Dr Gordon Thompson's record of Edinburgh

This exhibition gives a remarkable picture of Edinburgh's World Heritage landscape. The images were taken by Dr Gordon Thompson an astronomer and keen amateur photographer, in the second half of the last century. Dr Thompson's family have kindly allowed us to make digital copies of the original prints and slides to add to our own online image library. Dr Thompson chose both archetypal and lesser-known views. In many cases he returned to stand on the exact same spot some thirty years later to recapture the scene. His photographs date from the 1960s and the 1990s recording how much, and (in some cases) how remarkably little, the cityscape has changed.

Dr Thompson's images also include some wonderful aerial photographs of the Forth and the bridges and many fantastic landscape views. Several are taken from and around Blackford Hill where he spent almost 30 years working at the Royal Observatory.

(Click on the 'Related Images' tab at the bottom of the Item Record page to see the corresponding earlier or later view).