they are. Saxe Coburg Place, there it is. And continuing. And again and again. They’re very handsome, beautiful, elegant buildings. Hardly any cars parked outside these. And carrying on again, I remember looking into some of these doors and windows and the residences were absolutely vast. Yet as I mentioned, there were no cars in front of them and they were very spartan in the way they were furnished inside some of these. So the people have hung on, have clung on to their family properties, but to not much else. Once they die or once nobody inherits, they’ll be turned into flats no doubt, but that time has not yet arrived. Now is the time to see people living in faded elegance before it all goes. Okay, continuing through. St. Bernard’s Crescent, an absolute beauty. And again, please. And again, and again. you really get the idea of this elegant living. And then we’re on to Regent’s Terrace, as you can see there. Regent Terrace goes around Calton Hill, let’s have a look at some of the terraces there.

These are much larger than St Bernard’s. They look out towards the hills, couldn’t resist that with the red letter box, pillar box. And that’s where the American consulate is actually housed. If we move on to the next picture, I believe, let’s go on to one more picture and you’ll see there it is the flag flying and you get quite a lot of consulates up in Edinburgh now, now that Edinburgh has a parliament since the 90s. Edinburgh feels much more like a capital than it did 30 years ago, it does have that weightiness of being a capital, whether there are representations from countries all over the world. With devolution becoming more and more advanced as the years go on, it does feel much more like a capital, a working capital city rather than just a titular capital in name only. Let’s move on. And this is Ann Street in Edinburgh, I wanted to show that beautiful piece of street furniture. The whole street has these original light fittings, not only light fittings above the houses, light fittings above the gates, how civilised is that? So visitors to the houses before they even enter the front garden can see where they’re treading so they don’t trip. Let’s move on. And more of the beautiful Ann Street. And the next one please, and the next one. Street after street, after street like this. This was early spring and you can see one side of Ann Street and then rising above it are the backs of Moray Place. The New Town is enormous, carrying on please. And we’re now going to look at some Georgian front doors in Edinburgh, because the Georgians were renowned for their front doors and their front doors are beautiful, let’s have a look at them. St. Bernards Cresent and the next one.

Melville Terrace very beautiful triple front doors and the next one is Charlotte Square, look at the symmetry there, at nighttime these look particularly lovely because the lights come through these doors, these fan light doors and they really do look a picture. That’s number six, Charlotte Square, Bute House. Let’s move on to Moray Place and next Dundas Street. And the next one, I think Argyll Terrace. Yes, three in Argyll Terrace, how about that? Isn’t that wonderful? And the next one, York Place. There are thousands, thousands of front doors like this in Edinburgh. The next one is Albany Street if memory serves me correctly, there it is, built on a slight hill as you can see there, with the original railings, the original lighting, the original letter box even on that door and some of the original glass within the light, the fan light above the door. You can normally tell that glass because it’s not perfectly flat, it’s slightly, how can I put it, curved. I’m getting some of the reflections. Not always, but often the sign of the original glass. Carrying on. Dublin place. Beautiful, beautiful front door. And the next one, Henderson Row down in the southern part of the New Town of Edinburgh. Okay, let’s just carry on to some of the interiors because they really are something. Now some interiors are museums within Edinburgh, but some, if you just ask nicely, you can get in and see some of the interiors.

Look at these beautiful things when you come in through the entrances, that’s a house within St. Bernard’s Crescent. Let’s have a look at another interior, a house within, if memory serves me correctly, Saint Andrews Square. Georgian interiors, perfect. Look at the next one please. Yes, this was in Charlotte Square and the next one. And the next one. Within Dundas Street, a house in Dundas Street. You can see how the people are living here still. Classic examples of Georgian interiors, and the next one. A library. Okay, let’s now move on. Last week I took us on two days out from Edinburgh because again, it’s often forgotten that around Edinburgh there’s so many fantastic things to do, you can do some of these places just in half a day each. Last week we looked at Sterling, and today I’m going to take you to two, one is Linlithgow and one is Berwick-upon-Tweed. So let’s have a look. Before we do, I just want to tell you, as I took myself to the train station to take a day out, I came across this remarkable memorial, very handsome column and the column is the Melville Memorial, which is the memorial to Henry Dundas, who was a remarkable philanthropist who lived from 1770 to 1811, he was also a slaver. Now, there is huge amounts of debates over what we do in the United Kingdom, if anything, what we do about monuments to people who also made huge amounts of money, their fortunes through slavery. This has come to the fore very much with Edward Colston in Bristol and and his bronze that was toppled a couple of years ago and the debate goes on as to what should be done. Some say the debate has just been kicked into the long grass and debates that go on and on and on is one way of avoiding a true debate, but there is a lot of discussion going on. Let me show you what the Scottish government decided to do.

