Although I've written about a lot of figures who I class as local heroes in Edinburgh, when I look back at the names that crop up most often they tend to be writers or architects (or even criminals...) who have left their mark on the city in some way. 

I've only written about one former lord provost of the city previously, and that was William Chambers - but there's another man who was significant for Edinburgh's development through his role as lord provost, and I'm ashamed to say that I don't think I've ever mentioned him on a tour! Not even once - in the more than ten years that I've been talking to people about Edinburgh...

So in order to make up for that heinous oversight here's a whole blog dedicated to George Drummond - who was lord provost of Edinburgh not once, or twice, but for a total of SIX terms between 1725 and 1764. 

George Drummond was born in 1688, the year of the Glorious Revolution, and he wasn't born in Edinburgh but in Perth. He came to Edinburgh to study at the Royal High School, and by 1707 - at the time of the Act of Union with England - he was engaged as an accountant, helping to make the financial case for the political union. (Following the disastrous Darien Expedition, Scotland was essentially bankrupt and was drawn into the union with England partly to ease the desperate financial state in the nation.)

By 1716 Drummond was active in Edinburgh Council, and one of his first major contributions to the city was to help raise funds for the establishment of the first Royal Infirmary, on what is today Infirmary Street in the Old Town.

The building, by John and Robert Adam, was opened by George Drummond in his role as Lord Provost of Edinburgh in 1760 - but sadly the building proved to be unpopular with the traders and merchants for whom it had been designed. They preferred to conduct business at the nearby mercat cross, as they had done for generations, and instead the building became occupied by the city council itself, and survives today as the City Chambers. 

Around this time the population of Edinburgh has grown to above 50,000 people, all crammed into the area of the Old Town, or approximately half a square mile of space. Living conditions in the city were abject in the extreme, and George Drummond began to make the case for a 'new' town to be developed, to ease the overcrowding of what was still, at that time, essentially a medieval city.

In 1766 Drummond announced a public competition to design a layout for this putative New Town - a competition that was won by a young man named James Craig, whose vision for the city's expansion proved to be revolutionary in terms of town planning. 

Drummond also set in motion the draining of the Nor Loch, the artificial lake that occupied the valley where Princes Street Gardens are today, in order to provide access to the New Town, and for the ease of allowing its development. Draining the loch proved to be a longer and more problematic task than had been anticipated, and although Drummond laid the foundation for the original North Bridge to cross the valley in 1763, disaster struck in 1769 when the bridge collapsed due to its foundations proving not to be substantial enough, killing five people. The second bridge opened in 1772, and the structure which crosses the valley today is the 1890s replacement, built by Robert Morham.

Drummond would never live to see the New Town that he had campaigned for. He died in December 1766, the year before construction would begin in what became St Andrew Square.

However, he had already been living on land to the north of the city, on his estate near Bellevue, adjacent to the village of Broughton - the place where he had his house (long since demolished but which stood in the centre of what remains a private garden today) is now called Drummond Place.

Throughout his life Drummond had been an active Freemason, inducted into the Lodge of Edinburgh (Mary's Chapel) No.1 in1722 and serving as Grand Master Mason of the Grand Lodge of Scotland in the 1750s. 

He was buried in the Canongate Kirkyard on the Royal Mile, in a church that had been built the year he was born. His grave is rather difficult to view today, inaccessible behind a considerable amount of vegetation, adjacent to the wall of the Canongate Tolbooth. 

All in all, George Drummond's life was a remarkable one, and his legacy to the city is undeniable. From having direct involvement in major moments of British history (like the union between Scotland and England, and some of the later Jacobite Uprisings) to his impact on Edinburgh itself, Drummond was important because of his sense of vision - he was able to cast forward into the future and make decisions (or argue for developments) based on the versions of the world that emerged through his imagination.

I would argue that this visionary capacity is something that we perhaps lack, as a society, today - the idea that we make decisions now for a future we may never see ('When old men plant trees in whose shade they will never sit,' as the old proverb has it) is a notion slightly alien to us. Or a notion we find it hard to act upon, maybe.

So: George Drummond - I'm sorry I haven't mentioned you on tours before, but I promise to do so from now on!

