Skip to content
Home
Favourites
0
Advanced search
Shopping cart
0
Register
Log in
Images of Edinburgh
Browse map
Area A - Z
Browse by date
Exhibitions
Current exhibition
All exhibitions
Collections
About the collections
Browse by theme
Subject A - Z
The image library for the collections of Edinburgh Libraries and Museums and Galleries
Images of Edinburgh
Browse map
Area A - Z
Browse by date
Exhibitions
Current exhibition
All exhibitions
Collections
About the collections
Browse by theme
Subject A - Z
Subject matches "Rock formations" or its children
Back to search results
The new west road under Edinburgh Castle
Skene, James, 1829, Watercolour
Item
of 133
The new west road under Edinburgh Castle
The new west road under Edinburgh Castle
Add to favourites
Share
Item record
About this image
Related
Location
Category
Library Item
Item no
639
Title
Formation of the new west road under Edinburgh Castle
Description
Sun breaks through clouds behind Edinburgh Castle sitting on the Castle Rock. People are walking up stairs starting from the base of the rock up to the Castle. A group of men can be seen in the foreground carrying shovels and spades. Wheelbarrows are lying in the middle of the road that is under construction. Some of the buildings of Edinburgh can be seen in the distance.
Artist / maker
Skene, James
Date
1829
Size
20 x 26 cm.
Type
Watercolour
Location
Edinburgh and Scottish Collection
Painted in the late 1820s, James Skene's watercolour drawing shows the building of a new western approach road to the old town of Edinburgh, contouring the southern flanks of the castle rock. The incomplete road, later known as Johnston Terrace, was one of a number or roads connecting the Lawnmarket with Portsburgh and the Union Canal to the west. The King's Bridge, which crosses King's Stables Road at the foot of Johnston Terrace, was opened in 1832. Writing in the 1880s, the historian James Grant complained that the New Western Approach "apart from being a very questionable improvement as regards artistic taste, has destroyed the amenity of Castle Rock and lessened its strength as a fortress"(1) .
The first fortification on Castle Hill was established during the Iron Age, and the oldest surviving part of the Castle, St Margaret's chapel, dates to 1093. During the Scottish Wars of Independence, possession of Edinburgh Castle was of immense strategic importance. Mary Queen of Scots gave birth to the future James VI of Scotland (and, from 1603, James 1 of a United Kingdom) at Edinburgh castle. In 1996, the Stone of Scone, also known as the Stone of Destiny, captured by Edward 1 seven hundred years previously, was returned to Edinburgh castle to form part of the Honours of Scotland.
The Castle's dramatic position has caught the imaginations of poets and artists throughout the ages. "The quarter of the Castle over tops the whole city", wrote Robert Louis Stevenson, "and keeps an open view to sea and land. It dominates for miles on every side; and people on the decks of ships, or ploughing in quiet country places over in Fife, can see the banner on the Castle battlements, and the smoke of the Old Town blowing abroad over the adjacent country&"(2)
(1) Grant, Old and New Edinburgh, Edinburgh 1883,Vol 1, 295
(2) Stevenson, RLS, Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh, First Published 1878, Barnes and Noble 1993, 14
Exhibitions with this item
Contrasting Character
Other views of this item
Related images
Related subjects
Homes
>
Residential buildings
>
Castles and palaces
Landscape
>
Land
>
Hills
Landscape
>
Land
>
Rock formations
Places
>
Scotland
>
Edinburgh
Transport
>
Infrastructure
>
Roads
More like this
Rights and purchasing
Option
Price
Digital File
Electronic file 72 dpi JPEG
£6.10
(inc. VAT 20%)
Add
Digital File
Electronic File 300 dpi TIFF
£31.00
(inc. VAT 20%)
Add
You can view and use digital images for personal and educational use. For more information, read our
policy on image use
.
If you wish to use our images for commercial use, please
contact us
.