![Grassmarket from Cowgatehead](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Grassmarket_from_Cowgatehead.JPG)
The Grassmarket is a historic
market place
A marketplace or market place is a location where people regularly gather for the purchase and sale of provisions, livestock, and other goods. In different parts of the world, a marketplace may be described as a ''souk'' (from the Arabic), '' ...
, street and event space in the
Old Town
In a city or town, the old town is its historic or original core. Although the city is usually larger in its present form, many cities have redesignated this part of the city to commemorate its origins after thorough renovations. There are ma ...
of
Edinburgh
Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...
, Scotland. In relation to the rest of the city it lies in a hollow, well below surrounding ground levels.
Location
The Grassmarket is located directly below
Edinburgh Castle
Edinburgh Castle is a historic castle in Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland. It stands on Castle Rock (Edinburgh), Castle Rock, which has been occupied by humans since at least the Iron Age, although the nature of the early settlement is unclear. ...
and forms part of one of the main east-west vehicle arteries through the city centre. It adjoins the Cowgatehead/
Cowgate
The Cowgate (Scots language, Scots: The Cougait) is a street in Edinburgh, Scotland, located about southeast of Edinburgh Castle, within the city's World Heritage Site. The street is part of the lower level of Edinburgh's Old Town, Edinburgh, ...
and Candlemaker Row at the east end, the
West Bow
The Grassmarket is a historic market place, street and event space in the Old Town of Edinburgh, Scotland. In relation to the rest of the city it lies in a hollow, well below surrounding ground levels.
Location
The Grassmarket is located direct ...
(the lower end of Victoria Street) in the north-east corner,
King's Stables Road to the north-west, and the
West Port to the west. Leading off from the south-west corner is the
Vennel
A vennel is a passageway between the gables of two buildings which can in effect be a minor street in Scotland and the north east of England, particularly in the old centre of Durham.
Etymology
In Scotland, the term originated in royal burghs ...
, on the east side of which can still be seen some of the best surviving parts of the
Flodden
The Battle of Flodden, Flodden Field, or occasionally Branxton, (Brainston Moor) was a battle fought on 9 September 1513 during the War of the League of Cambrai between the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland, resulting in an English ...
and
Telfer town walls.
![Grassmarket Edinburgh in the fog](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/Grassmarket_Edinburgh_in_the_fog.JPG)
The view to the north, dominated by the castle, has long been a favourite subject of painters and photographers, making it one of the iconic views of the city.
History
First mentioned in the ''Registrum Magni Sigilii Regum Scotorum'' (1363) as "the street called Newbygging
ew buildingsunder the castle", the Grassmarket was, from 1477, one of Edinburgh's main
market places
A marketplace or market place is a location where people regularly gather for the purchase and sale of provisions, livestock, and other goods. In different parts of the world, a marketplace may be described as a ''souk'' (from the Arabic), '' ...
, a part of which was given over to the sale of horse and cattle (the name apparently deriving from livestock grazing in pens beyond its western end).
Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe (; born Daniel Foe; – 24 April 1731) was an English writer, trader, journalist, pamphleteer and spy. He is most famous for his novel ''Robinson Crusoe'', published in 1719, which is claimed to be second only to the Bible in its ...
, who was sent to Edinburgh as an English government agent in 1706, reported the place being used for two open air markets: the "Grass-market" and the "Horse-market". Of the West Bow at the north-east corner, considerably altered in the
Victorian period, he wrote, "This street, which is called the Bow, is generally full of wholesale traders, and those very considerable dealers in iron, pitch, tar, oil, hemp, flax, linseed, painters' colours, dyers, drugs and woods, and such like heavy goods, and supplies country shopkeepers, as our wholesale dealers in England do. And here I may say, is a visible face of trade; most of them have also warehouses in
Leith
Leith (; gd, Lìte) is a port area in the north of the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, founded at the mouth of the Water of Leith. In 2021, it was ranked by '' Time Out'' as one of the top five neighbourhoods to live in the world.
The earliest ...
, where they lay up the heavier goods, and bring them hither, or sell them by patterns and samples, as they have occasion."
