How Edinburgh’s Horrific Living Conditions Were Transformed In The 18th Century | With Alice Loxton

Alice Loxton uncovers the thrilling transformation of Edinburgh, a city which was once the most overcrowded, dangerous and pungent cities in the whole of Europe, where tottering medieval tenement blocks were surrounded by a bubbling cesspit of raw sewage. With the city bursting at its seams – and on the brink of crisis – it took a staggering boldness of vision to build the “New Town”, one of the greatest urban developments the world has ever seen. From this gem of Georgian architecture, Edinburgh was reborn as “The Athens of the North”.

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In the 18th century Edinburgh was overflowing at the seams it was one of the most densely populated overcrowded and unsanitary cities in the whole of Europe thousands of people were packed in tenament blocks where disease filth poverty and death were a normal part of life it was only after disaster struck

The town when a tenement block came crashing down that it hit home this city was at Breaking Point the solution was not a medicine or a water system a prison or a workhouse the solution had a much greater boldness of vision to the north were fresh untouched Meadows here the council

Envisaged a glorious new city that spoke of order elegance and beauty of form one which would lure back the Great and the good one which would be a suitable setting for the Scottish enlightenment and one which would put Edinburgh back on the map within 80 years this great Urban

Development was up and running and the city was transformed from squalor to Splendor it was brought out of the darkness into the light this is the story of the Edinburgh new Town You might think I’m walking through the wild Countryside of Scotland and you’d be forgiven for thinking so this in fact is Holly Roode Park 650 Acres of Hills locked Glens ridges bort Cliffs and a lot of gors it’s a wild piece of Highland landscape in the Heart of the

City of Edinburgh with the Palace of Hollywood nestled just below this was once the Royal Hunting Park and right in the center is what Robert Louis Stevenson described as a hill for magnitude a mountain in virtue of its bold design it’s the highest peak in the

City at 251 m above sea level it’s name Arthur’s Seat once you’ve had a chance to catch your breath the views from the summit of edinburgh’s great Mountain are Bountiful in their beauty out to the South you’ve got the pentland hills and to the north we’ve got the F the fourth with the Majestic fourth Bridges which take you

Out to Perth and St Andrews and down below we’ve got the port of leth where the Royal yach britania is now kept and that stretches out round to the North Sea a bit like Rome Edinburgh is sometimes described as being built on Seven Hills much to the dismay of the

Out of shaped cyclist the reason it’s so hilly is because what we’re really looking at is an ancient volcanic landscape a landscape which once lay south of the Equator part of a large continent with a warm wet climate and where I standing was once the crater of a volcano and when this

Volcano was erupting there were imense blocks of lava and volcanic ash sparking and fizzing and flying out all over the place and alongside that were great fluid lava flows streaming down there towards the Scottish Parliament and when these cooled they formed hard ignas rock out crops dotted

All over the place a bit like the raisins popping out of a rustic fruit cake delicious but fire was soon met with ice in the last 2 million years the Edinburgh Winters became bitterly cold this land used to be visited by enormous ice sheets sometimes covering the area

With a layer of ice 1 kilm thick no amount of gritting will help you there as these enormous ice sheets came slipping and sliding through the landscape the volcanic rock outcrops known as cags were polished and exposed and the sof align Stone which surrounded it was pushed up and around these cags

And sometimes dragged along to make a tail and this crack and tail process created a landscape of Great Hills surrounded by steep drops perfect if you’re planning to build say a defensive position a castle perhaps indeed these cags these raisins have been centers of settlement and

Defense since the Bronze Age and it was on one of these cracks which became known as Castle Rock from which a citadel grew to become a fortified City perched on a rocky outcrop throughout the medieval and early modern periods Edinburgh thrived to become one of the most important cities in Scotland but

All the while it was tormented by enemies South of the Border for conflict with the English was unrelenting Edinburgh being the first stop off point for any visiting English army needed to keep its defenses in good check in 1450 King James II stated that as the people of Edinburgh so dread the

Evil and injury of our enemies of England they could build a war with whatever gadgets and gizmos they could find and this should be done in what matter of ways or degree that be seen most speed for to them basically signing off the email with can we get this done

ASAP this flood and wall was built in anticipation of an English Invasion which never came it was over a meter thick and 7 m tall encapsulating the people of Edinburgh in an area of 140 Acres there were a few ports and postern which allowed traffic in and out but

Otherwise Edinburgh was pretty much trapped within these confines as well as the great Castle Rock and the Monumental City walls Edinburgh was surrounded by perilous bodies of water to the South were marshlands wild and unkempt to the north was North lock a man-made lake flooded in the 15th century to bolster