Discover more of Edinburgh's local heroes on my private city walking tours...

Each of Edinburgh's suburbs has its own distinctive style or charms - this arose from many of them originally being separate towns which were outlying the city itself, but which were gradually incorporated into Edinburgh as it expanded and developed.

Morningside is one such suburb, running along one of the main arterial roads into and out of Edinburgh to the south-west of the city centre. This roadway has been one of the historic access roads to Edinburgh for centuries - today it's a popular and well-heeled part of the city, famed for its genteel atmosphere, 'millionaires' row' of charity shops, and distinctive accent. 

The area has been home to a number of writers, including Ian Rankin, JK Rowling, and Alexander McCall Smith. Not for nothing has part of the area been nicknamed Writers' Block...!

Although it's a busy thoroughfare with lots of local shops, cafes and amenities, here's my rundown of some of the more curious features of Morningside that are worth looking out for...

HOLY CORNER
The point at which Bruntsfield becomes Morningside, at least in terms of the road names. Bruntsfield Place becomes Morningside Road at a crossroads where each quadrant of the junction has a church - hence its popular nickname, Holy Corner...

Three of the churches are active as centres of worship, whilst the fourth is the Eric Liddell Centre, a community space named for the Olympian and Christian missionary who garnered fame for his performance at the 1924 Paris Olympics, events depicted in the Oscar-winning film Chariots of Fire. 

THE BORE STONE
A slab of stone stands on the left hand side of Morningside Road as you crest the peak and begin the journey downhill into Morningside proper. 

This ancient artefact is alleged to have been the stone which held the banner of James IV as he mustered his troops nearby before marching south to fight the Battle of Flodden, in September 1513. 

It's a nice story, and a significant moment of Scottish history - but alas there are several pieces of evidence which dispute the details given in the plaque affixed beneath the stone itself. There was no such mustering point for troops in this area, and the king himself had left the city before the banners had been produced. 

Still, significant as a piece of Victoriana, having been mounted here in the 1850s...

The name originates with a large private estate property which used to occupy this land, built in 1780 and later acquired by a wealthy merchant of the East India Company named Alexander Falconer. He renamed the property Falcon Hall (playing on his surname) and commissioned Thomas Hamilton to build a grand neoclassical facade onto the front of the building.

Falcon Hall was demolished in 1909, and the land it once sat on was redeveloped, with many of the new streets taking the falcon as their name.

​Two parts of the original property have survived, however - the original gates, each graced with a stone falcon, now stand outside the entrance to Edinburgh Zoo, and Hamilton's facade was dismantled and reassembled for the headquarters of the Edinburgh Geographical Institute, about a mile to the east of its original location. ​

A DIAMOND JUBILEE MARKER
This one is easy to miss - look up high on one of the buildings on the right hand side of Morningside Road as you head downhill, and you may see a memorial commemorating Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee, in 1897.

The tenement buildings here were being developed extensively during this period, at the end of the nineteenth century, and the monument commemorates Victoria's sixty years on the throne - at that time the longest reign of any British monarch (and still the second longest, after Elizabeth II's 70 years as queen).

​The plaque features a likeness of Victoria and references her as Queen of Britain, and also Empress of India, a reminder of the extent at that time of the British Empire.

THE WILD WEST OF EDINBURGH
Tucked away just off the main road is a quirky feature that dates back to the mid-1990s, when a local furniture company had the street decorated as a Wild West frontier town for a TV advert.

Peer down the passageway off Springvalley Gardens and you'll discover more than the usual old garages and lock-ups. Today the alley contains a livery, a jail, a Mexican cantina, a Wells Fargo staging post, and a blacksmiths - or their frontages, at least! Several of the doors are emergency exits for the businesses on Morningside Road. 

It's a curiosity that is worth taking a few minutes to look at, even if it will get you a few strange looks from the people running their business from the lane today...

THE CANNY MAN'S
An iconic watering hole on Morningside Road, the Canny Man's was originally called the Volunteer Arms, and has become known for its quirky interior decor and its distinctive atmosphere. 

Opened in 1871, customers today still enter through a door known as the Stage Door, and inside are a number of smaller rooms for socialising, including the Boomerang Room, the Churchill Room, the Four Ale Bar, and the Residents' Lounge.