So they’ve done nothing with the sculpture, which stands on top of the column in St. Andrew’s Square. But let’s now have a look at that column, which is constantly being attacked with graffiti, to the next picture, as you can see, it speaks for itself. But look what the Scottish government decides to do. That’s Dundas himself on the top, Henry Melville, look what the government did, have a read of this plaque that they built, I’m just going to let you read that to yourselves. That was actually quite controversial because what it doesn’t do is, it talks about the horrors that Melville oversaw. But what it doesn’t do is he was also a philanthropist and he set up schools and he pulled thousands and thousands of Scots out of poverty. So there was a great debate over whether there now should be an addition to that, which should also talk about that and so the debate continues. But it’s certainly a very interesting way of dealing with this ongoing discussion about facing the past and I came across that as I walked to the station to take the train to Linlithgow. Let’s go to Linlithgow and just a few pictures of two days out. Okay, Linlithgow is one of the palaces of the Stuarts. It’s a magnificent palace. To the first picture of Linlithgow, please Lauren. And you can see there I took the train along the coast, this is the same train that one would’ve taken to get to Berwick-upon-Tweed, which we’ll come to very shortly, it really hugs the side of the sea. And to the next picture. It’s a wonderful journey out and to the next one. and we come into Linlithgow itself. It has two wonderful things, the town is a delight, it has a loch as you can see to the right.

There is Linlithgow Palace. It is a castle in effect, but it’s known as Linlithgow Palace and to the left of it is the church, which has once again a crown steeple, I mentioned to you that crown steeples used to be commonplace. The one in Edinburgh, the original building in 1460, the one in Newcastle in Newcastle Cathedral is also original, built in 1526 I believe. This one on Linlithgow is built out of aluminium and stainless steel because the original one came down in a storm in the 1800s and it was put up. This one was put up in the 1960s and quite effective it is still, a wonderful marriage in the old and the new. Some people might not enjoy that. I thought it was a really beautiful marriage of the two. But the palace itself is handsome and in Linlithgow itself, is where various Scottish kings were assassinated, it’s seen a horribly violent and bloody history. And as many of you will know, by the time we get to 1603 and the death of Elizabeth I there was the marriage of the Thrones. Elizabeth died childless, well maybe not childless, but she dialled heirless. She possibly did have children, but she had no heir because she never married and therefore James VI of Scotland became James I of England, a stroke of genius because although the Scots thought they were finally getting the ascendancy over the English by a Scottish king taking control of England, really what it meant was in the long term, Scotland was swallowed up by the much more greedy, powerful, wealthy England. So although the marriage was of the Scottish monarch of the Stuarts taking over the throne of England, it became in effect a takeover of England and the formation in the end, in 1707 the act of union and the domination of England over, the Union of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. But it was done without a drop of blood being shed.

There’s the genius of Elizabeth I and a reminder, by the way, on the 31st, I’m going to be doing a lecture on Elizabeth II, which will be part of the series that lockdown is putting on icons and heroes, more on that nearer the time. Let’s have a closer look at Linlithgow Palace. It’s a very beautiful structure. There you can see the crown, the dramatic crown spire of the church and the palace sitting on the loch. Now we’re going to go into the courtyard of the palace, it’s an enormous structure and a very beautiful structure. One more picture into Linlithgow Palace through that gate and into the courtyard there. It’s a beauty. Again, hardly anybody goes there, you’d have it all to yourself, as did I, this was 27 minutes from Edinburgh. Let’s now go to Berwick-upon-Tweed over this stupendous bridge that crosses the river Tweed. This is the most northern town in England, it’s only five and a half miles, I think from the border. Berwick-upon-Tweed has changed borders seven times over the last 800 years, from Scotland to England, Scotland to England. It’s now in England, just four and a half miles from the border, but I took the train from Edinburgh Waverley, eventually over this terrific bridge. Into, next picture please, Berwick itself. There the train goes, just to give your sense of the height of the bridge as well of the length, and then into the town of Berwick. There it is, a lovely Georgian Victorian town with this church dominating it in the middle. It’s a bustling, thriving, lovely town where there is an accent that is unique to Berwick-upon-Tweed.