The city defenses but for 300 years this foul Lake had been used as a Dumping Ground for raw sewage by the 18th century with increased transatlantic Commerce and a growing linen industry enabled by the local port at LEF the population was growing so quickly that the city was

Bursting at its seams 50,000 people were packed in here by the midcentury trapped by the city walls and the only way to fit everyone in was to look to the heavens Edinburgh became a jungle of medieval skyscrapers the city still revolved around the High Street now known as the

Royal Mile and just like the bones of a fish hundreds of winds Venoms back streets side alleys and underground passages shot out of either side and people really did live like sardines and I would know for this is mil’s Court built in the 1690s and it’s where I

Lived in the third year of University and it was pretty tough between the whole building there was only one microwave it shocked visitors like Daniel defo in no city in the world do so many people live in so little rumors at Edinburgh Edinburgh was one of the most densely populated overcrowded and

Unsanitary towns in the whole of Europe the city was filled with tenament blocks these are blocks of flats which all share a communal stairway and this meant that the wealthy and poor lived cheek by Jou but they were prone to fires repeatedly ravaged by disease and it was Notorious for its drunkenness and

Violent crime Sir Gilbert Elliott was a gast at the state of his Capital City confined by the small Compass of the walls and the narrow limits of the royalty which scarcely extends beyond the walls the houses stand more crowded than in any other town in Europe and a built to a

Height that’s almost incredible the High Street would have been packed with butchers fishmongers Dyers Tanners candle makers soap makers Weavers and Bakers so it was a pretty smelly place the Tanners and Dyers use urine to treat leather and Dy cloth and the candles were made by Tallow that’s melted hard

Animal fat and on Market Day the fishmongers would gut the fish at the stools and butchers would cut up animal flesh on their BS and let the blood run onto the road slushing around horse manure with no running water or FL rushing toilets people emptied their

Chamber Bots into the streets and all of this was washed down by the rain into the Great Lake of sewage North Lock and Joseph Taylor’s nose fared none the better in a morning the scent was so offensive that we were forced to hold our noses if we passed the streets and take care where we Trot for fear of an accident disobliging our shoes and to walk in the middle at night for fear of

An accident on our heads whilst Edinburgh held the Accolade of being Europe’s Most pungent Town it was at crisis point after the act of Union in 1707 Parliament and many of the prosperous governing classes jumped ship taking their families and wealth to London with economic stagnation overcrowding disease poverty and

Political turmoil it was the perfect conditions for a fullblown revolution One Night in September 1751 disaster struck struck the city center a six-story tenament collapsed without warning now this happened all the time in Edinburgh but normally only in the poor areas what was so shocking about

This disaster was it was one of the most prestigious streets in the city with fatalities from some of Scotland’s grandest families suddenly it hit home Edinburgh was desperately disgustingly devastatingly overcrowded and had been for almost a century and nobody had done anything about it so by the 1750s it was

Truly full to the brim the city was at breaking point there was only one solution to the north of the city pass the north lock were vast suedes of pastoral land it was time to free the city from the confines of her medieval walls and start

Expanding out the idea of a new town was not a new idea in itself it was first suggested about 80 years before by the Jew Duke of Alban and York later King James I 7th and second the Duke’s big plan never came to be for when he left the city to become

King in 1685 his plans were thrown into disarray by the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the new joint monarchs William and Mary he probably had bigger things to worry about than the Edinburgh new town so for over half a century as the cesspit of North lock was heaving and

Swelling the plans had lay stagnant they needed some bright spark with a determination and drive to get the ball rolling luckily the man who led the city Lord provest George Drummond was a Visionary he had spent his lifetime improving his beloved City of Edinburgh and finally by the 1750s momentum

Started to build it was a decade of booming international trade and a new culture of optimism in Scotland a belief in economic progress and the enlighten values of Civic Society Drummond commissioned a report wealth is only to be obtained by trade and commerce and these are only carried

On to Advantage in popular cities there also we find the chief objects of pleasure and ambition and there consequently all those will flock whose circumstances can afford it the plan was exactly what cities do today they invest in the infrastructure and culture of the city to reel in skilled workers and

Private Capital edinburgh’s New Town project was designed to lure back Scottish noblemen who had jump shipped to London persuading them that the citycape of wide symmetrical streets Terrace tow houses luxury shopping and open squares and Gardens where they might prominade or show off their new Bonnet perhaps Drummond looked a seize

