Bristo Square: McEwan Hall, Teviot and the Edinburgh Seven
Why is it significant?
Before you spreads a wide paved square that is half skateboard park, half crossroads of student life, and beside it rises a great half-round hall with a dome, like a Renaissance theatre that wandered north and decided to stay.
Key Facts
| Place | Bristo Square: McEwan Hall, Teviot and the Edinburgh Seven |
|---|---|
| Address | Bristo Square, Edinburgh EH8 9AG, UK |
| Geo Coordinates | 55.94580, -3.18860 |
| Part of Walk | Surgeons, Skeletons and Dolly the Sheep: Edinburgh's Southside of Medicine and Science |
| Generated | Generated |
Before you spreads a wide paved square that is half skateboard park, half crossroads of student life, and beside it rises a great half-round hall with a dome, like a Renaissance theatre that wandered north and decided to stay. That is the McEwan Hall, and next to it stands Teviot Row House, all turrets and gables.
The hall was a gift from William McEwan, a brewer and member of parliament, and it opened in 1897 as the university's graduation hall, its interior covered in painted murals celebrating learning and the arts. Teviot Row House opened in 1889 and is generally said to be the oldest purpose-built students' union in the world. For most of its first century, it was strictly for men.
Which brings us back to the Edinburgh Seven. In 1869 Sophia Jex-Blake, Isabel Thorne, Edith Pechey, Matilda Chaplin, Helen Evans, Mary Anderson and Emily Bovell matriculated at the University of Edinburgh, the first group of women to enrol at a British university. After years of hostility, the courts ruled in 1873 that the university should never have admitted them, and none of them received an Edinburgh degree. Several qualified abroad and went on to practise medicine anyway.
Then, in July 2019, a century and a half later, the university awarded the Edinburgh Seven posthumous honorary degrees in medicine, at a ceremony right here in the McEwan Hall. Seven of today's medical students walked across the stage to receive them on their behalf. Few graduations in that hall can have carried more weight.
One more ghost before you go: a few steps north, on Lothian Street, the teenage Darwin lodged at number 11 during his Edinburgh years, though that house has long gone. Now walk round the side of the McEwan Hall to Teviot Place, where a grand Italian-style building faces the street with a tall arched gateway.