It is part Scottish and part Geordie, Newcastle, can’t put your finger on it, it’s the Berwick accent, it’s absolutely unique. To the next picture. It claims to be the only town in England, or the only town in, I think the United Kingdom that is completely walled, the whole town is still walled. These walls are mediaeval, they’re late mediaeval Tudor, and then repaired by the Victorians. To the next picture. There’s the wall, look at the wall around the back of these houses and to the next picture. People playing rugby in the shadow of the battlements of the walls. And now I went back into Edinburgh itself, I arrived back at dusk, as we say farewell to Edinburgh, to the next picture. I’m going to show you a few beautiful nighttime pictures, this is Dundas Street in Edinburgh, as I came back in, cycled up the street. Edinburgh, I think is so atmospheric at night and to the next picture. The lights now in full use, you can see the lights on the inside of the building shining out and these beautiful lights on the original railings in Charlotte Square and a few more nighttime pictures of Edinburgh, isn’t that gorgeous? And to the next, and the next, and the next one. Christmas decorations. And the next. And that view over again from the new to the old. And just the next morning, just to let you know that the New Town isn’t all elegant terraces, I came across this fantastic mediaeval tenement building, sandwiched within the New Town and I went down the front garden. There they were hanging their washing. And to the next picture. And then I went into the tenement building. Just look at this for a time warp of a tenement building. To the next picture. Up, down into the corridors.

Look at the steps worn with time. Up the steps, up the staircase. Parked my bike there and up to the next floor and the next floor, and then to the landing, so lived in. Finally the “Prime of Miss Jean Brodie”, I hope you’ve all seen it. So one of my 10 great films of all time. Well certainly one of my favourite films. I had to go to some of the sites where that film, 1969, the Maggie Smith film based upon the play by Muriel Spark. It’s a fantastic film, it’s a fantastic play, it was in effect the inspiration for the Robin Williams “Dead Poets Society”, but give me “The Prime Miss Jean Brodie” any day. And I went to some of the original places where it was filmed for a bit of fun. Let’s have a look at some of these. There is Henderson Row where the Marcia Blaine School. Where the creme de la creme, the class of Miss Jean Brodie where the gals were schooled and that’s where they filmed it. And there’s me in the next picture standing thrilled to bits on 54 Henderson Row on a very cold February morning in Edinburgh and then I went to Argyll Place. Oh, there is Maggie Smith playing the title role telling her students about the greatness of Mussolini, I’m not going to tell you anymore because I don’t want to spoil the film, if you’ve never seen it. You must see the 1969 film “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie”, it’s up on YouTube for all to see for free. The wonderful Maggie Smith playing the title role. And the next picture is Admiral Terrace, where it was filmed, where Miss Jean Brodie’s house was.

And to the next picture, the house on Admiral Terrace where Miss Jean Brodie lived in and where Maggie Smith came out of that very front door. Let’s have a look at two stills from the movie, I was really so thrilled that day. There I was standing near the front door, there goes Maggie Smith out at that very front door, 1969, about to teach for the day in Marcia Blaine school. So ladies and gentlemen, that is the final snapshot of Edinburgh. I thank you for listening to parts one and two of Edinburgh, I’m going to take questions now. Our next town is going to be Hidden London. Get to Edinburgh if you’ve never been, it’s a gem of a town as I say in my opinion, the United Kingdom’s most handsome and arresting and atmospheric city. Here are the questions, they’re coming now, I’m just going to pull in. Thank you and I’m glad you’ve enjoyed it.

Q&A and Comments:

Dawn, I don’t have a Jewish tartan, but I couldn’t resist wearing this one again. Is there a Jewish tartan? I must look it up. Thank you very much, Dawn. I was completely unaware of it, I will indeed look it up.

And thank you Javier, you’ve enjoyed the Barnett Tartan. If anybody by the way, has not seen Edinburgh part one, I believe that Lockdown does record things. Do go in and have a look at part one, which is very different to today’s because it’s mediaeval, it’s not planned, it doesn’t have the elegance, but it has the atmosphere.

Indeed Judith. Yes, 1816, the Edinburgh Jewish community. And there is a very lovely shul, a 1950s building on a street called Salisbury Street, I think it is or Salisbury Place and lovely.

William Henry Playfair, Daphne, I think that’s what you were asking, William Henry Playfair. Regency Square, Brighton, I think not. Bath. Thank you Hannah.