![Edinburgh Castle from Grass Market](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/Edinburgh_Castle_from_Grass_Market.jpg)
From 1800 onwards the area became a focal point for the influx of Irish immigrants and a high number of lodging houses appeared for those unable to pay a regular rent. Community views of these immigrants were polarised by the
Burke and Hare
The Burke and Hare murders were a series of sixteen killings committed over a period of about ten months in 1828 in Edinburgh, Scotland. They were undertaken by William Burke and William Hare, who sold the corpses to Robert Knox for dissection ...
murders on Tanners Close at West Port (the west end of the Grassmarket) in 1828. From the 1840s conditions were somewhat horrendous, with up to 12 people in what would now be deemed a small double bedroom, and occupants being locked in the room overnight. Police inspections had begun in 1822 but the rules themselves caused many of the problems. A further Act of 1848 combined police surveillance with limits on occupation. In 1888 the City Public Health Department recorded seven lodging houses holding a total of an incredible 414 persons. Crombies Land at the foot of West Port held 70 people in 27 bedrooms, with no toilet provision.
As a gathering point for market traders and cattle drovers, the Grassmarket was traditionally a place of taverns, hostelries and temporary lodgings, a fact still reflected in the use of some of the surrounding buildings. In the late 18th century the fly coach to London, via Dumfries and Carlisle, set out from an inn at the Cowgate Head at the eastern end of the market place. In 1803 William and Dorothy Wordsworth took rooms at the White Hart Inn, where the poet
Robert Burns
Robert Burns (25 January 175921 July 1796), also known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets who hav ...
had stayed during his last visit to Edinburgh in 1791. In her
account of the visit Dorothy described it as "not noisy, and tolerably cheap". In his 1961 film
''Greyfriars Bobby'' Walt Disney
Walter Elias Disney (; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film p ...
chose a lodging in the Grassmarket as the place where the Skye terrier's owner dies (depicting him as a shepherd hoping to be hired at the market rather than the real-life dog's owner, police night watchman John Gray).
The meat market closed in 1911 when a new municipal slaughter house at
Tollcross replaced the old "shambles" in the western half of the Grassmarket (a road beyond the open market place) which joins King's Stables Road.
The association of the area with the poor and homeless only began to lessen in the 1980s: with
Salvation Army
Salvation (from Latin: ''salvatio'', from ''salva'', 'safe, saved') is the state of being saved or protected from harm or a dire situation. In religion and theology, ''salvation'' generally refers to the deliverance of the soul from sin and its c ...
hostels at both ends of the Grassmarket. Closure of the female hostel at the junction of West Port and the Grassmarket around 2000 in combination with an overall gentrification, capitalising on the street's location, began to truly change the atmosphere. Closure of the public toilets at the east end (a focal point for "jakeys" - drunken-down-and-outs) and comprehensive re-landscaping in the beginning of the 21st century has transformed the character of the area.
An inscribed flagstone in the central pavement in front of the White Hart Inn indicates the spot where a bomb exploded during a
Zeppelin
A Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship named after the German inventor Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin () who pioneered rigid airship development at the beginning of the 20th century. Zeppelin's notions were first formulated in 1874Eckener 1938, pp ...
raid on the city on the night of 2–3 April 1916. Eleven people were killed in the raid, though none at this particular spot.
Archaeology
Archaeological excavations in the 2000s, by
Headland Archaeology
Headland Archaeology Ltd is a wholely owned subsidiary of the RSK Group. Headland provides archaeological services and heritage advice to the construction industry.
Company history
Headland Archaeology Ltd was established in 1996. Headquartered ...
, on Candlemaker Row, in advance of new development, found that the archaeological evidence matches the historical records for the development of the Grassmarket. Candlemaker Row had activity from the 11th or 12th century onwards, possibly a farmstead, next to the confluence of two major cattle-droving routes into Edinburgh. The area was urbanized in the late 15th century, with the division of the land into burgage-plots and construction of a tenement, at the same time the market place was established in Grassmarket. In 1654, the magistrates designated the street for candle-making, thus how it got its name. The late 18th and early 19th centuries saw the redevelopment of the site and evidence for the use of the area as a brass foundry, in line with the Grassmarket being used as a slum at that time.
