Grassmarket and Greyfriars Kirkyard

The Vennel is a long, steep stone staircase that slices through the dark masonry of the Old Town, framing a direct sightline to the rugged profile of Edinburgh Castle. The name comes from an old Scots word for a narrow passage between…

The White Hart Inn wears a white-painted facade and an exterior lantern that distinguishes it from the surrounding stone buildings of the Grassmarket. It stands on foundations dating back to fifteen sixteen, making it one of the oldest pub…

The Covenanters' Memorial in Greyfriars Kirkyard stands as a plain stone obelisk marking the final resting place of eighteen thousand people who died for their religious beliefs. In sixteen seventy-nine, several hundred prisoners were held…

The Bow Well is a plain, wall-mounted fountain basin marked by an arched stone head tucked against the curve of Victoria Street. It replaced the original seventeenth-century town well that once served the residents of the West Bow when…

Victoria Street curves sharply uphill in a distinctive crescent, lined with colorful, stacked storefronts built on two levels. This street design emerged from a nineteen thirties city improvement plan, intended to connect the High Street…

A small bronze terrier sits on a granite plinth near the corner of Candlemaker Row. This is Greyfriars Bobby. Local stories claim he guarded his master’s grave in the nearby kirkyard for fourteen years after the man died in eighteen…

The stone walls of Greyfriars Kirkyard hold thousands of burials within the heart of Edinburgh. This site became a cemetery in fifteen sixty-one, after Mary Queen of Scots granted the land to the town. In the late seventeenth century, a…