Part of the Old Town, from Princes Street

Category

Library Item

Item no

18641

Title

Part of the old town, from Princes Street

Description

The tall tenements of the Old Town of Edinburgh are viewed from Princes Street, with Salisbury Crags in the background. The Old Town is crammed with buildings on different levels. The spire of the Tron Kirk is seen behind them. The North Bridge with arches crosses over from the New Town to the Old Town. In the immediate foreground are old tenements and a slaughterhouse.

Artist / maker

Shepherd, Thomas Hosmer

Engraver

Lacy, S

Date

1829

Size

9.7 x 16.9 cm

Type

Engraving

Location

Edinburgh and Scottish Collection

This image comes from 'Modern Athens', a book of engravings based on drawings by Thomas Shepherd published in 1829. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries Edinburgh was growing rapidly. The popular neoclassical architectural style of the time was inspired by the ancient Greeks and Romans, and Edinburgh was nicknamed 'Athens of the North'. Shepherd's engravings celebrate the beauty of Edinburgh and show many notable buildings and streets both within the city, and further afield.

This engraving shows the modern day site of Waverley train station and Princes Mall with the buildings of the Old Town behind it.

In Shepherd's accompanying description to this print he writes that in the Old Town: 'the houses exhibit an endless change in their perpendicular and horizontal lines. The base of one mass is often on a level with the chimneys of another: and thus, whilst some families are living apparently in the clouds, others are destined to dwell beneath the surface of the earth.'

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Related subjects

Animals > Mammals > Horses

Architecture > Architectural features > Arches

Business > Service industry > Markets

Homes > Residential buildings > Tenements

Landscape > Land > Hills

Places > Edinburgh areas > Old Town

Places > Scotland > Edinburgh

Transport > Infrastructure > Stone bridges

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