Chapter L
The New Town of Edinburgh in 1815—Effects of the ‘Plan’—The Earthen Mound—Criticisms by Citizens after the War—The New Approaches—Destruction of City Trees—Lord Cockburn’s Lament.
The New Town of Edinburgh, as seen by Scott and his contemporaries, was simply a product of the mason. The houses were plain three-story buildings, without ornament and without variety. They stood end-on in long barrack-like blocks. ‘Our jealousy of variety,’ says Cockburn, ‘and our association of magnificence with sameness, was really curious. If a builder ever attempted (which, however, to do them justice, they very seldom did) to deviate so far from the established paltriness as to carry up the front wall so as to hide the projecting slates, or to break the roof by a Flemish storm window, or to turn his gable to the street, there was an immediate outcry; and if the law allowed our burgh Edile, the Dean of Guild, to interfere, he was sure to do so.’ Mere convenience was the only guiding principle, and it was the same with the famous ‘Plan’ for laying out the streets. Instead of taking a hint from the strikingly picturesque irregularity of the romantic ’Old Town,’ the projectors studiously endeavoured to make everything as unlike it as possible. The ‘Plan’ laid down the streets in long straight lines, divided to an inch, and all to the same number of inches, by intersecting straight lines at right angles.
Well might a few men of taste hold up protesting hands and exclaim, What a site did nature give us for our New Town! Yet what insignificance in its Plan! What poverty in all its details! But the most of the citizens were quite contented with the Plan and the buildings. They thought the idea of three main streets intersected by six cross streets at right angles and at regular distances, a perfect inspiration of genius. They talked of its beauty and elegance, and fondly believed that the New Town had few equals in Europe. Certainly in one point the contrast with the Old Town was in favour of the New. The streets were made spacious and broad, giving the inestimable boon of free air. Along with the New Town there gradually grew another monument, gigantic in every sense, of the taste of Edinburgh citizens—‘the Mound,’ as it is still called, a monument which justifies the city’s love and pride in being at least unique. It took fifty years to collect, it is eight hundred feet long, its height at the north end is sixty feet, and at the south end one hundred. Like every other great work, the Mound has had its detractors. Lord Cockburn said of it, ‘The creation of that abominable incumbrance, the “Earthen Mound,” by which the valley it abridges and deforms was sacrificed for a deposit of rubbish, was not only permitted without a murmur to be slowly raised, but throughout all its progress was applauded as a noble accumulation.’ It was originally suggested by a Lawnmarket shopkeeper. Even at the present day there are some who have their doubts about its beauty and elegance, but they are easily silenced by recalling its vastness and its original cheapness. The Mound, in fact, is here to stay.
After the peace, when Europe was immediately covered with travellers, it became known to some Edinburgh natives that there were better things in city architecture than the ‘regular, elegant, and commodious’ houses of New Edinburgh. ‘Not one of them, whether from taste, or conceit, or mere chattering—but it all did good—failed to contrast the littleness of almost all that the people of Edinburgh had yet done, with the general picturesque grandeur and the unrivalled sites of their city. It was about this time that the foolish phrase, “The Modern Athens,” began to be applied to the capital of Scotland; a sarcasm, or a piece of affected flattery, when used in a moral sense; but just enough if meant only as a comparison of the physical features of the two places.’
The existence of a New Town soon forced on the opening up of the city by adequate routes of access. The narrow, steep, and crooked ‘wynds’ of the Old Town had been constructed in the days when to keep enemies out was the first, indeed the only consideration. Now it became a primary necessity to provide broad, open, and convenient approaches from all sides. The citizens soon enjoyed the privilege of issuing by wide and pleasant highways, conducting to the open fields. And fortunately the buildings now erected beside these spacious approaches were not dominated by the ‘Plan.’ Cockburn himself considered the buildings ‘very respectable; the owners being always tempted to allure the spreading population by laying out their land attractively. Hence Newington, Leith Walk, the grounds of Inverleith, the road to Corstorphine, and to Queensferry, and indeed all the modern approaches, which lead in every direction through most comfortable suburbs.’
It is clear from Lord Cockburn’s invaluable testimony that the idea of the more free and daring attempts in architecture, which have now given the New Town a character so different from its ‘planned’ uniformity and elegance, originated immediately after the peace. ‘The influence of these circumstances can only be appreciated by those who knew Edinburgh during the war. It is they alone who can see the beauty of the bravery which the Queen of the North has since been putting on. There were more schemes, and pamphlets, and discussions, and anxiety about the improvement of our edifices and prospects within ten years after the war ceased, than throughout the whole of the preceding one hundred and fifty years.’
Suburban Edinburgh of to-day rejoices in a profusion of trees. Had the same taste been predominant at this period, how different even the centre of the city might have been. It is tantalising to imagine the pictures left us of what existed in those bygone days. ‘There was no Scotch city more strikingly graced by individual trees and by groups of them than Edinburgh, since I knew it, used to be. How well the ridge of the Old Town was set off by a bank of elms that ran along the front of James’ Court, and stretched eastward over the ground now partly occupied by the Bank of Scotland. Some very respectable trees might have been spared to grace the Episcopal Chapel of St. Paul in York Place. There was one large tree near its east end which was so well placed that some people conjectured it was on its account that the Chapel was set down there. I was at a consultation in John Clerk’s house, hard by, when that tree was cut. On hearing that it was actually down we ran out, and well did John curse the Huns. The old aristocratic gardens of the Canongate were crowded with trees, and with good ones. There were several on the Calton Hill; seven, not ill-grown, on its very summit. And all Leith Walk and Lauriston, including the ground round Heriot’s Hospital, was fully set with wood. A group was felled about the year 1826 which stood to the west of St. John’s Chapel, on the opposite side of the Lothian Road, and formed a beautiful termination of all the streets which join near that point. Moray Place, in the same way, might have been richly decorated with old and respectable trees. But they were all murdered.... I tried to save a very picturesque group, some of which waved over the wall at the west end of the jail on the Calton Hill. I succeeded with two trees; but in about four years they also disappeared. The sad truth is that the extinction of foliage, and the unbroken display of their bright freestone, is of itself a first object with both our masons and their employers. The wooded gardens that we have recently acquired are not inconsistent with this statement. There was no competition between them and building. It is our horror of the direct combination of trees with masonry, and our incapacity to effect it, that I complain of. No apology is thought necessary for murdering a tree; many for preserving it.’