George IV Bridge: Two Libraries Face to Face
Why is it significant?
Stand on George IV Bridge and look at the two buildings facing each other across the traffic. On one side, a confident sandstone building with the words Let There Be Light carved above its door. On the other, a long, stern modern front with tall stone figures standing between its windows.
Key Facts
| Place | George IV Bridge: Two Libraries Face to Face |
|---|---|
| Address | Central Library, 7-9 George IV Bridge, Edinburgh EH1 1EG, UK |
| Geo Coordinates | 55.94830, -3.19250 |
| Part of Walk | Ink, Ballads and Double Lives: Edinburgh's Literary Old Town |
| Generated | Generated |
Stand on George IV Bridge and look at the two buildings facing each other across the traffic. On one side, a confident sandstone building with the words Let There Be Light carved above its door. On the other, a long, stern modern front with tall stone figures standing between its windows. You are on a bridge, by the way... the Cowgate runs far below, and both libraries drop floor after floor down into the valley.
The sandstone one is the Central Library, the city's first great free public library. Its money came from Andrew Carnegie, the Scottish weaver's son who made a fortune in American steel and then gave much of it away to build libraries. It opened in 1890, and for the first time any citizen of Edinburgh could walk in and borrow a book without paying a penny. In a city of private collections and subscription libraries, that was a quiet revolution.
Across the road is the National Library of Scotland. Its roots go back to 1689, when the lawyers of the Faculty of Advocates founded a library of their own. In 1925 they gave most of it to the nation, and the present building, begun just before the Second World War, was only finished in the 1950s. It is a legal deposit library, entitled to a copy of every book published in the United Kingdom, so its shelves never stop growing.
Its most famous keeper was a philosopher. In 1752 David Hume was made Keeper of the Advocates' Library, and he took the job for the books, not the pay. When the curators objected to some of his purchases, he handed his salary to a blind poet, Thomas Blacklock, and kept working. There he wrote his best-selling History of England. Just before, he had lodged in Riddle's Court, a courtyard a few steps up on the Lawnmarket, and his seated statue on the High Street has a big toe polished bright by students hoping for luck.
Among the library's treasures is the last letter written by Mary Queen of Scots, in the early hours of the morning in 1587, a few hours before her execution. Now walk back up to the corner of the Lawnmarket and Bank Street, where a pub carries the name of the most two-faced man in Edinburgh's history.