St Giles' Cathedral & The Heart of Midlothian

Why is it significant?

Stand right outside the western doors of St Giles' Cathedral and look down at the grey cobblestones by your feet. Set into the paving is a mosaic of colored granite stones shaped into a heart: the Heart of Midlothian.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Stand right outside the western doors of St Giles' Cathedral and look down at the grey cobblestones by your feet. Set into the paving is a mosaic of colored granite stones shaped into a heart: the Heart of Midlothian. If you notice passing Edinburgh locals spitting directly onto the heart, do not be alarmed: it is an ancient custom of defiance dating back centuries.

This mosaic marks the doorway of the Old Tolbooth, Edinburgh's most hated municipal building. For hundreds of years, the Tolbooth served as council chamber, tax office, and gruesome prison. Condemned criminals, debtors, and heretics endured rat-infested dungeons before being dragged outside to the public gallows, spitting on the doorstep as their final gesture of contempt for corrupt jailers.

Look up at the majestic crown steeple of St Giles' rising overhead. Inside this venerable kirk in fifteen fifty-nine, fiery Protestant reformer John Knox preached blistering sermons that toppled the Catholic monarchy of Mary, Queen of Scots. In sixteen thirty-seven, local market woman Jenny Geddes famously hurled her wooden folding stool at the dean's head when he attempted to read an Anglican prayer book.

Touch the rough sandstone walls of the kirk before turning down the hill toward Greyfriars Kirkyard.