Impulse Buying Our 19th Century Apartment In Edinburgh’s New Town
Noisy students, dry rot, and leaking cupolas?
So, it’s Christmastime and we’re sneaking around, looking for a new apartment. No one knows. So exciting!
We’ve slipped away from the family, leaving them to nurse their overindulged stomachs and groaning livers, while we take the train to the most beautiful city in the world.
We’re looking for a place in Edinburgh’s New Town.
How old is the New Town?
‘New Town’ is a misnomer these days, it was built between 1767 and 1855. Its stately Georgian properties were built to an elegant plan, a world away from the crowded, labyrinthine streets of the touristy Royal Mile.
That was the point really, to enable the well-heeled of the time to move out of the Old Town surrounding the Castle (not filled with hordes of tourists then, but crowded, smelly, and slum-like) to a glamorous urban Elysium filled with fragrant gardens in which to stroll. The New Town area, south of the Old Town, was created to incorporate wide boulevards, sweeping crescents and circuses, and grand houses with beautiful architecture.
Yet this place, with its ancient castle, and its storied monuments, is that most modern of…
