George Square: Scott's Boyhood and a Square Half Lost
Why is it significant?
Walk into the gardens in the middle and turn slowly: on one side, a row of plain, handsome Georgian houses; on the other, concrete towers and a long modern library. George Square is a place where two centuries argue with each other across a lawn.
Key Facts
| Place | George Square: Scott's Boyhood and a Square Half Lost |
|---|---|
| Address | George Square, Edinburgh EH8, UK |
| Geo Coordinates | 55.94320, -3.18850 |
| Part of Walk | Surgeons, Skeletons and Dolly the Sheep: Edinburgh's Southside of Medicine and Science |
| Generated | Generated |
Walk into the gardens in the middle and turn slowly: on one side, a row of plain, handsome Georgian houses; on the other, concrete towers and a long modern library. George Square is a place where two centuries argue with each other across a lawn.
The square was laid out from 1766 by the builder James Brown, who, it is said, named it after his brother George rather than the king. It was one of the first planned developments outside the crowded Old Town, begun just before the New Town, and for a while it was among the most fashionable addresses in Edinburgh. Judges, lawyers and aristocrats moved in, escaping the stinking closes for fresh air and gardens.
At number 25 lived the Scott family, and the boy Walter Scott grew up here in the 1770s and 1780s, a sickly child left lame by polio who would become the most famous novelist in Europe. A century later, the family of a medical student named Arthur Conan Doyle lived for a time in the square as well. From these steps the young Scott set off each morning down the hill to the High School you saw at the start of this walk. Two of the world's great storytellers, one square of Edinburgh.
In the 1960s the university, hungry for space for its sciences, arts and libraries, demolished much of the square, replacing elegant terraces with tower blocks and with the Main Library designed by Basil Spence's practice. The protests that followed helped turn conservation into a cause in Edinburgh, and a good deal of what survives of the old Southside owes something to the anger over this square.
Today it is the noisy heart of the university, and every August its gardens fill with festival tents and crowds. Leave the square at its southern side, cross into the Meadows, and follow the paths west to the long tree-lined avenue called Jawbone Walk.