William you’ve asked, who paid? Who paid for what? If you can just clarify on that please.

Q: How did they enforce the uniform heights of buildings before planning authorities?

A: Oh, simple, they were capitalists through and through. They purchased the land and they made damn sure that what was built was to their liking, so they weren’t town planners. They wanted to get the most for their money and they knew the elegance bought the money, So it was in a sense the market that dictated it.

Lorna, as I remember, the charming spots of Central Scotland were Crieff and Perth, all wonderful places. You’re quite right, I couldn’t disagree with that.

Does the Edinburgh have the equivalent of the ? It most certainly does Sarah, there is an area called Niddrie. I spent quite a lot of time in Niddrie, which is a very, very poor area. Craigmillar, which is a very poor area as well. Leith used to be rather poor, but it’s now very much gentrified, it’s down near the docks, so Leith is in transition. I would say Craigmillar and Niddrie are two extremely poor areas, you need to watch the film, Sarah, “Trainspotters” because that was made in the, when was it made, the 90s and that was filmed all around some of the very, very poorer parts of Edinburgh. Look out for “Trainspotters”, again, it’s on YouTube and it gives a very different side to Edinburgh than the side I’ve painted today.

Mike, University of Botanic Gardens, Padra, thank you. 1545, thank you.

Q: Jurna, how much of the dark brooding stone is dark because of automotive pollution?

A: Partly that, but it is naturally a darker stone than golden hamstone, which is in Bath.

So Hannah, just one agent’s board, very unusual. Well spotted Hannah, that is an extremely good point. The fact that there is just one agent’s board does very much support what I’m saying. That there is a stability of people that are living in Edinburgh, that isn’t the case in other Georgian areas, yes.

Q: Malcolm, “Why don’t they clean up the stone?”

A: Well, number one, it is a darker stone. But I’m not sure whether I would want a very polished stone. I don’t want Edinburgh to look like Bath, I don’t want Edinburgh to look like a wedding cake. I think Edinburgh looks very, very beautiful and atmospheric when it’s not over cleaned, I think there’s always a risk, in my opinion, it’s all a matter of opinion. I always felt there’s always a risk in overcleaning because it turns it into almost like a Disney town of Edinburgh, but everybody has their own taste for these things. But I should add Malcolm, the stone is naturally a darker stone.

Judith. Oh, I so agree with you. How could the city with such beautiful buildings allow the hideous developments of the 60s and 70s.“ Indeed.

William, there are garages to house cars and those garages are in the stables at the back, what were originally the stables, so lots of those cars are housed there, but many of those stables are now being converted into residences of their own, slightly cheaper residences, so people aren’t parking the cars there. Some of the streets are metered some are not. Yes, Monica, notice the roads are still cobbled. Yes, these are now definitely preservation regulated areas.

Yes, very good point Margaret. "I stayed in the New Town”, you say, “I think spartan and lack of ostentation are also characterises of the Scottish character.” Yes, I think you are or is that a nice way of covering up for penury? Wonderful, Margaret. I think the former, I think it is a completely different attitude towards wealth. If you’ve got wealth, you don’t flaunt it and I think that very much appeals to me in the way people do their houses. They don’t want to over clean, over clean their houses. But I think it’s a combination, Margaret of the two, I think it is coming up penury and I think it also is, what is it, the dour Scot, sorry if I’ve insulted any Scots watching, but they are more spartan by nature, in the way they speak they’re more terse and laconic in the way they speak, they’re very friendly. But there’s a dourness there and there’s a terseness there, which is very much the Scottish characteristic. Nanette glad you enjoyed it.

Lorna, “My grandkid is considering Edinburgh for her digital art degree.” Yes, it is a good choice. I’m a teacher, I’m often saying to my students, are we talking about Edinburgh University, Lorna? 'Cause it’s a great university, but of course it depends what her other choices are. So I don’t want to give university advice online, but you can do much worse than Edinburgh and if she’s thinking about art, I can’t think of a finer city than Edinburgh for art.

Q: Maya, “Can you show the national library?”

A: Oh, that’s interesting. There’s the biggest of the small libraries in the world, I was not aware of that, thank you for that.

Q: Donald, “How much better if they were sandblasted of their soot as was London in the seventies?

