From mean beginnings – ‘wretched accommodation, no comfortable houses, no soft beds’, visiting French knights complained in 1341 – the city of Edinburgh went on to become one of the architectural wonders of the world. But over the centuries many of its fine buildings have gone. Although invasion and civil strife played their part, some buildings simply collapsed of old age and neglect. Others were swept away in the ‘improvements’ of the nineteenth century; yet more fell in the developers’ swathe of destruction in the twentieth century as shifting patterns of social habits, industry, housing and road systems demanded change on a massive scale. Few buildings were immune as much of the Old Town’s medieval heritage was destroyed, Georgian squares attacked, Princes Street ruined, old tenements razed in huge slum clearances, and once familiar and much-loved landmarks disappeared.
In this informative and stimulating book, Hamish Coghill sets out to trace many of Edinburgh’s lost buildings – from imposing city centre edifices to domestic dwellings – and to find out why they were doomed. Lavishly illustrated, Lost Edinburgh is a fascinating insight into a cityscape that has been constantly reinvented over the years, and which continues to develop in the most unexpected and dramatic ways in the twenty-first century.