For inspiration for it was during these years that St Petersburg was erected upon the marshes of the Baltic coast and Lisbon was rebuilt after after the terrible earthquake of 1755 but whilst these projects were funded by a crown Scotland hadn’t had a Royal Court since 16003 it was a

Momentous task for Drummond who spent 10 years marshalling the finances he had to sort through custom revenues duties on ale public loans the seized assets of Jacoby Rebels and he banked on future income by selling the residential lots of the development Off plan to PR private Individuals in 1766 a competition was launched to design the plans for the new town and by the 6th of June 1767 the minutes of the Edinburgh Town Council proclaimed on Wednesday last the magistrates of Edinburgh convered on Mr James Craig architect a gold medal with

The freedom of the city in a silver box as a reward for his Merit for having designed the best plan of the new town James Craig was only 21 years old he was the son of an Edinburgh Merchant and his uncle was a poet who had written

The lyrics to rule britania winning the New Town competition was his big break and All Eyes in Europe looked in to await how the Scottish Capital be transformed and in light of the Jacobite rebellion which had threatened to uproot the British monarchy Drummond and his team took this as an opportunity to show

Their loyalty to George III’s hanovarian Dynasty and so the first plan of James Craig which was published by John lry in 1766 reflected the shape of the Union flag with diagonal streets stretching out from a Central Square now this never came to be perhaps living in a triangular shaped house

Wasn’t very practical and in 1767 James Craig produced the rectangular plan plan which was the final design Craig designed three parallel wide roads running east to west intersected by three smaller cross streets running north to south these were for edinburgh’s grandest houses and behind them were the minor streets and

Stable Lanes to keep the Riff Raff out of sight instead of tottering tenaments perched on a ridge the new town buildings aded to classical orders they were solidly constructed and Broad rather than tall there was generous space open views light and Order and unlike the dark Granite of the

Medieval Old Town the new town was built of a distinctive light gray stone of the local Craig Le Quarry the principles of the Scottish Enlightenment of rationality order logic light was cemented in Craig’s neoc classical design the names of these streets were a great political gesture for they were

All named after George III and his family The three principal streets were George Street Queen Street and Prince’s Street and of those were Frederick Street after his second son and Hanover Street after the great Dynasty and to symbolize the union of the two Nations the two squares were named after patron

Saints St George’s square and St Andrews Square although this sent the city into a flurry of confusion for there was already a George Square in Edinburgh so in an Ode to George III’s Queen it was renamed Charlotte Square and to really crush the spirit of any remaining Jacoby Rebels the two minor

Streets thistle Street and Rose Street took the names of the national symbols of Scotland and England but whilst the pr spouted ideas of Enlightenment order and rationality behind the scenes was rather more chaotic first of all it was Jolly hard to persuade people to buy into the new

Developments the land was given out by a process called fuing the most common form of land tenure in Scotland and developers could buy plots to build on so long as they stuck to the overall vision and were people rushing to the councils a bager spot in this Prime real

Estate were their crowds shoving up against the doors kicking and screaming and pushing to get first dibs I’m afraid it was quite the opposite the takeup was at best sluggish the first plot of land was taken up by John Young who was paid a princely sum of20 to get the ball

Rolling and his house the very first house to be built in this great Enlightenment project of order and rationality paid absolutely no attention to Craig’s plan rather than build a row of terrorist tow houses as instructed Mr Young decided to build two houses facing each other across a small Grass Court

And this is what remains of fifel Court as it came to be known it’s widely regarded as the first house of the new town up and running by 1766 7 but it’s also been suggested that Mr Young had already built a property on thistle Lane and the courtyard was built to protect

His lovely view of the fth of fourth to ensure that no one else followed Mr Young’s approach some said was creative others say anarchic the city council laid down the law with building restrictions ornamentation was to be kept to a minimum and the streets were to be fronted by droved ashla

Basically large blocks neatly carved to even faces and square edges then scored with parallel lines made by a broad chisel but the new town residents went out of their way to bend the rules Craig had planned for two churches to Mark each end of George Street but the land

For the church near St Andrew Square was such a prime location with views running right down towards Charlotte square that it was too enticing an offer for sir Lawrence Dundas and so in 1774 he bought the land and bought himself a grand house the church was bumped off to George Street

Instead another of the earliest residents was Sir John Sinclair a politician who lived with his family at 133 Geor Street he and most of his 15 children were over 6 feet tall and the pavement outside his home was known as the Giants Causeway from the end of the 1760s the

Professional and business classes gradually deserted the Oldtown tenaments in favor of these more desirable family residents where the domestic servants could be tucked away living and working in the attics and basements and it was in these basements that the Hoy pooy did the leg work to ensure that the new residents

