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Edinburgh New Town
Classical Buildings

Click on photos to enlarge


The New Town in Edinburgh is not new - it was built between the 1760s and 1850s in the Georgian style. The Old Town which had developed below the castle since medieval times had become too cramped. The beauty of the New Town is its consistency of style, using the Classical proportions and details very much favoured in the 18th century. It is the world's largest area of Classical domestic architecture; this page only presents a very small sample.


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In the Moray Estate designed by James Gillespie Graham in 1822:
Moray Place
(2 photos), a duodecagon in a Doric order.
Great Stuart Street, where another leading New Town architect William Playfair had his practice (at No. 17, the middle house in the picture)


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Albyn Place, also in the Moray Estate, is of a similar design to Moray Place but without the bends.
St Bernard's Crescent, 1824, by James Milne. Greek Doric colonnades on the ground floor, rising to two floors in the centrepiece.
Royal College of Physicians, 9-10 Queen Street. A Neo-Classical building by Thomas Hamilton, 1844. To its left, a house by Robert Adam, see separate page.


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Drummond Place, partly 1804 by Robert Reid and partly 1818 by Thomas Bonnar. Sydney Goodsir Smith lived in no. 25. More.
Heriot Row
, 1802-3 by Robert Reid.
Home of Robert Louis Stevenson.
Scotland Street
, 1823, chiefly 4-storey tenements. Famous in novels by Alexander McCall Smith. More.


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St Mary, Bellevue Crescent. Neo-Classical, designed in 1824 by Thomas Brown for the Town Council. Corinthian portico, Doric orders on the tower.


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Nos. 21 and 22 St Andrew Square, 1775, by John Young. Main door flats with second door to a common stair. Rubble-built, ground-floor of no. 21 refaced with ashlar in 1845 and Doric porch, no. 22 with Corinthian porch in 1854. Henry Brougham was born in no. 22 in 1778.
North Castle Street, built 1790s.
Home of Sir Walter Scott


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George Street, western end, south side. Some of this dates from the 1790s, e.g. the long frontage with the pilasters by James Nisbet.
Rutland Square, developed in the 1830s. James Tait adapted designs of 1819 by Archibald Elliot. Three-storey houses with Ionic porches. The house with the flag is No. 24, the last picture showing its porch. This is the home of The Scottish Arts Club.



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Edinburgh Academy, Henderson Row, by William Burn, 1823-4.
India Street, development started in 1819 under Thomas Bonnar. 
More on both on James Clerk Maxwell page.


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Royal Scottish Academy, The Mound, 1822-6 and 1831-6 by William H. Playfair. Greek Doric, with statue of Queen Victoria, 1844, by John Steell. Andy Warhol exhibition at the time of the picture.
National Gallery of Scotland, The Mound. Ionic design by William H. Playfair, completed 1854. 


See also Robert Adam

St Andrew and St George

St Stephen's Church

Map

Development of the New Town

More of Edinburgh at Astoft


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All photographic images on this website are © Copyright the website owner 2001 or later unless otherwise stated. Email contact above. Full size originals (3-6 megapixels)  are available for approved purposes.