As a place of execution
![Shadow of the gibbet, Grassmarket Edinburgh](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Shadow_of_the_gibbet%2C_Grassmarket_Edinburgh.jpg)
The Grassmarket was also a traditional place of public
execution
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the State (polity), state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to ...
s.
A memorial near the site once occupied by the
gibbet
A gibbet is any instrument of public execution (including guillotine, decapitation, executioner's block, Impalement, impalement stake, gallows, hanging gallows, or related Scaffold (execution site), scaffold). Gibbeting is the use of a gallows- ...
was created by public subscription in 1937. It commemorates over 100
Covenanter
Covenanters ( gd, Cùmhnantaich) were members of a 17th-century Scottish religious and political movement, who supported a Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and the primacy of its leaders in religious affairs. The name is derived from ''Covenan ...
s who died on the gallows between 1661 and 1688 during the period known as
The Killing Time
The Killing Time was a period of conflict in Scottish history between the Presbyterian Covenanter movement, based largely in the south west of the country, and the government forces of Kings Charles II and James VII. The period, roughl ...
. Their names, where known, are recorded on a nearby plaque. One obdurate prisoner's refusal to escape death by swearing loyalty to the Crown prompted the snide remark by the Duke of Rothes that he had chosen to "glorify God in the Grassmarket".
In 1736, the Grassmarket formed the backdrop to the
Porteous Riots
The Porteous Riots surrounded the activities of Captain John Porteous (c. 1695 – 1736), Captain of the City Guard of Edinburgh, Scotland, who was lynched by a mob for his part in the killing of innocent civilians while ordering the men ...
which ended in the lynching of a captain of the Town Guard. A plaque near the traditional execution site now marks the spot where an enraged mob brought
Captain Porteous's life to a brutal end.
![Maggie Dickson's Pub](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/Maggie_Dickson%27s_Pub.jpg)
A popular story in Edinburgh is that of Margaret (or Maggie) Dickson, a fishwife from
Musselburgh
Musselburgh (; sco, Musselburrae; gd, Baile nam Feusgan) is the largest settlement in East Lothian, Scotland, on the coast of the Firth of Forth, east of Edinburgh city centre. It has a population of .
History
The name Musselburgh is Ol ...
, whose husband left, possibly
press-ganged, to join the
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...
. Maggie had gone to work in an inn in the Borders, and was hanged in the Grassmarket in August 1724, at the age of 22 or 23, by hangman John Dalgliesh
for murdering her illegitimate baby there by drowning it or placing it in the river
Tweed
Tweed is a rough, woollen fabric, of a soft, open, flexible texture, resembling cheviot or homespun, but more closely woven. It is usually woven with a plain weave, twill or herringbone structure. Colour effects in the yarn may be obtained ...
at
Kelso, shortly after the birth. After the hanging, a doctor declared Dickson dead, and her family argued with the medical students, who then were only allowed to dissect criminal corpses,
so her body was taken back to Musselburgh on a cart. However, on the way there, the story was that her family went for a
wake at an inn (possibly Sheep's Heid Inn,
Duddingston
Duddingston ( sco, Duddiston) is a historic village in the east of Edinburgh, Scotland, next to Holyrood Park.
Origins and etymology
The estate wherein Duddingston Village now lies was first recorded in lands granted to the Tironensian monks ...
) when they heard noises from the coffin as she awoke.
Under Scots Law, her punishment had been carried out, so she could not be executed for a second time for the same crime (only later were the words "until dead" added to the sentence of hanging). Her "resurrection" was also to some extent seen as
divine intervention
Divine intervention is an event that occurs when a deity (i.e. God or a god) becomes actively involved in changing some situation in human affairs. In contrast to other kinds of divine action, the expression "divine ''intervention''" implies that ...
