An Edinburgh Wander in Search of Sherlock Holmes

I had a day to myself in Edinburgh so being a Sherlock Holmes fan I thought I'd go for a wander and find the birthplace of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and anything else that took my fancy.

So armed with map from the hotel reception desk I set off turning into the Royal Mile I came across Adam Smith the economist, upon who's theories Margaret Thatcher based her policies, a pair of villains if ever there were any.

Next I came across the site where George Bryce, the Ratho murderer was hanged in 1864

A couple of brass plates on the corner of the pavement mark the spot of Edinburgh's last public execution.

Opposite is a statue of David Hume,

the philosopher who amongst other things was responsible for lobbying the town council to open up places like Carlton Hill as a public park.

The next criminal I found in the castle forecourt

This is Earl Haig who was responsible for the murder of thousands of young men between 1914 and 1918. I was looking for the grave of Ensign Ewart of the Scots Greys. Ewart captured one of the two French Eagle standards taken at Waterloo in 1815, the other was taken by the Royal Dragoons. this honour earned the two regiments the right to wear the Eagle on their cuff. My grandad was in the Royals and I still have his Eagle badge. Sadly the grave is obscured by the scaffold left over from the Tattoo so I could not a shot of it but here's the pub that bears his name

Between the castle and the pub I found this fountain

Sadly it does not work anymore but it shows a serene and a wicked head with a serpent to symbolise wisdom and evil. Its in memorial by John Duncan to the many witches that were burnt nearby.

Now on my way back down the Mile I spied the entrance to Makars' Court (after the Scots word for poet) and yeah OK there are lots of little courts like these off the mile, but there was a notice saying that Robert Burns had once lived there so worth a look I thought.

Well this is what I found

Its the Writers' Museum. The house was built for Lady Stairs in 1622 and inside there are exhibits about Burns, Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson. The court's flagstones bear quotes from many of Scotland's literary glitterati so I guess this is Scotland's answer to Hollywood Boulevard.

Now Scott and Burns don't really interest me that much, but the two rooms in the basement about Stevenson were very interesting - featuring lots of photographs and artifacts that belonged to the man. I had never realised that the reason Stevenson was often pictured with long hair was because his doctor thought that a haircut would weaken him when he was ill and TB sufferer Stevenson was often very ill when he wasn't drinking or whoring in Edinburgh's old town. One artifact I found particularly interesting was this cabinet.

Which was from Stevenson's childhood bedroom. It was made by William "Deacon" Brodie, infamous for being a respectable cabinet maker and Deacon of his guild by day, who used his trusted position to case client's homes before retuning to burgle the joint by night. Brodie was fingered for his part in a botched raid on the Edinburgh excise office in 1788 and hanged on a gallows he designed. Although its rumoured that he wore a steel collar with a silver breathing tube to cheat the hangman and was seen in Paris the year after! Stevenson used the notion of such a double life for his story of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

Brodie has two memorials in the Mile a pub

And a cafe complete with Brodie himself

So from the Writer's Museum I headed for the Scottish National Gallery where I had a potter around the Spain Exhibition (tickets £8), which is all about the British discovery of Spanish art by British collectors and artists from the time of the Peninsula War onwards. It has some fine works by Goya, El Greco, John Everett Millais, David Wilkie and Picasso.

This had worked up quite a thirst so I crossed over Princes Street stopping to have a look at how they were getting on with the new tramway

And headed for Picardy Place where Doyle was born in 1859, sadly the house where Doyle grew up is no longer there but there is this boozer packed full of Holmes and Doyle memorabilia.

Here I celebrated Arthur Guinness's birthday with a pint of the black stuff. Sadly the statue of Holmes outside the pub has been taken into safe keeping while the streets are being dug up.