People have lived on the present site of Edinburgh's most famous attraction- the Castle - since the sixth century, though the development in the so-called old town which ;you see today dates from the Middle Ages or later. Edinburgh may be a spacious and elegant city now, but as it evolved it became so dirty and overcrowded that people living there almost choked to death on the grime and the smell. Buildings in and around the historic Royal Mile from the the Castle down to the Palace at Holyrood may look desirable and attractive these days, but in the Middle Ages, the area was so squalid that it became known as Auld Reekie - a nickname that has survived. Edinburgh was always going to be a prime site for settlement, because its position near the River Forth made it both attractive and highly defensible. With its high and steep walls and commanding views of the countryside, the rock on which the castle was built was perfect for a fortified settlement.
However, serious building didn't really start to take place until the 11th century, when a small town began to grow up around the site which had been fortified by Malcolm Canmore and his wife, St Margaret of Scotland. The Abbey of Holyrood was founded in 1128 by David I, and the existing Canongate grew up around it. David is also thought to have founded St Margaret's Chapel at Edinburgh Castle - the oldest part of the building which still survives. In David's time, there was no real capital of Scotland - the king and his retinue simply travelled round various residences. But Edinburgh Castle became one of their regular stopping-off points, and a population grew up around it. David's influence on Edinburgh marked the start of its graowth into the great city we know today. In 1130, he granted it the status of a burgh, which meant it had permission to act both as a market and as a centre for early manufacturing industries such as cloth weaving. This helped build its prosperity, as did the king's decision to allow the first-ever Scottish coins to be minted in the town. As Edinburgh expanded, houses were built on the ridge between the castle and Holyrood - along the present Royal Mile. King David encouraged population growth, finding that French, Flemish and English craftsmen were keen to move in. Edinburgh was turning into an international community and Leith, two miles away on the Forth, was an established port trading with the Baltic states and the Low Countries such as Holland. One problem the fledgling town faced was that its proximity to the English border mad it vulnerable to regular attacks from the auld enemy. In 1296, Edward I pummelled the castle into submission, and in 1385 the English king Richard II burned down the High Kirk of St Giles and the nearby ton hall. However, by the end of the 14th century, Edinburgh had grown into the biggest and most heavily populated burgh in Scotland. It only had about 350 houses, but it had assumed a predominance which it was to maintain right up until the rise of Glasgow 500 years later.
By the mid-15th century, Edinburgh had established its own council and suburbs had developed in the area around the existing Cowgate and Grassmarket. After the terrible defeat of James IV and his army by the English at Flodden in Northumberland, a defence known asl the Flodden Wall was built around the town to protect it from invasion. Until 1437, Perth was the capital of Scotland, but Edinburgh took the title after James I was murdered. However, it was still far from the city we know today. It may not have been very big, but it was certainly getting very crowded. The problem was that the Flodden Walls built to keep the English out also served to keep the local population in So residents were forced to construct new buildings in the only available direction - upwards. The result was that tall tenements sprung up, along with the network of wynds and narrow closes which are so familiar in the old town today. Edinburgh became a kind of medieval New York, with some buildings rising to an incredible 14 storeys. After the union of the crowns of Scotland and England in 1603, the city suffered for a while because a lot of business moved to London. However, it continued to be the meeting place of the Scottish parliament right through to the Treaty of Union in 1707. Some of the buildings - St Giles Cathedral, for instance - were among the most beautiful in Europe, though the local population almost certainly didn't appreciate the quality of the architecture around them. They were simply too crowded -in and too wretched to care. Between 1570 and 1690, the population of the city grew threefold from 7000 to 21,000. Only a few years later, this had risen to 40,000 in a space of just 140 acres. That was the equivalent of packing almost the entire modern city of Perth into about a dozen farmers' fields.
Living conditions were appalling. The plague hit Leith in 1645 and wiped out half its population, and it is only a matter of luck that the centre of the city did not suffer as badly. People simply threw their stinking garbage into the streets, leaving it to be washed away by the rain. Rich and poor lived cheek-by-jowel with each other, and disease and crime were rife. Eventually, it was recognised that new accommodation had to be provided to allow the city to flourish. In 1752, by which time there had been several serious fires and building collapses in the city, plans were drawn up for the creation of a New Town outside the city walls. That New Town was to be one of the most imaginative building projects Scotland has ever seen, and its elegant streets and crescents still make up much of the Edinburgh the world knows and loves today. But before it could be built, Scotland and England had to start resolving their age-old differences and come together.
Written by Andrew Collier