By
the mid 17th century, there were too many Edinburgh inhabitants
to fit comfortably into the Old Town. Buildings in the Royal Mile,
within the city walls, were high with poor sanitation, and the
closes between them were narrow.
Under Provost Drummond, a competition was held to design a ‘New
Town’. This would extend Edinburgh to the north by building on
the open farmland beyond the Nor’ Loch, about half a mile to
the north of the Old Town. The only road in this area was Lang Dykes,
with its dry stone walls.
James
Craig, then 22 years old, won
this competition in 1766. His plan was revised the following
year and building commenced in 1767. Craig’s plan proposed
that a new street, George Street (named after George III) should
be built along the ridge to the north of the Nor’ Loch.
Access to this land to the north
of the Nor' Loch had been difficult, but later the loch was later
drained in 1763 to create what is now Princes Street Gardens. Six
years later, the North Bridge opened, and in 1779 work began on
creating the Earthen Mound (now the Mound) to link the Old and
New towns of Edinburgh.
George Street was to be the grandest
and widest street in the New Town, 115 ft broad, linking two new
squares, St Andrew Square and St George Square. It was subsequently
decided that St George Square should be named Charlotte Square
after Queen Charlotte, wife of George III.
The other main streets in Craig’s
Plan were Queen Street and Princes Street flanking George Street
on the north and south, and Castle Street, Frederick Street and
Hanover Street forming a grid.
To encourage Old Town residents
to move to the New Town, a £20 prize was offered to the first
person to build their home in the New Town. This was won by George
Young who laid his foundation stone in George Street in 1867. His
house can now be seen in Thistle Court, to the north of George
Street. |
In the late-1860s, as the building work
began, George Street would have resembled a straight country
road with fences on either site. It was to be another two or
three decades before all the houses in George Street were built.
Statues, including one to George IV who visited Edinburgh in
1822 were later added to the George Street junctions with Castle
Street, Frederick Street and Hanover Street.
The street layout around George Street today is still the same
as appeared in Craig's plan drawn up in the 1760s. More streets
have been built following further plans, created between 1802
and 1822, to extend the New Town further to the west, north
and east.
Initially, George Street was mainly residential. During the
19th and 20th centuries, several banks and insurance companies
created new offices in the street, but in recent years most
of these have found new use as bars and night clubs, and a
number of new up-market shops have moved into the street.
Other prominent buildings built in George Street included The
George Hotel, The Royal Society of Edinburgh, St Andrew’s
& St George’s Church, The Assembly Rooms and The
Freemasons’
Hall.
|
NEWS & EVENTS
