Robert Burns's Scotland

Edinburgh

For over sixty years Edinburgh was one of the most important centres of learning and new ideas in Europe. In 1769, an English visitor said "Here I stand at what is called the Cross of Edinburgh and can, in a few minutes, take fifty men of genius and learning by the hand."

The city was a busy hive of historians, artists, scientists, doctors, writers, engineers, architects and great thinkers. There were so many fine buildings and brilliant minds in Edinburgh that it was compared to the Ancient Greek city of Athens in its Golden Age. Scotland's capital was called 'The Athens of the North'.

There were many things of which Edinburgh felt proud, but Scottish speech was not one of them. A visitor in 1775 wrote that the wealthy people of Edinburgh were anxious "to rid themselves of a Scots accent". They to even went classes to learn to avoid 'Scotticisms' in their speech.

The mixing of social classes in a small area made for a colourful and lively city. Unfortunately, there was no proper sewage disposal system. So people threw all kinds of filth from the windows of what were the tallest houses in Britain.

Many were content to go on living this way, but others wanted to escape from the noise, smells and lack of privacy.

For years, there was talk of building a New Town to the north of the old one. The scheme began with the building of the first house in 1767. Gradually, the gentry moved there and found themselves living in a modern example of town planning, with streets and squares laid out in neat regular patterns.

The old town was left to the poor and much of it soon became a jumble of slums. Burns rented rooms in the Old Town, but he very often visited the New Town where rich and important Scots were anxious to meet 'Scotland's poet'.