Victoria Street

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 with the Grassmarket below. Thomas Hamilton designed the tiered terraces, stacking shops atop stone vaulted storage spaces. Major Thomas Weir once occupied a house nearby, a man whose reputation for dark dealings in the seventeenth century famously cemented the area's enduring association with local ghost stories and folklore.