The New Town

The root of the name Calton (without the 'r') is less august than this prominent landmark deserves, being prosaically derived from the old Gallic word for a hill with scrubby bushes on top, where people used to hang out their washing to dry. The apparently random collection of monuments you now see competing for significance at the top of Calton Hill had been assembled by the end of the 19th century. Looking west towards the castle and Princes Street, the Gothic style of the battlemented Old Observatory House was designed to complement the Old Calton Jail down the hill. Built for the optician and astronomer Thomas Short between 1776 and 1792, it is, surprisingly enough, almost the only surviving work of James Craig, the planner of the New Town.

The next building to go up, in no uncertain terms, was the Nelson Monument (open April-Oct Mon 1-6, Tues-Sat 10-0; Oct-Mar Mon-Sat 10-3; adm), the 106ft signal tower erected in memory of Admiral Horatio Nelson after his death at Trafalgar in 1805. Every year on the anniversary, October 21, its flags still fly the signal 'England expects that every man will do his duty.' The foundation stone was laid two years later in great secrecy because the authorities feared a crowd of his admirers might fall off the cliff.

A climb to the top of the steep, narrow staircase is bracingly rewarding, and if the wind is strong, admiring the view over the low parapet can be quite hair raising. The 'time-ball' on the mast drops at 1pm every weekday, in conjunction with the One O'clock Gun fired from the castle. It was set up in 1852 for the benefit of skippers on the Firth of Forth and used to be linked to the castle by the longest telegraph wire in the world.

The rest of the buildings on the hill were nearly all designed by the tireless William Playfair. First came the domed City Observatory, next to the Old Observatory, built in 1818 to provide accurate time-readings. Inside is the two faced 'Politician's Clock'.

Another dome was added much later and is now home to the Edinburgh Experience (open April-June, Sept and Oct Mon-Fri 2-5, Sat and Sun 10.30-5; July and August daily 10.30-5; adm). Every half-hour this presents a surprisingly effective 3-D panoramic tour of the city and its surroundings in their different seasonal colours. At the southeast corner of the hill Playfair then placed the Doric Monument to his uncle John, the president of the Astronomical Institution that had awarded him the contract in the first place.

Astronomical is the only word to describe the cost of the next scheme proposed by Scott, Cockburn and Lord Elgin (the one with the Marbles) among others: a replica of the Parthenon to commemorate the fallen of the Napoleonic Wars. The National Monument was started in 1826 but ran out of funds three years later. Something of an embarrassment to the city (known as 'Edinburgh's Folly'), it inspired various early 20th-century schemes to complete it: as a National Gallery, as a celebration of 200 years of the Union, or even as part of yet another new parliament building. All came to nothing. Now the great blocks beneath its 12 Doric columns provide a very solid viewpoint, regularly mobbed at events like the Festival fireworks.