​The interior walls feature an eclectic display of objects, from empty bottles and heritage signage for the beers that used to be sold, to stuffed animal heads, musical instruments, newspaper clippings, puppets, bunches of keys, typewriters... It's like no other pub in the city - and possibly the world!

​Stop in for a drink - it's a truly unique experience.

​HANGING STANES
Just past the bottom of Morningside Road, along Braid Road, you'll find two small stone features set into the roadway. These are known as the hanging stanes, and mark the footings of a set of gallows which were erected here in order to execute two men accused of robbing a passing merchant in November 1814. 

The two men - Thomas Kelly and Henry O'Neil - were Irish immigrants to Scotland, and at their trial for robbery were found guilty by a jury without the need for any time for deliberation. Such was the social climate in Edinburgh at that time, justice could be swift and meted out without a huge amount of due process...

The two men were to be hanged at the site of their robbery, on this main road into Edinburgh, known to have been a dangerous route where highwaymen targeted merchants as they headed to the city markets. The gibbets were set up in the road, and after the men were executed, on 25 January 1815, their bodies were left to rot on the gallows as a warning to others.

Discover more of Edinburgh's intriguing moments of history with my private city walking tours!

Down with kings and queens! Down with lords and earls and princes and princesses! 

I'm not feeling more than usually treasonous today, I'm just thinking about how so many of the stories we tell about Scottish history tend to focus on those figures from the upper echelons of society.

​Listen in to any tour guide plying their trade along the Royal Mile (and, for reasons of full disclosure and research, I have done my share of earwigging on other guides over the summer!) and the chances are they're banging on about some king or queen and the awful or marvellous things they did or said.

But what about the ordinary folk of Edinburgh? What about the everyday citizens, the people not blessed with status or wealth, those folk like me and you who lived drab, wretched lives and never got to see the inside of a palace or the throne room of a castle?

​Their stories are also important! Because, actually, they were the people who really made up the bulk of what happened through history. So to help correct some of the narratives about high status historical figures getting all the attention, here are some of the ordinary people who played their part in Edinburgh's extra-ordinary history...

JOSEPH MCIVOR
Make your way down the Royal Mile and peering out from above one of the lanes on High Street is the face of a young boy - this is no merely allegorical figure, but Joseph McIvor, a 12-year-old boy who was living in the building on Paisley Close in 1861.

​One night during November the building - which by that time was already several hundreds of years old - finally collapsed, reduced to a tangle of rubble and timber, and Joseph McIvor was one of the survivors pulled out alive by rescuers who attended the site.

The collapse of Paisley Close was a major moment in Edinburgh's history, and led directly to the Victorian-era 'Improvements' which saw a significant amount of the city's medieval building removed and replaced with modern alternatives. These are the buildings that you typically see in the Old Town today.

Joseph McIvor wasn't the only survivor of the Paisley Close disaster, but his face was attached to the building that was put up as a replacement - along with the words he is alleged to have called out from under the rubble: "Heave awa', lads - I'm no' deid yet!"

​MAGGIE DICKSON
Feted with a pub named in her honour on the Grassmarket today, Maggie Dickson was put on trial in the 1720s for concealing her pregnancy (a crime in itself) and for killing the baby when it was born. Despite her protestations about the baby having died naturally, Dickson was sentenced to be hanged.

Except by some quirk of fate, she survived the execution, and was discovered alive in her coffin sometime shortly before her burial! 

Her survival, and the controversy that followed, led (it is said) to the adoption of a new detail in the legal legislation of the time - the sentence was thereafter to be hanged until dead - an important judicial distinction! 

​JOHN LIVINGSTON
If Maggie Dickson can hardly be claimed as an 'unknown' figure in the city, John Livingston is a man I would bet no tour guides trouble themselves to mention. He was an apothecary (a kind of chemist) and a medic in the sixteenth century, and was successful enough in his business to have been able to afford to purchase land and establish a grand estate for himself past Bruntsfield, to the south of the Royal Mile. 