A: Well, we might have a difference of opinion there. I absolutely love the darkened stone of Edinburgh. I think that’s part of its attraction. But I do think that London in the seventies was pretty grim. Because Edinburgh darkened stone has a beauty, London darkened bricks. Ooh, I’m not sure how beautiful that is. So I think the cleaning of the bricks in London, I’m all in favour of it. Cleaning of the stone in Edinburgh? Not sure. Not sure. There you go.

Marilyn. In Toronto, an original major street is called Dundas Street. There was discussions to change the name because of his controversial past. Absolutely. I have indeed been to the Rosslyn Chapel. Yes. Could have taken you out there.

Good point, Margaret. The Rosslyn Chapel is really something remarkable. When we were in Berwick-upon-Tweed, we were told that the young have left and gone to Edinburgh to get jobs.

I’m sure you’re right, Hannah. Yes. Linlighgow Palace, birthplace of Mary, Queen of Scots.

Absolutely, Vivian. Thank you, Ruth for your comments.

And Rita, my pleasure, Rita. And my goodness, I’m glad you found it profoundly moving. That’s really nice. And yes, we have the same taste in films, Rita. "Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” one of the best films ever made. So that’s that.

Q: Did I miss or did you mention the monuments of James Young Simpson?

A: I didn’t, discoverer of chloroform. Extremely good points. Thank you Rita, for giving us all the “Prime of Miss Jean Brodie”. Watch it, all Lockdowners. Please watch, your homework. “Prime of Miss Jean Brodie”, the link is up there. So that’s that.

And Caroline, Sax Coburg street is there a history. Yes. I think I mentioned it it was mentioned after Leopold of Sax Coberg who visited Edinburgh in 1816. Yes. German. Well he was German, British, Austrian, Prussian royal family. They were all interconnected, of course, because of Queen Victoria’s many children.

Alan, Alan Cohen. Thank you. Look forward to tom seeing session on the late Queen Elizabeth. I think you might find that quite a moving one. I pretty much put the final touches to it and it is pretty darned powerful if I say so myself.

Susan, thank you. And I’m glad you’ve enjoyed the photographs and Rod, oh, how lovely. Enjoy the graduation at Edinburgh University. You are in for a treat.

Q: Shelly is the dark colour stone of the New Town, darker than it was built?

A: It is darker, but it was always quite dark because the stone is naturally not that honey coloured hamstone of Bath. So here you disagree with me, Shelly. Good for you. You love the architecture and the scale of it, but you prefer the Bath stone. So Shelly, enjoy your days in Bath.

Q: So what’s the basic difference between Regency, Edwardian and Victorian?

A: Regency is pre-Victorian 1820 to 1830 because it’s during the time of the regency period when Britain was ruled by the Prince Regent who eventually became George IV because his father George I was disabled due to mental illnesses. So that 10 year period was called the Regency period. The only time we’ve ever had a regency in this country where the Prince of Wales, in effect, ruled as king in all but name. He ruled as Regent. Then the Victorian period, 1837 to 1901, 2, 3. The death of Queen Victoria and then the Edwardian period, Edward VII that followed straight on Queen Victoria after the 64 year rule of Queen Victoria.

Carol Anne, you haven’t mentioned the basements of houses. True. We only had 45 minutes. Ah, should have had three lectures. Anne, thank you very much.

Roz, delighted you enjoyed the lecture. You’ve missed the first part, but please if you ask Lockdown, they’ll send you a recording, I hope, of that first part. And your father lived in Argyll Place. There you go. He never mentioned the New Town. My point made there. The New Town is so much neglected and omitted. Delighted to see that you’re going to get back there. Edinburgh is also known as old Reeky. You are quite right, alluding to the coals that fueled the fireplace in the apartments, thus causing the extra soot as well. Absolutely. And no old, old leaky was but old reeky was as Rachel says, Edinburgh. Correct. The buildings are beautiful as they are. If they were cleaned, it will remove the mediaeval atmosphere of the city. I think I agree with you, Susan. Dot, delighted you enjoyed it.

Q: How do the residents heat these large rooms?

A: Well, I can tell you they don’t. Most of them sit and they shiver through the winter because those very beautiful rooms that I showed in the interiors, what I wasn’t able to show you is that they were freezing. So many of those residents who are asset rich, cash poor, shiver through the winters.

Carrie, my pleasure. And Ros, my pleasure. And as always, you’ve gone on an extra eight minutes, Lauren and I really thank you for turning the pictures.

Many thanks everybody. See you at 7:00 PM on the 31st for Queen Elizabeth II. Thank you. Bye-bye.