The West Bow, from the Lawnmarket

Category

Library Item

Item no

18643

Title

The West Bow, from the Lawnmarket

Artist / maker

Shepherd, Thomas Hosmer

Engraver

Allen, J B

Date

1829

Size

10.3 x 15.2 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.

Edinburgh's West Bow was a zig-zagging street which led up from the Grassmarket to the top of the Lawnmarket. The street was interrupted by the construction of Victoria Street and Terrace between 1829-34. Its lower section joining the Grassmarket remains, and the line of the old street can be followed via a staircase to the Upper Bow. Traffic now follows Victoria Street from the West Bow up to George IV Bridge.

According to Shepherd the West Bow was formerly inhabited chiefly by Whitesmiths, whose families were so accustomed to the clatter of hammers, that they could not sleep on Sunday mornings.

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