Standing Building Recording

Date October 2002

Event ID 1189985

Category Recording

Type Standing Building Recording

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1189985

(NT 257 736) Further to an initial programme (DES 2002, 50) of baseline archaeological recording undertaken in the area generally referred to as Mary King's Close, beneath the City Chambers, a more detailed record was made in October 2002 of the suite of rooms towards the E end of the study area.

The rooms are an interesting survival from an Old Town property. They show the development of a 17th-century set of rooms sub-divided due to the increase in multi-occupancy into a single-floor Georgian flat. At this time, the flat was occupied by people with some social aspiration, as exhibited by the decor. As with the rest of the Old Town, the property fell down the social scale after the construction of the New Town in the late 18th and early 19th century, when the wealthier classes abandoned the High Street en masse.

The flat was decorated in a typical 19th-century Edinburgh tenement style, decaying to such an extent that at the end of its domestic life it could be classed as a slum dwelling. It is rare that such a sequence can be followed so clearly, because earlier features are mostly obscured in Old Town tenements still under domestic occupation. After the rooms were merged into the City Chambers, the state of decay accelerated until the intrinsic historic value of this survival was recognised: an example of an evolving Old Town Edinburgh dwelling.

Archive to be deposited in the NMRS.

Sponsor: PastForward.

G Ewart 2003.