St Andrew's House: From Calton Jail to Government
Why is it significant?
Face the long, pale building with its tall vertical bays and stern symmetry, so different from the Greek temples around it. This is St Andrew's House, Edinburgh's great piece of 1930s architecture, sharp-edged and unmistakably modern. Before it stood here, this rock belonged to Calton Jail.
Key Facts
| Place | St Andrew's House: From Calton Jail to Government |
|---|---|
| Address | 2 Regent Road, Edinburgh EH1 3DG, UK |
| Geo Coordinates | 55.95320, -3.18340 |
| Part of Walk | Calton Hill, Edinburgh: Monuments, Martyrs and the Athens of the North |
| Generated | Generated |
Face the long, pale building with its tall vertical bays and stern symmetry, so different from the Greek temples around it. This is St Andrew's House, Edinburgh's great piece of 1930s architecture, sharp-edged and unmistakably modern.
Before it stood here, this rock belonged to Calton Jail. The prison opened in 1817, with castellated walls and towers along the cliff edge, so that travellers arriving in Edinburgh from the east were greeted by a fortress full of prisoners. Some called it romantic. It was not. Look along to the small turreted building near the burial ground: that is the Governor's House, the one fragment of the jail that survived when the rest was demolished in the 1930s.
St Andrew's House was designed by Thomas Tait and completed on the eve of the Second World War, to bring the civil servants of the Scottish Office together under one roof. Look at the large figures standing along the façade above the entrance. They represent the things a government is supposed to look after, such as health, agriculture and education. Today the building is the headquarters of the Scottish Government.
Think about the journey you have made. A bridge that collapsed and was built again. An archive paid for with rebels' land. A sceptic's tomb guarded through the night, a president among Scottish graves, reformers sent to the far side of the world for asking for the vote. An unfinished temple, a time ball, a play performed in a hollow, terraces for whisky merchants, a poet's temple, a parliament that waited... and finally a jail turned into the offices of a government.
That is Calton Hill: a small green hill where Edinburgh has argued, in stone, about war, faith, freedom and power for more than two hundred years. Waterloo Place and Princes Street are just a few steps to the west. Before you go, look back up at the columns on the summit one last time.