, and so she was allowed to go free. In later life (and legend), she was referred to as "hauf-hingit Maggie" and attracted curiosity as she was seen back in the Grass-market in October 1724, with an item about a crowd forming to see her in the ''
Scots Magazine
''The Scots Magazine'' is a magazine containing articles on subjects of Scottish interest. It claims to be the oldest magazine in the world still in publication, although there have been several gaps in its publication history. It has reported on ...
.''
She remarried her husband (as ‘death’ had parted them) and lived another 40 years.
A poem in Scots appears in a book ''Quines'' by actress
Gerda Stevenson.
"Hauf-hingit Maggie
Deith is wappin when it comes – like birth,
I ken – I hae warstled throu, an focht wi baith.
She wis blue, ma bairn, blue as the breast o a brid
I seen oan the banks o the Tweed thon day; then grey,
aa wrang, the naelstring windit ticht aroon her neck;
I ettled tae lowse it, aince, twice, but it aye slippit –
ma hauns couldnae grup, ma mind skailt
frae the jizzen fecht, ma mooth steekit:
no tae scraich, no tae scraich, let nane hear…
I stottered oot, doon tae the watter, thocht tae douk her
in its cauld jaups, but ower late. I laid her quate
in lang reeds, achin tae hae a bit basket tae float her oot
like Moses, aa the wey tae England an the sea,
gie her a deep grave, ayont kennin; but they fund her,
still as a stane whaur she lay; an syne me,
wannert gyte agate Kelso toun. “Murther!”
they yaldered, “Murther!” like dugs.
Embro Tolbooth’s a dowie jyle. An mercy? Nane they gied me
at ma trial—the verdict: hingin. The duimster slippit the towe
ower ma heid, drapt the flair – but I’d lowsed ma hauns,
I gruppit thon raip, aince, twice, thrice at ma thrapple –
I’d dae it this time! The duimster dunted me wi his stick,
dunt, dunt, an the dirdum dinged in ma lugs,
“Clure the hure! Clure the huir!” Syne aa gaed daurk.
A chink o licht. The smell o wuid, warm – a cuddie’s pech;
ma een appen. I lift ma nieve, chap, chap oan ma mort-kist lid,
chap, chap! A scraich ootbye, a craik o hinges. I heeze masel, slaw,
intil ma ain wake, at the Sheep Heid Inn. Fowk heuch an flee:
“A ghaist, a bogle, risin fae the deid!” I sclim oot, caum.
The braw Brewster gies me a wink, hauns me a dram.
I sup lang the gowd maut, syne dauner back tae life, an hame."
There is now a pub in the Grassmarket named Maggie Dickson's near where she was hanged.
In 1775, the young
advocate
An advocate is a professional in the field of law. Different countries' legal systems use the term with somewhat differing meanings. The broad equivalent in many English law–based jurisdictions could be a barrister or a solicitor. However, ...
James Boswell
James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck (; 29 October 1740 (New Style, N.S.) – 19 May 1795), was a Scottish biographer, diarist, and lawyer, born in Edinburgh. He is best known for his biography of his friend and older contemporary the Englis ...
's first criminal client, John Reid from Peeblesshire, was hanged in the Grassmarket for sheep-stealing. Boswell, convinced of his client's innocence and citing Maggie Dickson's miraculous recovery, hatched a plan to recover Reid's corpse immediately after execution and have it resuscitated by surgeons. He was finally dissuaded from this course of action by a friend who warned him that the condemned man had become resigned to his fate and might well curse Boswell for bringing him back to life.
Sir Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels '' Ivanhoe'', '' Rob Roy' ...
described his memory of the Grassmarket gibbet in his novel ''
The Heart of Midlothian
''The Heart of Mid-Lothian'' is the seventh of Sir Walter Scott's Waverley Novels. It was originally published in four volumes on 25 July 1818, under the title of '' Tales of My Landlord, 2nd series'', and the author was given as "Jedediah Cle ...
'' published in 1818.
