14 Stunning Architecture Landmarks in Edinburgh
14 landmarks with verified facts and stories
Advocate's Close
High Street, The High Street, Edinburgh, EH1, United Kingdom
Of the ninety-odd closes that survive along the Royal Mile, Advocate's Close offers perhaps the most perfect Edinburgh moment: a narrow medieval lane plunging steeply from the High Street, framing the Scott Monument and the New Town rooftops at its base like a painting.
Calton Hill
Calton Hill, Holyrood, Edinburgh, EH7 5AA, United Kingdom
Edinburgh's most embarrassing monument sits on this hill, and the city has spent nearly two centuries trying to decide whether to be proud of it or pretend it doesn't exist.
Dean Village
Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Five minutes' walk from the West End's Georgian crescents, the ground drops away into a steep wooded gorge and you're standing in a twelfth-century milling village that feels like it belongs in the Cotswolds, not the capital of Scotland.
Edinburgh Castle
Castlehill, The Royal Mile, Edinburgh, EH1 2NG, United Kingdom
There's a tiny chapel hiding inside one of Europe's most besieged fortresses, and it's been standing since around 1130 — making it the oldest surviving building in Edinburgh.
George Heriot's School
Lauriston Place, Portsburgh, Edinburgh, EH3 9EQ, United Kingdom
From the back windows of the Elephant House cafe, J.
Holyrood Abbey
Canongate, The Royal Mile, Edinburgh, EH8, United Kingdom
These roofless Gothic arches, open to the sky and the Edinburgh rain, are what remains of one of Scotland's most important medieval monasteries.
Palace of Holyroodhouse
Canongate, The Royal Mile, Edinburgh, EH8, United Kingdom
On the night of 9 March 1566, Mary Queen of Scots was having supper in a tiny room off her bedchamber when a group of armed nobles burst in, dragged her Italian secretary David Rizzio from behind her skirts, and stabbed him fifty-six times.
Rosslyn Chapel
Chapel Loan, Midlothian West, Roslin, EH25, United Kingdom
Dan Brown made this chapel world-famous in 'The Da Vinci Code,' but the real Rosslyn is stranger than any conspiracy theory.
Royal Mile
The Royal Mile, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
This street isn't actually a mile long — it's a mile and 107 yards, which happens to be exactly one Scots mile, a measurement that hasn't been used since the eighteenth century.
Scott Monument
Princes Street, Princes Street, Edinburgh, EH1, United Kingdom
The largest monument to a writer anywhere in the world stands in the middle of Edinburgh like a Gothic rocket ship.
Scottish National Gallery
The Mound, Edinburgh EH2 2EL
William Henry Playfair designed this building in the form of a Greek temple, and Prince Albert laid the foundation stone in 1850.
Scottish Parliament Building
Horse Wynd, Edinburgh EH99 1SP
This building was supposed to cost £40 million.
St Giles' Cathedral
High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1RE
In 1637, a market trader named Jenny Geddes supposedly hurled a wooden stool at the minister's head when he tried to read from the new Anglican prayer book that Charles I was forcing on the Scottish Kirk.
Victoria Street
Victoria Street, Edinburgh EH1 2JW
Edinburgh's most photographed street curves downhill from the Royal Mile to the Grassmarket in a rainbow of painted facades that look like they were designed by someone who'd just read a particularly vivid fairy tale.
Explore architecture in Edinburgh
GPS-guided narration at every landmark. Tap a spot on the map, hear the story. Every fact verified.