Jamaica Street

Jamaica Street features tall, narrow townhouses built of dark, soot-stained sandstone, their straight lines typical of the neoclassical style that defines the New Town. When the street was laid out in the late eighteenth century, it acted as a service artery for the grander squares nearby, housing tradespeople and staff. A young girl named Jane Welsh, who later became the famous wife of Thomas Carlyle, once lived in one of these houses, writing letters from her window overlooking the busy thoroughfare below.