Princes Street Gardens & The Mound
Ross McDowell / Tartan Compass
The valley between Edinburgh's Old and New Towns is not empty space: gardens, railway, The Mound and national galleries turn the gap itself into part of the city's story.
The Mound is one of my favourite places for understanding how Edinburgh fits together. You are physically moving between the Old and New Towns while surrounded by art, architecture, gardens and some of the ideas that helped give Edinburgh its reputation as the Athens of the North. What I like most is how much is hidden in plain sight. The gardens on either side have their own stories too, some serious, some darker and a few with a bit of humour.
The hollow below the Castle once held the Nor' Loch. As the New Town developed, the loch was drained and the valley was gradually reshaped into gardens, transport routes and one of the main physical connections between the two halves of central Edinburgh. Princes Street Gardens developed from planned pleasure grounds into major public gardens. The railway later cut through the valley, while The Mound became one of the key routes linking Old and New Town. William Henry Playfair's classical gallery buildings added another layer, placing national art directly within the engineered landscape between Edinburgh's two historic townscapes.
Low in the gardens, the Castle and Old Town rise on one side while Princes Street and the New Town occupy the other. The valley makes the contrast unusually easy to read. Railway lines, paths, bridges and The Mound all cross the same ground, revealing how much engineering was needed to connect the city across its topography. The classical galleries belong visually to the New Town, but their position on The Mound places the national collections directly between old and new Edinburgh.
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