Sadly Livingston only got to enjoy his life at Greenhill for around 15 years, before his death in 1645. His work had taken him into regular contact with victims of the plague, many of whom were quarantined out of the city, and most of whom would be buried in the communal plague graves in the area of Morningside.

​Livingston contracted plague and on his death was buried on the estate he'd bought for himself - his grave can still be visited just off Chamberlain Road today.

​DAVID RIZZIO
A figure whose name was linked to that of Mary, Queen of Scots - Rizzio was her secretary, and in 1566 he was murdered in the queen's chambers at the Palace of Holyroodhouse.

There remains debate and speculation around the reasons and motives for Rizzio's death, but what can't be denied is that his killing in 1566 set Mary (and, by extension, Scotland) on a course that proved to be significant. The chain of events which followed Rizzio's murder saw Mary accused of complicity in the death of her own husband, and from there into the care of Queen Elizabeth I of England, who kept Mary a prisoner for 19 years before finally executing her.

As I talk about on tours quite often, if Rizzio hadn't died that night in March 1566, the next 400 years of Scottish history could have turned out rather differently...

JENNY GEDDES
What started as an ordinary Sunday morning in 1637 led Britain into a state of civil war - and by some accounts it was a woman named Jenny Geddes who started it! 

She was a market trader in Edinburgh who opposed the use of Charles I's Book of Common Prayer in the Scottish Church. Since the Reformation the Church of Scotland had followed a different path from the Church of England, and much of what Charles I had ordained as head of state was incompatible with the practices of the Scottish church.

When the minister of St Giles' Cathedral began reading from Charles' preferred liturgy that monring in 1637, Geddes was sufficiently outraged to throw her stool at the minister - the riot which followed spread across Scotland, and paved the way for the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, aka the English Civil War, which would see Charles I executed and the whole nation plunged into bloody conflict.

CHARLES EWART
If Jenny Geddes could be charged with starting a war, Charles Ewart might be held responsible for single-handedly ending a battle...

Ewart was part of the British armed forces fighting Napoleon's troops at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, and was responsible for securing the French army's eagle standard, the flag and emblem which identified the troops and whose capture symbolically represented their defeat.

In the years after Waterloo, Ewart became something of a reluctant celebrity on the dinner party circuit, regaling diners with stories from the battle and his part in Napoleon's defeat. When he died he was buried at his home near Manchester, but his body was later moved to the esplanade of Edinburgh Castle, where he was given a full ceremonial military burial. A nearby pub - the highest in Edinburgh - is also named for him.

​THOMAS AIKENHEAD
Picture the scene: Edinburgh, midsummer, 1696. Twenty-year-old student Thomas Aikenhead is walking through the city centre with his friends, when he is overheard to remark that he wished he were in Hell, where it would at least be a bit warmer than an Edinburgh summer...!

A harmless joke to our modern ears, but in 1696 such a comment as that could get a person reported for blasphemy. Which, sadly, is what happened to poor Thomas Aikenhead.

At his trial later that year he found himself facing mounting accusations of denouncing the church, denigrating Christ and corrupting the word of God. His defence was that he was a young man and sometimes said stupid things without thinking. Sadly, his prosecutor was James Stewart, the Lord Advocate of Scotland, who secured a guilty verdict on the charges of blasphemy, and with it a sentence of death.

Aikenhead became the last person in the UK to be executed for blasphemy, on a cold morning in January 1697, when it is to be hoped he did end up in Hell, which certainly would have been a lot warmer than Edinburgh that day....

​BESSIE WATSON
Born on the Vennel in the Old Town, in 1900, Bessie Watson had been encouraged to learn to play bagpipes as a way of keeping her lungs strong against the risk of TB.

​At the age of nine she took part in a procession in Edinburgh, playing her pipes before gathering for a rally led by Emmeline Pankhurst, the coordinator of Britain's Votes of Women campaign in the early 20th century.

Such an impact did young Bessie make with her bagpipes, playing for the Suffragette cause, that a few weeks later she met with Emmeline Pankhurst's daughter, Christabel, who presented her with a brooch depicting Queen Boudica, an ancient British female leader celebrated for leading an uprising against the Romans.

