The Royal Mile: a hidden history is a unique exhibition providing a window into the Royal Mile's past through the camera's lens. Using images from the Edinburgh Room's collections insight is gained into the characters, places and daily life of the capital's most famous street. The images cover the years 1850-1930 and reveal long gone buildings and ways of life.
The Royal Mile is the heart of Edinburgh's Old Town and the city's oldest thoroughfare. Running along the spine of an extinct volcano, it descends from Edinburgh Castle on top of the Castle Rock to Holyrood Palace at its base. The Mile itself is divided into different sections beginning with Castle Hill, changing to the Lawnmarket, High Street, Canongate and finally Abbey Strand.
The buildings of the Royal Mile are striking and unique in their height, being many storeys high. Originally the housing was constructed of wood, but later the tall "lands" were constructed of stone with one multi-storey tenement housing all echelons of Edinburgh society. These images show not only the buildings of the Old Town, but the colourful characters that inhabited them during the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Perhaps it was something in the local water that produced so many memorable characters that even 100 years later tales of them are still remembered.
The image library for the collections of Edinburgh Libraries and Museums and Galleries