The fatal day was announced to the public, by the appearance of a huge black gallows-tree towards the eastern end of the Grassmarket. This ill-omened apparition was of great height, with a scaffold surrounding it, and a double ladder placed against it, for the ascent of the unhappy criminal and the executioner. As this apparatus was always arranged before dawn, it seemed as if the gallows had grown out of the earth in the course of one night, like the production of some foul demon; and I well remember the fright with which the schoolboys, when I was one of their number, used to regard these ominous signs of deadly preparation. On the night after the execution the gallows again disappeared, and was conveyed in silence and darkness to the place where it was usually deposited, which was one of the vaults under the Parliament House, or courts of justice."
Architecture
The old market area is surrounded by pubs, restaurants, clubs, local retail shops, and two large
Apex Hotels.
The building dates range from 17th century to 21st century. The White Hart Inn dates from the early 18th Century and claims to be the oldest public house in Edinburgh and is said to have been visited by
Robert Burns
Robert Burns (25 January 175921 July 1796), also known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets who hav ...
(1759–96), the Wordsworths (1803), William Burke and William Hare in the late 1820s.
The City Improvement Scheme of 1868 cleared many of the slums and widened streets such as West Port, and the western group of buildings all derive from this plan. A further improvement plan in the 1920s by the City architect
Ebenezer MacRae skilfully closed many of the gaps with faux Scots Baronial blocks, ironically all built as council housing.
There are several modern buildings on its southern side. Some properties were used by Heriot-Watt University, and its predecessor college, for teaching and research until the university moved fully to its new Riccarton campus (1974–92). The Mountbatten Building of Heriot-Watt University was built in 1968) for the departments of electrical engineering, management and languages.
The Mountbatten building was converted and reopened as the Apex International Hotel in 1996.
An example of 21st century architecture is Dance Base (2001) by Malcolm Fraser Architects, the Scottish National Centre for Dance, which runs back from a traditional frontage to a multi-level design on the slopes of the
Castle Rock; the design won a Civic Trust Award and Scottish Design Award in 2002.
Modern developments
For most of its history the Grassmarket was one of the poorest areas of the city, associated in the nineteenth century with an influx of poor Irish and the infamous murderers
Burke and Hare
The Burke and Hare murders were a series of sixteen killings committed over a period of about ten months in 1828 in Edinburgh, Scotland. They were undertaken by William Burke and William Hare, who sold the corpses to Robert Knox for dissection ...
. Up until quite recently it was still to some extent associated with homelessness and drunkenness before its rapid gentrification as a popular tourist spot. The character of the area was reflected in a number of hostels for the homeless, including that of the
Salvation Army
Salvation (from Latin: ''salvatio'', from ''salva'', 'safe, saved') is the state of being saved or protected from harm or a dire situation. In religion and theology, ''salvation'' generally refers to the deliverance of the soul from sin and its c ...
Women's Hostel (now a
backpackers hostel) which existed here until the 1980s. From then on property prices started to rise sharply.
![Grassmarket, Edinburgh (1982)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Grassmarket%2C_Edinburgh_%281982%29.JPG)
The area is, and always has been, dominated by a series of public houses. In recent years many have become more family-friendly and include dining areas. The council has recently further encouraged these to spill over onto outside pavements, giving the place a more Continental atmosphere.
The Grassmarket was subject to a streetscape improvement scheme carried out 2009–10 at a cost of £5 million. Measures aimed at making the area more pedestrian-friendly included the extension of pavement café areas and the creation of an "events zone".
The "shadow" of a gibbet was added in dark paving on the former gallows site (next to the Covenanters' Monument) and the line of the Flodden Wall at the western end delineated by a strip of lighter paving from the
Vennel
A vennel is a passageway between the gables of two buildings which can in effect be a minor street in Scotland and the north east of England, particularly in the old centre of Durham.
Etymology
In Scotland, the term originated in royal burghs ...
on the south side to the newly created Granny's Green Steps on the north side.
References
External links
Grassmarket from ''Gordon of Rothiemay's map'', c. 1647Kincaid map showing Grassmarket closes in 1784 *
ttps://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2024916 Edward Topham's account of John Reid's executionA Guide to the Grassmarket
*
{{coord, 55, 56, 51.26, N, 3, 11, 45.59, W, display=title
Squares in Edinburgh
Old Town, Edinburgh
Areas of Edinburgh
Execution sites in Scotland