As she grew older Bessie Watson became a key figure in Scotland's suffragette movement, playing her pipes for King George V, on the platform at Waverley Station as women prosecuted for demanding their voting rights were taken away to prison, and playing outside Edinburgh's Calton Jail in support of suffragettes who were imprisoned there. 

Watson died in 1992, and is celebrated with a (slightly difficult to find) plaque on the Vennel where she lived, which was unveiled by Scotland's first female First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, in 2019.

​SOPHIA JEX-BLAKE
Undaunted by being declined the opportunity to join Edinburgh's medical school in the 1860s, on the grounds that they didn't allow women to train as doctors, Sophie Jex-Blake rounded up another six women who wanted to become medics and persuaded the university to allow them to begin their studies. 

Known as the Edinburgh Seven, they were the first women to be allowed to train as doctors in Scotland, and some of the first in the UK, but were never allowed to finish their studies after a riot in the city opposing the university allowing them to study alongside male students.

Jex-Blake later qualified as a doctor overseas and returned to Edinburgh to establish two important institutions - a hospital for women and children, in Bruntsfield, and a medical school to train women as doctors! Her medical school would formally merge with the University of Edinburgh in the 1890s to allow women to train (and graduate) as doctors for the very first time. 

JAMES BARRY
In 1813, one of the university's medical graduates was James Barry, who immediately joined the British navy as a medical officer. Barry rose to become the highest ranking officer in the British armed forces, and spent much of the rest of his later career advising military establishments around the world on the best way to care for their patients.

Only after Barry's death, in 1865, when the nurse arrived to prepare his body for his funeral, was it discovered that Barry was in fact a woman - having been born Margaret Ann Bulkley, she had concealed her identity from an early age in order to pursue the career she wanted...

A significant historical figure, becoming influential in British medicine, there is still a lot of mystery around Barry/Bulkley's life, so well established was her change of identity throughout her life. She isn't (to my knowledge) publicly celebrated anywhere by Edinburgh's medical school.

ROBERT MORHAM
Finally a figure whose name I only learned recently. Robert Morham was Edinburgh's lead city architect in the middle of the nineteenth century, responsible for building more public structures (schools, police stations, swimming pools) than any of the great architectural figures we tend to celebrate on tours.

Morham laid out Princes Street Gardens, and was instrumental in shaping the style of the city as we see it today, and gave the city many of its functional buildings which continue to serve residents and visitors in the city. That his name isn't so well known is, in my opinion, truly a situation which requires correcting. 

So, there you have it - a handful (or two) of 'ordinary' people whose lives left an impact on Edinburgh or Scotland, but who are often overlooked in favour of kings and queens... Their stories are equally important and - I think - more interesting than the more well-known histories.

History, as the maxim has it, is written by the winners - but not all of those winners necessarily get the recognition they deserve.

Discover more stories of Edinburgh's past residents with my private city walking tours!

On a recent tour I found myself reflecting on a level of paradox to Edinburgh's buildings that I hadn't fully recognised before.

​I often talk about how the Old Town isn't that old and the New Town isn't that new - but although the New Town is the side of the city celebrated for its Georgian style, there is a fair amount of Georgian development in the Old Town, too. And I'd never fully recognised this because we often talk about the Georgian style rather than the Georgian period - things which are subtly different!

Our use of terms like Georgian and Victorian relate specifically to the reigns of the various monarchs who ruled Britain at different times. The Victorian  period was 1837 to 1901, during the reign of Queen Victoria. We are currently in a Carolean era, after the end of the second Elizabethan era last year - terms which feel slightly unfamiliar or incongruous in terms of contemporary Britain! 

But the Georgian period was longer than most - stretching from 1714 to 1837, during the reigns of (collectively) Georges I to IV, and the brief reign of William IV. Because of the extended nature of this period, there isn't necessarily any such single style that we could consider 'Georgian', as the style understandably shifted and changed over 123 years - a period almost twice as long as the Victorian era.

So whilst New Town is what we think of as representative of Georgian style - distinctive detailing in the buildings and the furniture - Old Town itself has a number of Georgian era buildings which often get unfairly overlooked.

Here's my showcase of some Georgian era features to be discovered in Edinburgh's Old Town...

