THE OLD TOWN

Cowgate

To look over the South Bridge and see the Cowgate below full of crying hawkers, is to view one rank of society from another in the twinkling of an eye.

Robert Louis Stevenson, 1876

As the name suggests, this was once the route by which cattle were driven into the city to market. The finest houses in town used to line the street, because it was much more accessible to the carriages of the nobility than the steep-sided High Street above; but, after the building of George Square to the south and the New Town to the north, the area declined into poverty. The hawkers have now given way to crowds of drunken students, especially on Friday and Saturday nights, when the whole length of Cowgate and the Grassmarket becomes Edinburgh's late night party rendezvous.

A little way along on your right is the pompous 1920s facade of St Patrick's Roman Catholic Church

This was once an extravagant Episcopalian church, the Cowgate Chapel; inside there are some interesting 18th-century murals by the painter Alexander Runciman, which can be viewed every day as the church is open from 7.30am. It's affectionately known as St. Pat's, testament to the strong Irish presence in the area.

Beyond St Patrick's, on the right, tucked beneath this side of South Bridge, is St Cecilia's Hall.

St Cecilia's Hall

. . . there have I myself seen most of our literary and fashionable gentlemen, predominating with their side curls, and frills and ruffles and silver buckles; and our stately matrons stiffened in hoops and gorgeous satin; and our beauties with high-heeled shoes, powdered and pomaded hair, and lofty and composite head dresses. All this was in Cowgate!

Lord Cockburn

One of the last vestiges of Cowgate's glory days, St Cecilia's Hall is a must-see for all music lovers. From the outside it looks like an anonymous brick warehouse, but inside is the first purpose-built concert hall in Scotland (only the second in the UK). It was commissioned in the mid 18th century by the well-to-do aficionados of the Musical Society of Edinburgh, for whom Robert Mylne designed a well-proportioned lozenge-shaped hall, windowless to block out distracting sounds from the street, but lit from above by a shallow, oval glass dome. In its lifetime the hall has been used as a school, a baptist chapel, a boxing academy and a freemasons' hall, but in the late 1950s the University of; Edinburgh bought it with the specific aim of restoring it to its original design and function. Concerts are now regularly held here, often organised by the Georgian Concert Society (3 East Castle Road, EH10 5AP, (0131 ) 229 8018).

St Cecilia's is also home to the Russell Collection of Early Keyboard Instruments (open Wed and Sat2-5; adm), one of the most important of its type in the world. There's little explanatory help but, if you're lucky, Lilian Cameron, a volunteer guide, will be on hand to elucidate the collection's finer points and to demonstrate the sound of some of the 51 antique harpsichords, spinets, virginals, clavichords and grand pianos on display. Some of the instruments are decorated with beautifully painted patterns, landscapes or roses; some are looking their age. Plans are afoot to revamp their presentation, but for now they're arranged shoulder to shoulder in reverse chronological order.

By the entrance stands the earliest English grand piano in existence, belonging to the family of the Duke of Wellington since the 18th century. This is the instrument that sounded the death knell for the harpsichord, whose simple plucking action was superseded by the piano's more versatile and expressive hammer action. Other highlights include the collection's oldest piece, a 16th-century Italian virginal strung parallel to the keyboard to make it a more convenient shape for domestic use, and 'the green Taskin' ( 1769), the world's most-copied harpsichord, which experts itch to test out with the Goldberg Variations. There are also harpsichords that could well have been played by Handel or Mozart, and virginals of the kind played by Queen Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots.

Back on Cowgate, walk under the towering arch of South Bridge.

The South Bridge was finished in 1789, a couple of decades after the North Bridge. It had to be built sloping downhill from the High Street because the wealthy residents in the squares already developed at the bridge's southern end complained that otherwise it would obstruct their views. The bridge has 19 arches but the arch you see here is the only one visible, all the others being built into the tall buildings along Its length. Looking up, you can see how the original bridge was widened a span towards the west in 1929.

Beyond the bridge, on the left, are the heavy arches of a mid 19th-century ware house which has been converted into a pub and a club. Next door is Wilkie House, once Cowgate Free Church and now The Gilded Balloon comedy club.

Look up as you walk along to see the backs of the houses on the Royal Mile which tower up on the right.

On the left, just before the monumental modern arches at the back of Sheriff's Court, there is a smart new conversion of the Taylor's Hall, Cowgate's longest surviving fine building, reincarnated as the Three Sisters Pub and Taylor's Hall Hotel.