Could enjoy a lifestyle of dinners routes evening parties and dances a maid servant might awake at 6:00 a.m. or even 4:00 a.m. on washing days and not finish until 11:00 sounds like she might have appreciated one of these cappuccinos thank you so much thank you the final part of J Craig’s New Town

Plan to be built was Charlotte square and the city council had really warmed up to it all now everyone realized the new town was actually a super idea they weren’t having to pay people like Mr Young to move in anymore so for this final flourish they really pushed the

Boat out they approached the best in the business the absolute undoubted crem de La Creme they got in touch with the Scotsman Robert Adam a champion of the neoclassical style and one of the greatest architects the country had ever seen the new town so far had been designed in Terraces where each house

Was clearly marked out but Charlotte Square had grander aspirations each of the four sides is decorated as one Monumental palacial facade with individual houses integrated within and the lower stories of each block is rusticated and above that the facades follow a mixture of Ionic and Corinthian orders but really there’s not that much

Decor apart from that a few of the sections of freezes carrying the North and South Terraces are carved to imitate the honeysuckle flower and there are also which is very common Robert Adams style panels showing garlands of foliage so-called swags which can also be found in his interior

Decorations these 100 meter long facades were not without a few handy features what do you think of this trumpet shape in the railings which was used to Snuff out the Torches carried by link boys who would light your way home at night and many of the front steps have and boot

Scrapers so your visitors can remove any mud before they walk on any carpets and this raised pavement with mounting blocks allowed you to easily hop in and out of your Carriage the first view in Charlotte Square was granted in 1792 shortly after Robert Adam’s death but the outbreak of

War with revolutionary France led to a downturn in the building market and after the completion of the first house it took a while for things to get going again and so it was only in 18 1920 that’s 30 years after it was first designed that the final Stone was in

Position this became the most fashionable address in Edinburgh and welcome many famous residents over the years we’ve had Alexander Bell the inventor of the telephone and Joseph liser of lising Fame the pioneer of antiseptic medicine and these streets behind Charlotte Square would have once been bustling with deliveries carriages

And horses but these days the inhabitants are perhaps a little less indust and this is where I live from my fourth year of University number three Randol place that’s my bedroom up there where I spent my fourth year writing my dissertation on James Gil it was quite a transformation for

The city just 80 years since the 1751 tenament collapse it was now home to the largest planned city development in the world James Craig’s New Town became known as the First new town but soon enough two further New Towns were built with elegant rows of classical Terraces popping up until the mid 19th

Century Charlotte Bronte was most impressed by what she saw she wrote that London was just Pros compared to the Poetry of Edinburgh and London was like a great rumbling rambling heavy epic compared to Edinburgh a lyric brief bright clear and vital as a flash of lightning although built for edinburgh’s

Wealthy middle classes the elegant squares and gleaming Terraces were much more than residential ornaments the new town provided both the setting and the inspiration for the Scottish Enlightenment and it was during these decades that Edinburgh became Europe’s leading philosophical inquiry Center for scientific experiment and debate and it

Coined the nickname the Athens of the north even the great philosopher voler admitted today it is from Scotland that we get the rules of taste in all the art from Epic poetry to gardening like the students who live in these Flats today dinner parties were all the rage for the great philosophers

David H moved in as soon as he could hosting parties with the intellectual creme de La Creme his table plans included the inconus Adam Smith the chemist Joseph black the historian William Robertson and the political philosopher Adam Ferguson all putting the world to rights over boiled puddings soon enough Social Clubs sprang

Up and institutions were founded to promote learning and debate there was the assembly rooms the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Scottish Academy whilst they weren’t preoccupied with all this Enlightenment thinking outside the box one of the biggest challenges new town residents faed was the wind here’s

What Edward Topham had to say when he visited in the 1770s as Edinburgh is situated on the borders of the sea and surrounded by Hills of an immense height currents of air are carried down between them with a rapidity and violence which nothing can resist the Newbridge is the chief scene

Where these winds exert their influence and you receive it with the same Force you would where it conveyed to you through a pair of bellows in walking over it this morning I had the pleasure of adjusting a lady’s py coas which had blown almost entirely over her head and

Which prevented her disengaging herself from the situation she was in but one poor gentleman who was rather too much engaged with the novelty of the objects before him unfortunately forgot his own hat and wig which were listed up by an unpremeditated puff and carried entirely away and the back streets have just as

Much a story to tell in 1803 number 28 thistle Street saw the UK premiere of the wax works of a certain Madame to sword she had popped up to Scotland with her young son taking advantage of the shortlived piece between Britain and France in the Napoleonic Wars her grand

