Grassmarket

In addition to seeing shows at the Fringe, and while my hosts were working, I did a number of walks. And as my first show of the Fringe was on Grassmarket, I decided to spend an hour going around this area. It was traditionally, as the name suggests, a market area (for a lot more than grass!), but as you can see below, it is now mainly an area for people to sit and eat and drink in. It is basically a large rectangle with mostly old buildings down one side and very unattractive newer ones on the other.

This is in one corner of the Grassmarket, where it meets King's Stables, a road named as such because, yes, this was where the royal stables once stood

Just to the right of the photo below are the Granny's Green Steps, leading up towards the castle

Out of one side of Grassmarket is a street called West Port, so called as it was once an entrance gate through the long gone city walls. Along this is the West Port Garden, a very precipitous little park.

This is Portsburgh Square built in 1900, with the castle looming above it.

Opposite a building has a stone dated 1696 for the Cordiners, the guild that controlled leather production

This art nouveau style building was built as a Salvation Army Women's hostel, as is inscribed over the door. This is from a time when you named your buildings in stone as you expected permanence, not a painted sign that could be replaced at anytime as is now the way.

Both sides of Grassmarket have several steep steps. These ones are the Vennel, meaning a small street. It follows the line of the old 16th century Flodden Wall that protected the city. Almost all remnants of the city wall have gone now but half way up....

...there remains a tower from the wall

Grassmarket affords fine views up to the castle

Below is the Bow Well, which dates from 1681

The Covenantors Memorial. Edinburgh was plagued more than most places by religious schisms and strife. This marks the spot where over a hundred covenantors were executed in the late seventeenth century. As well as a market place this was the favoured scene for public executions.

This corner building is probably the oldest in the square - there is a stone sign dating it to 1616, although if it doesn't look that old its because it has been altered and renovated a lot in succeeding centuries.

The Smallest Pub in Scotland apparently. 17 feet by 14 feet, with most customers outside on a sunny summer day. Above the old mission hall to bring food and clothing to the slum dwellers here in the 19th century.

As I said, one half of the market is basically just lined with pubs and restaurants. So here is Maggie Dicksons, a pub named after a fishwife who was hanged here in 1724.

Followed by the double entendre of the Last Drop, referring to the drop suffered by prisoners hanged from the nearby gibbet, as well as now the idea of the last drop of one's expensive pint.

The White Hart claims to be Edinburgh's oldest pub with cellars dating back to 1516, although the structure above is "merely" mid 18th century.

And finally the Beehive, an old coaching inn. You won't die of thirst in the Grassmarket!