Core Edinburgh Walking Tour

(Numbered Stops)

1. College Wynd (Guthrie Street): Scott’s birthplace in the Old Town; urban childhood and early city memory.

2. High School Yards: Early education and the beginnings of Scott’s archival instinct.

3. 25 George Square: Student lodgings within Enlightenment Edinburgh; intellectual formation.

4. Buccleuch Parish Churchyard: South-side burial landscape shaping early urban awareness of mortality.

5. Greyfriars Kirkyard: Scott family graves; civic memory and inscription in stone.

6. Parliament Hall (Parliament House):Scott’s legal workplace; law as social archive and narrative theatre.

7. Signet Library: Legal culture and professional networks within Enlightenment Edinburgh.

8. St Giles’ Cathedral: Church, conscience, and civic moral atmosphere in the Old Town.

9. National Library of Scotland: Custodian of manuscripts; Scott’s editorial and archival legacy.

10. The Mound: Urban hinge between Old Town and New Town.

11. 39 Castle Street: New Town residence; industrialised authorship and literary production.

12. Assembly Rooms: Public acknowledgment of authorship in 1827.

13. Scott Monument: Civic Gothic memorial to literary nationalism.

14. Edinburgh Castle: Topographic emblem of Scotland’s historic imagination.

15. 5 North St David Street: Post-1826 lodgings; dignity amid financial collapse.

16. Douglas Hotel (St Andrew Square): Final return to Edinburgh in 1832.

17. 3 Walker Street: Later New Town residence during years of retrenchment.

18. 16 Atholl Crescent: Associated New Town address linked to Cadell.

19. Old Calton Burial Ground: Civic commemorative landscape overlooking the city.

20. National Monument (Calton Hill): Panoramic symbol of Scottish national aspiration.

21. Canongate Churchyard: Layered Old Town memorial culture and historical continuity.

22. Museum of Edinburgh (Huntly House): Material culture of the city Scott narrated.

23. Sciennes Hill House (Former Site): Early childhood residence beyond the medieval core (no surviving structure).

Associated Literary & Institutional Sites

(Alphabetical)

A. Lady Stair’s House: Later home of Scott’s dining furniture; material afterlife of authorship.

B. RSA / Royal Institution (The Mound): Institutional setting of Scott’s presidency of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

C. Blackwood’s (45 George Street): Major New Town publishing house linked to Scott’s literary network.

D. Cadell’s Shop (St Andrew Square): Publisher partnership in Scott’s later career.

E. Raeburn’s House (York Place): Studio of Sir Henry Raeburn, painter of iconic Scott portraits.

F. Lockhart Vantage Point (George Street): Alleged observation point of Scott writing Waverley in 1814.

H. Statue of George IV (George Street): Civic monument recalling Scott’s orchestration of the 1822 royal visit.

I. Rose Court (Thistle Court): Proposed chambers after the 1826 crash; retrenchment moment.

L. Mackenzie’s Hotel (Castle Street): Temporary lodging following loss of Castle Street house.

M. James Ballantyne’s House (St John Street): Residence of Scott’s printer and collaborator.

N. Paul’s Work (North Back Canongate): Printing premises for early Waverley novels.

O. Archibald Constable’s Shop (High Street): Publisher’s premises central to Scott’s commercial rise and collapse.

P. John Ballantyne’s Hanover Street Premises: Agency and business mediation within the New Town publishing world.

Scott Beyond Edinburgh

Supplementary National Context (Roman Numerals)

I. Smailholm Tower (Scottish Borders): Childhood Border stronghold; early immersion in reiver history and ballad landscape.

II. Sandyknowe Farm (Roxburghshire): Childhood residence after illness; oral storytelling and Border tradition take root.

III. Ashiestiel House (Selkirkshire): Early adult home; major narrative poems and literary rise.

IV. Abbotsford (Scottish Borders): Scott’s purpose-built home; architectural self-fashioning and later novels.

V. Dryburgh Abbey (Scottish Borders): Scott’s burial place; Romantic ruin and national memory.

VI. Lasswade Cottage (Midlothian): First marital home; early domestic stability and working life.

VII. Scott’s View (near Dryburgh): Favoured Tweed valley viewpoint; landscape identity and legacy.

VIII. Rosebank Cottage (Kelso): Uncle’s Tweed-side retirement house; adolescent Border formation.

IX. Kelso Mail (Headquarters): Provincial newspaper linked to early print networks.

X. Walton Hall (Kelso): John Ballantyne’s villa; ambition and financial precarity in the Borders.

XI. Tibbie Shiels Inn (St Mary’s Loch): Border meeting place for Scott and contemporaries; sociable exchange within the Tweed valley literary circle.

XII. Selkirk Sheriff Court (Selkirk): Scott’s long-serving office as Sheriff-Depute; administrative authority underpinning his literary career.