The Taylor's Hall was built for the Guild of Tailors In the early 17th century. In the 18th century the building was adapted for use as a theatre, the part of its history now peddled with pride by the new pub. When the theatre was closed down after the licensing of the Canongate Playhouse, the hall was taken over by Campbell's Brewery, once one of over fifty breweries in the area. None remains, but there are still plenty of places down here to stop for a drink.

Continue walking until you reach the gloomy shadow of George IV Bridge. Almost swallowed up in the shadows on the left, just after the bridge, stands Cowgate's last bit of medieval history, the tiny Magdalen Chapel (open Mon-Fri 9.30-4).

Magdalen Chapel

Built in 1541 on the site of a church dedicated to St Mary Magdalene, the chapel has four small stained-glass rounders from the mid 16th century-the only complete stained glass in the whole of Scotland to have survived the Reformation. The glass is beautifully preserved and surprisingly sophisticated in design. Set in a square, the Royal Arms of Scotland and the Arms of Queen Mary of Guise sit above the Arms of Macqueen (the merchant who founded the chapel) and the combined Arms of Macqueen and Kerr, the family of his wife, Janet Rynd, who ensured the completion of the chapel after her husband's death. Her tomb can be found tucked into the corner below the windows. After her death the patronage of the chapel was granted to the Corporation of Hammermen, a medieval guild who added the tower and the facade facing Cowgate, and whose insignia can be seen above the entrance.

The interior of the chapel is strikingly adorned with dark wooden tablets or 'brods', each recording a donation by a Hammerman to his less fortunate brethren. Down the years the chapel has been used as a meeting place by many different denominations, including the Baptists and the Methodists. In the 19th century it was sold to the Protestant Institute of Scotland, which merged with the Scottish Reformation Society in 1965. The chapel is now its headquarters. The Reverend Sinclair Horne is happy to discuss the building's past and the intricacies of Scottish church history with visitors.

At the end of Cowgate, before exploring the Grassmarket, continue around to the right into West Bow and up into Victoria Street, a good place to stop for a drink, or browse in some unusual specialist shops.

All these streets on the southern slope of the hill... are throughout of a low and repulsive character and are among the worst things of their kind that I have ever seen. The most notorious places in London are habitable and inviting in comparison.

Theodor Fontane ( 1858)

The terraced sweep of Victoria Street cut a swathe through some of the grimmest housing In Edinburgh and was designed by 'High School' Hamilton. It is now one of the most prettified shopping streets in the city.

By some strange coincidence the bottom of the street has a concentration of shops for larger women. Other specialists include a broom seller, a cheesemonger, various Latin-American gift shops and a joke shop {see Shopping). All that remains from the time of those twisting slums are some gabled late 17th and 18th century buildings at the bottom of the street, where it becomes the West Bow.

This was once the main approach to the Lawnmarket from the west, ascending in a sharp Z from here up to Castlehill. ('Bow' is pronounced like the thing you take at the end of a performance, not the thing you tie around your neck.)

Retrace your steps back to the Grassmarket. At any time of day this is an excellent place to stop for a restorative cup of coffee or a bite to eat.

On summer afternoons and evenings, the Grassmarket puts on a passable imitation of an Italian piazza, lined with Cafés serving food alfresco, and year-round its string of historic pubs become loud and jolly at night. Even so, the place hasn't quite managed to shake off the shadow of the hangman's noose or the memory of the crowds that gathered to watch him work.

Getting it in the Neck

The Grassmarket's most famous hanging was of a certain Captain Porteous, an overbearing officer in charge of the city guard. While overseeing the hanging of a popular smuggler called Wilson (at a time when smuggling was regarded as a patriotic activity), he ordered his men to fire on the crowd who were trying to make off with Wilson's corpse. Porteous was tried for murder and sentenced to death, but Queen Caroline ordered a stay of execution. This was interpreted as a reprieve, and an infuriated mob broke into the Tolbooth where Porteous was being held, seized him and hanged him from a dyer's pole in the Grassmarket. It has long been suspected that respected pillars of the community disguised themselves in order to join in the Iynching. As Theodor Fontane also noted, 'you will hear people tell this story with an expression on their faces that seems to say, "Those were the kind of people we were and if necessary will be again."'

Making off with condemned men's corpses was the norm. One John Chiesly shot the Lord President of the Court of Session, and was hanged with the pistol around his neck. Earlier this century his skeleton was found immured in a house in Dalry, recognisable by the pistol still attached to his neck. Then there was Maggie Dickson, or 'half-hangit' Maggie, who now has a pub in the Grassmarket named after her, in honour of her sudden resurrection while being carted off for burial.

