Grassmarket

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Grassmarket
Flag of Edinburgh.svg
Square in Edinburgh
Grassmarket
Marketplace
Basic data
place Edinburgh
District Grassmarket
Created before 1477
Confluent streets Victoria Street
Candlemaker Row
King’s Stables Road
West Port
use
User groups Pedestrians , cyclists , car traffic
Space design Fountain, memorial cross

The Grassmarket in Edinburgh used to be a medieval market square, nowadays there are many small shops and pubs in the historical buildings.

history

The Grassmarket, located below Edinburgh Castle , served as the marketplace for the cattle and horse trade from 1477 to the beginning of the 20th century and is the center of the old town. In 1681 there was the first fountain with running drinking water in Edinburgh at the junction of the Grassmarket with West Bow. The public place of execution, the "Gallows of Edinburgh", was located here. A cross on the east side of the square commemorates the more than 100 Covenant supporters who died here. On February 4, 1784, James Andrews, the last person to be publicly executed in the market square.

Some pubs still have names that recall this bloody story, such as The Last Drop , whose figurehead is adorned with a gallows, and Maggie Dickson’s , on whose wall the story of their execution is described. It is said that Maggie Dickson, a fish seller from Musselburgh, was hanged here in 1728 for killing her baby. When she was carried back to Musselburgh in a coffin, however, she was awakened again. Under Scottish law, she had served her sentence, and after that event, the sentence until death was added to the sentence . That is why she was later called the half-hanged Maggie .

In the late 19th century, the Grassmarket and the neighboring street "Cowgate" ( Scots Cougait ) were considered to be one of the slums of Edinburgh. There was accommodation there for those who could only afford small rents. The conditions were poor and the individual bedrooms were sometimes occupied by up to eight people. James Thin described the situation of the residents in his book Slum life in Edinburgh, or, Scenes in its darkest places in 1891 . This situation led to the fact that in 1886 James Fairbairn, with financial support from Mrs. Jane Buchanan, founded the "Grassmarket Mission" and from 1890 a mission hall was built on the property 94 Grassmarket. In addition to food and clothing, it also offered social participation. Church services and community meetings were held there, and Fairbairn organized meetings with prominent Edinburgh citizens to raise funds for the mission's work. In Cowgate was the White Horse inn, founded in 1742 , after which a whiskey brand made by James Logan Mackie is named in 1883.

Until 1912, public markets such as the popular French market were held here.

The district with its market square and the historic buildings along the street of the same name is a popular meeting place for tourists and students, especially because of its many small shops, restaurants and pubs.

location

The Grassmarket is located directly below the imposing fortress. It is surrounded by tall narrow houses and can be reached from the George IV Bridge on Victoria Street. This street is an unusual little alley that is on two levels. There are quirky shops here like The Christmas Shop , where you can buy Christmas items all year round.

Candlemaker Row leads from the south end back up to George IV Bridge and Chambers Street, which is home to the Old College of Edinburgh University and the Royal Museum of Scotland. To the west, the Grassmarket can be reached via King's Stables Road or West Port.

  • Impressions

  • View from Grassmarket towards West Bow

  • Historical view

  • View of Edinburgh Castle

  • Marketplace

Others

  • The Grassmarket was also the setting for the gruesome crimes of the famous murderers Burke and Hare , who killed at least 18 people in 1827 when they lured them into a now-gone dead end street, suffocated them and sold their bodies to the medical school.
  • The poets William Wordsworth and Robert Burns spent time at the White Hart Inn , a small eatery on Grassmarket, and Sir Walter Scott is said to have drawn inspiration from the riot over Captain Porteus, a member of the City Guard, into his novella The Heart of Midlothian .

literature

  • TBM: Slum life in Edinburgh, or, Scenes in its darkest places . James Thin, Edinburgh 1891, OCLC 669934470 (English, archive.org ).

Web links

Commons : Grassmarket  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Executions in Edinburgh 1400 to 1900 (folio, National Library).
  2. ^ History of the Grassmarket Mission. at grassmarketmission.org, accessed April 13, 2018 .
  3. ^ Gilbert Delos: Les Whiskeys du Monde. Translation from French: Karin-Jutta Hofmann: Whiskey from all over the world. Karl Müller, Erlangen 1998, ISBN 3-86070-442-7 , p. 108 f.
  4. ^ Grassmarket ( memento from April 20, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) on edinburghfestivals.co.uk

Coordinates: 55 ° 57 ′  N , 3 ° 12 ′  W