European cabinet of fig figes included life-size models of the French royal family only recently executed and an Egyptian mummy said to be 3,299 years old and people really did flock to see it for Madame tord later wrote about the trip the Eden show gives a great deal of pleasure and everyone is

Amazed and in 1860 on number 129 Rose Street a farmer named William MC vitty opened a certain mcv’s provision shop with the aid of his son Robert who had trained as a baker the store went from strength to strength opening a biscuit Factory in Robinson Avenue in 1888 and

It was a few years later from these humble beginnings in Rose Street that the digestive biscuit was born tea drinkers will say this is edinburgh’s finest achievement the final part of the new town project was to finish off draining the nor North lock to make way for the

Prince’s Street Gardens digging up the foundations of the new town produces masses of excess Earth and from 1781 this was brought in cartloads to the drain section of North lock by 1830 1 and a half million cartloads have been dumped here forming this great slope known as the

Mound it’s since been Rel landscaped to form the beautiful prin Street Gardens and in 1846 there were tunnels driven through this great heap of Earth to extend the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway into the magnificence of Waverly station but the vision didn’t end there for Edinburgh with her Enlightenment thinkers and rows of classical

Architecture became known as the Athens of the north and if Athens had a parnon well Edinburgh Jolly well needed one too at the end of Prince’s street is Carlton Hill and this was the chosen spot for Scotland’s Mighty Ode to the glories of the ancient world construction started in

1826 and it was a terrific idea there were going to be rows of great elegant columns putting Edinburgh on the map as the new Athens the Scottish Enlightenment carrying on the work of the ancient Greek philosophers in a glorious setting looking out over Arthur’s seat the F the fourth and the

Cural behind it had it all it was edinburgh’s great pathon except things didn’t quite go planned by 1829 with just one row of columns built the money had dried up and progress had come to a grinding halt now people have said all sorts of unkind things about this they’ve called

It Scotland’s Folly edinburgh’s disgrace and even the pride and Poverty of Scotland but I think it has a certain nobility to it in its own right at least it has character if you’re someone who prefers monuments which have been completed the National Monument shares Carlton Hill with the Nelson Monument

Shaped like an upturned telescope it was completed in 1816 to commemorate the death of Admiral Lord Nelson at the Battle of traler in 1805 and in 1852 a Time ball was added to the top to enable ships mored in the F of fourth to set their time pieces

Accurately and this circular Temple of nine fluted Corinthian columns around an elevated n was an O to dug Stewart a great Scottish philosoph and esteemed professor at the University of Edinburgh but the new town project wasn’t Without Tragedy James Craig dissolved Into Obscurity after winning the competition and he died of consumption in

1795 buried in an unmarked plot the last of his family line his personal finances were so sketchy that his books drawings and Equipment were sold off to pay creditors meaning none of his original origal sketches for the new town survive it was only in the 1930s that the suti

Society gave him the Dignity of a grave Stone and the stone masons who actually built the new town had a sorry end too it turned out that the stone dust from the high quart Sandstone of Craig Le Quarry was one of the most dangerous to work with in some cases within around 25

Years after the work over 90% of the Masons were dead as a result of silicosis and yet it was their skills their workmanship which not only enabled the plans of Drummond Craig and Adam to materialize but still stand strong over two centuries later the result was a kind of double

City a city of two parts first the ancient and picturesque Hill built one predominantly lived in by the poor and second the elegant and modern one of regularity and order lived in almost exclusively by the wealthier members of society indeed Robert L Stevenson was so inspired by this kind of double

Existence he was said to have written the famous tale of Jackal and Hyde he described his city as half a capital and half a country town the whole city leads a double existence it has long transes of the one and flashes of the other like

The king of the black ales it is half alive and half a Monumental marble in the 1750s the City of Edinburgh was at the brink of catastrophe it was this extraordinary vision and determination of Drummond which enabled the plans of James Craig to materialize and this gave the city a

Renaissance it so desperately needed it saved the medieval Old Town from ruin and created this Gem of Geor magnificence and now the city is a working and living Capital which every August is packed to the BR with actors Acappella groups Comedians and every sort of thesp myself included for the Edinburgh

Festivals perhaps I’m biased but I wouldn’t be the first to say that Edinburgh is the most wonderful city in the world as Walter Scott put it Edinburgh is my own romantic Town thanks for watching this video on the history Hit YouTube channel you can subscribe right here to make sure you don’t miss any of our great films that are coming out or if you are a true history fan check out our special dedicated History Channel History hit. TV you’re going to love it