St Cecilia's Concert Room
Hidden in plain sight just off the Cowgate, this building today houses a museum of musical instruments, as well as a performance space. But St Cecilia's concert room was built in the 1760s - right in the heart of the Georgian period - and is the oldest purpose-built concert hall in Scotland. 

The oval shape of the concert room is distinctive, with its glass cupola and the addition of sweeping modern seating for the comfort of contemporary audiences. 

George Square
Built and named not for any George of the Georgian dynasty, but for the brother of the developer who built it, George Square is at the heart of the University of Edinburgh's central collection of buildings today.

Many of the original building were demolished during the mid-twentieth century, and buildings like the university's central library occupy a significant space on the square.

But original residential properties are still visible on two of the square's four sides - including the former homes of both Arthur Conan Doyle and Sir Walter Scott - with some very distinctive 'cherry cocking' decorative detail in the stone work. Inlaying smaller blocks of stone amongst the bigger pieces creates structural strength as well as being visually interesting.

George IV Bridge
One Georgian feature that is named for one of the actual Georges is this major roadway connecting the Lawnmarket on the Royal Mile to Forrest Road, across the Cowgate valley. 

Built by Thomas Hamilton in 1832 to commemorate the visit of George IV to Edinburgh ten years previously, this bridge was originally freestanding, and then enclosed by the buildings erected to enclose it on either side. 

An earlier bridge, again from the Georgian era, is South Bridge, built in the 1780s, and crossing the Cowgate further to the east...

Edinburgh City Chambers
One of the architects most closely associated with the Georgian style is Robert Adam, who designed Charlotte Square in Edinburgh's New Town - considered some of the finest surviving Georgian architecture anywhere in Europe. But Adam also worked on buildings in the Old Town, including the City Chambers, which he designed in 1760 alongside his older brother, John.

Intended as the Royal Exchange, the building was originally designed to be an indoors trading space for the market traders who congregated around the nearby Mercat Cross. But the traders didn't want to use it, and so it was later taken on by Edinburgh City Council, who continue to utilise the space today.

​Old College
Another Robert Adam design, the Old College of the University of Edinburgh was the university's first purpose-built school building, and sat at the end of South Bridge. Designed in the 1780s, the building was unfinished at the time of Adam's death, and was later finished by William Henry Playfair.

Although the exterior of the building is impressive, a visit to the Talbot Rice Gallery provides a chance to see the interior of the space too, where the grandeur of the Georgian style is readily apparent... 

​Candlemaker Hall
Dating from 1722, the Candlemaker Hall on Candlemaker Row was - unsurprisingly - the guild hall of candlemakers! The two square towers are typical of the guild hall style that can be found elsewhere in Edinburgh too, and the candlemakers were originally located safely beyond the city walls to avoid the city becoming damaged by fires.

​Buildings like this are typical of the 'rubble built' style that was common before the later use of worked stone cut into neat blocks, which is the more common form during the later Georgian style periods of development.

​Chessel's Court
Built in the 1740s, these residential properties just off the Royal Mile on Canongate are typical of the style of housing that developed prior to the tenement style which proliferated during the Victorian improvements to Edinburgh.

Here the rubble built stonework has been covered with plaster, known as harling, which was then painted in a variety of paints drawn from natural pigments - often ochre, pink and cream.

Chessel's Court had also been the site of Edinburgh's customs house, where notorious criminal Deacon William Brodie committed his final robbery before finding his way to the city gallows, in 1787...

New Assembly Close
Built around 1813, the hall on New Assembly Close is today part of the Faculty of Advocates, lawyers from Scotland's legal system, with part of the building dating back earlier to a time when it served as Edinburgh's Assembly Rooms, a meeting space for dancing, balls and society functions. 

The building survived the Great Fire of Edinburgh in 1824, and was at one time a branch of the Commercial Bank of Scotland. It features architectural elements that are more typical of what we recognise from Georgian style structures - the symmetrical frontage, the columns, ashlar stone blocks, the windows of different proportions, and the fanlight over the entrance. 

Taken together it is apparent from just this selection of structures that the Georgian era buildings of Edinburgh's Old Town offer more of a variety of style and structure than is associated with the New Town.

Discover more of Edinburgh's architectural features with my private city walking tours!