Many Covenanters were hanged for their beliefs on the spot outside The Last Drop pub, now marked by a memorial. So many were executed for their stand against episcopacy that these were known as the 'killing times' (see 'Greyfriars').

Walk down the middle of the Grassmarket.

From the far end there are impressive views up to the castle and the half-moon battery, just above the northwest corner of the Grassmarket beyond Johnston Terrace. In the southwest corner, beyond the Fiddler's Arms, is West Port where the serial killers Burke and Hare lived early in the 19th century. The West Port was once the western gate in the city wall.

At the end of the Grassmarket, climb up the steep flight of steps on the left, called The Vennel

Halfway up on the left is the most impressive surviving fragment of the Flodden Wall, hastily put up in 1513 after that disastrous defeat by the English, although in reality the enclosure of Cowgate and the Grassmarket was more useful as a protection against smugglers than against the English. The crenellated bastion with its two gunloops is original.

The Telfer Wall, further up, was erected in 1620 to enclose 10 more acres that had just been bought by the town. For some time these walls restricted the growth of the city to the south, one explanation for the High Street's over developed skywards.

The red sandstone building peeping between the other buildings at the top of the steps on your right is the Edinburgh College of Art.

Walk to the top of Heriot Place and turn left at the end of the Telfer Wall, along Lauriston Place.

On your left, through the railings, you can see one of Edinburgh's most extraordinary buildings, George Heriot's School. George Heriot was goldsmith and jeweller to King James VI at the beginning of the 17th century. When the court moved down to London, 'Jinglin' Geordie' went too, safeguarding his lucrative royal patronage. He became one of the richest men in the kingdom and in his will remembered his home town, leaving money for the establishment of a hospital 'for the care and education of the orphans of freemen of the City of Edinburgh'.

The building was begun in 1628 by the builder William Wallace (no relation), and completed by the end of the century. The school is now fee-paying and private so, unless it happens to be having an open day, there is little chance of exploring the splendid interior. Even so, its fine Scots Renaissance style can be well appreciated from a distance and visitors are allowed into the central courtyard. This side of the building is grand enough for it not to be immediately obvious that you are in fact looking at the back. (The best view of the front is from the Castle Esplanade, see Walk 1.) The sturdy, turreted gatehouse on Lauriston Place was designed by William Playfair in 1829.

In 1785 the famous Italian balloonist Lunardi took off from here to fly across the Firth of Forth. Having successfully completed the crossing, he landed near Ceres in Fife, much to the disappointment of the god-fearing locals, who had apparently mistaken him for the Angel Gabriel.

Turn away from Heriot's and cross the road in front of the Royal Infirmary.

Founded in 1729, this was Scotland's first hospital specifically intended for the care of the sick poor, and soon acquired a Royal Charter from George 11, whose statue can be seen outside the main entrance. Funded by voluntary public subscription, it remained dependent upon charitable contributions until 1948, when it became part of the National Health Service.

The hospital was originally located in Robertson's Close, just off Cowgate. The first patient, Elizabeth Sinclair from Caithness, was admitted into a small rented house which had been converted into an infirmary of around six beds and was known locally as the 'Little House'. She was treated by members of the Royal College of Physicians and Incorporation of Surgeons who served the hospital free of charge. The hospital has been in the current Scottish baronial building for over 100 years. The older part is a series of surgical and medical pavilions, or ward blocks, joined by connecting corridors. This pavilion layout was promoted by Florence Nightingale who had been the inspiration for the Infirmary's nurse training school. It's worth taking a quick look into the hospital's foyer, entering by the gate beneath the Clock Tower through the 'Ever-Open Door'. Immediately to the right of the entrance is a model of the Adam building which housed the Infirmary before it moved here. There are now controversial plans for the hospital to move once more to vast new premises on the outskirts of the city, towards Dalkeith, the fourth time it will have moved since its foundation.

Keeping the Royal Infirmary on your right, walk along Lauriston Place as far as a pair of tall stone gateposts, each topped with a unicorn.

These gates were erected for the Great Exhibition in the Meadows in 1886.

Turn right through the gates and start walking down Middle Meadow Walk A little way down, turn left and then turn right and walk down the one remaining 18th-century side of George Square, now the heart of Edinburgh University.

EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY - see next section.