The Canongate

The Canongate is an oft forgotten part of the Royal Mile, yet it is incredibly rich in history. The Canongate was its own burgh from the time of King David in 1143 until it was incorporated into the City of Edinburgh in 1856. In its heyday, the Canongate was a rather suppressed and depressed part of the city.

The Canongate received its name from the Cannons of nearby Holyrood Abbey. The Palace of Holyrood House is now part of the Canongate area, but until well after the Reformation, the Palace was its own Royalty, separate from the Canongate. 

 Holyrood Palace

Holyrood Abbey

Along the road, near the gate to the Palace, is Queen Mary's Bathhouse:

Following the Reformation, a new Kirk took over worship for the citizens of the Canongate. This continues to be the Kirk attended by the royal family when they are in residence at Holyrood Palace. 

 Canongate Kirk

Across from the Kirk is the Edinburgh Museum, housed in what was once Huntly House. The museum is free and loaded with historic gems. Well worth a visit. 

 Replica of the National Covenant

Some of the signatories to the National Covenant

 Badges carried by members of various clubs and societies in Edinburgh

 Greyfriar's Bobby's collar, paid for by the Lord Provost, William Chambers. 

Bobby now belongs to the City

Bobby's bowl and water cup

Continuing up toward the Castle, one comes across Panmure Close:

And the site of the original Lady Haig's Poppy Factory:

Further up the "Mile" is the End of the World Pub, so named as it was at the actual gate to the walled city of Edinburgh and the citizens of Edinburgh believed that the wall was, to all intents and purposes, the end of their world. 

The markings of the gate to the old wall

Edinburgh's Closes and Courts

While waiting for the accounts keeper at the SGS to have a free moment, I took a wee wander around some of the old closes and courts that run off the Royal Mile

 

I love that the old closes open up into rather magnificent courtyards

A door to one of the old vaults

 

Lady Stair's Close leads to the Writers Museum. There are some wonderful quotes in the stones of the courtyard

 

 

 

 Go back far enough and all humankind are cousins ~ Naomi Mitchison

 Where are the links of the chain...joining us to the past?

~Dorothy Dunnett

 

 Auld Reekie wale o ilka town

~Robert Fergusson

I care to live only to entice people to look at Nature's loveliness

~John Muir

father of America's National Park System