The Salvation Army
The Salvation Army is a Protestant Christian church and an international charitable organisation. The organisation reports a worldwide membership of over 1.7 million, consisting of soldiers and adherents collectively known as Salvationists. Its founders sought to bring salvation to the poor and hungry by meeting both their "physical and spiritual needs", it is present in 131 countries, running charity shops, operating shelters for the homeless and disaster relief and humanitarian aid to developing countries. The theology of the Salvation Army is derived from that of Methodism, although it is distinctive in institution and practice. A peculiarity of the Army is that it gives its clergy titles of military ranks, such as "lieutenant" or "major", it does not celebrate the rite of Holy Communion. However, the Army's doctrine is otherwise typical of holiness churches in the Wesleyan-Arminian tradition; the Army's purposes are "the advancement of the Christian religion... of education, the relief of poverty, other charitable objects beneficial to society or the community of mankind as a whole".
The Army was founded in 1865 in London by one-time Methodist circuit-preacher William Booth and his wife Catherine as the East London Christian Mission, can trace its origins to the Blind Beggar tavern. In 1878 Booth reorganised the mission, becoming its first General and introducing the military structure, retained as a matter of tradition, its highest priority is its Christian principles. The current international leader of The Salvation Army and chief executive officer is General Brian Peddle, elected by the High Council of The Salvation Army on 3 August 2018; the Salvation Army refers to its ministers as "officers". When acting in their official duties, they can be recognized by the colour-coded epaulettes on their white uniform dress shirts; the epaulettes has the letters. Officers ranks include lieutenant, major and the general. Promotion in rank up to the rank from lieutenant to major depends on years of service; the ordination of women is permitted in the Salvation Army. Salvation Army officers were allowed to marry only other officers.
Husbands and wives share the same rank and have the same or similar assignments. Such officer-couples are assigned together to act as co-pastors and administer corps, Adult Rehabilitation Centers and such; as of 2016 the organisation will not appoint homosexual people to posts as ministers, preferring individuals "whose values are consistent with the church's philosophy". See LGBT clergy in Christianity; the Army has churches located throughout the world. They are known as Salvation Army corps, they may be implemented as part of a larger community center. Traditionally many corps buildings are alternatively called citadels; the Salvation Army is well known for its network of thrift stores or charity shops, colloquially referred to as "the Sally Ann" in Canada and "Salvos Stores" in Australia, which raise money for its rehabilitation programs by selling donated used items such as clothing and toys. Clothing collected by Salvation Army stores that are not sold on location are sold wholesale on the global second hand clothing market.
The Salvation Army's fundraising shops in the United Kingdom participate in the UK government's Work Programme, a workfare programme where benefit claimants must work for no compensation for 20 to 40 hours per week over periods that can be as long as 6 months. When items are bought at the Salvation Army thrift stores, part of the proceeds go towards The Salvation Army's emergency reliefs efforts and programs. Items not sold are recycled and turned into other items such as carpets and rugs, instead of being thrown away in landfills; the Salvation Army helps their employees by hiring ex-felons depending on the circumstances because they believe in giving people second chances. There are many job opportunities available for them nationwide and are able to move their way up to become a manager or work in one of their corporate offices; some shops are associated with an Adult Rehabilitation Centers where men and women make a 6-month rehabilitation commitment to live and work at the ARC residence.
They are unpaid. Many ARCs are male-only; the program is to combat addiction. They work at the store or residence; this is referred to as "work therapy". They attend twelve-step programs and chapel services as a part of their rehabilitation; the Army advertises these programs on their collection trucks with the slogan "Doing the Most Good". The general design pattern is that an ARC is associated with warehouse. Donations are consolidated from other stores and donation sites and sorted and priced and distributed back out to the branch stores. Low-quality donated items are sold at the warehouse dock in a "dock sale". Farmland at Hadleigh in Essex was acquired in 1891 to provide training for men referred from Salvation Army shelters, it featured market gardens and two brickfields. It was mentioned in the Royal Commission report of 1909 appointed to consider Poor Laws. 7,000 trainees had passed through its doors by 1912 with more than 60% subsequently finding employment. It has a Twitter feed @SalArmyHFE and website.
The Salvation Army operates summer camps for children, Silvercrest Residences, adult day care centers. It has headquarter offices internationally and for each territory and division; some of the other facilities include: Homele
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Part of the county of Midlothian, it is located in Lothian on the Firth of Forth's southern shore. Recognised as the capital of Scotland since at least the 15th century, Edinburgh is the seat of the Scottish Government, the Scottish Parliament and the supreme courts of Scotland; the city's Palace of Holyroodhouse is the official residence of the monarch in Scotland. The city has long been a centre of education in the fields of medicine, Scots law, philosophy, the sciences and engineering, it is the second largest financial centre in the United Kingdom and the city's historical and cultural attractions have made it the United Kingdom's second most popular tourist destination, attracting over one million overseas visitors each year. Edinburgh is Scotland's second most populous city and the seventh most populous in the United Kingdom; the official population estimates are 488,050 for the Locality of Edinburgh, 513,210 for the City of Edinburgh, 1,339,380 for the city region.
Edinburgh lies at the heart of the Edinburgh and South East Scotland city region comprising East Lothian, Fife, Scottish Borders and West Lothian. The city is the annual venue of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, it is home to national institutions such as the National Museum of Scotland, the National Library of Scotland and the Scottish National Gallery. The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1582 and now one of four in the city, is placed 18th in the QS World University Rankings for 2019; the city is famous for the Edinburgh International Festival and the Fringe, the latter being the world's largest annual international arts festival. Historic sites in Edinburgh include Edinburgh Castle, the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the churches of St. Giles and the Canongate, the extensive Georgian New Town, built in the 18th/19th centuries. Edinburgh's Old Town and New Town together are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site, managed by Edinburgh World Heritage since 1999. "Edin", the root of the city's name, derives from Eidyn, the name for this region in Cumbric, the Brittonic Celtic language spoken there.
The name's meaning is unknown. The district of Eidyn centred on the dun or hillfort of Eidyn; this stronghold is believed to have been located at Castle Rock, now the site of Edinburgh Castle. Eidyn was conquered by the Angles of Bernicia in the 7th century and by the Scots in the 10th century; as the language shifted to Old English, subsequently to modern English and Scots, The Brittonic din in Din Eidyn was replaced by burh, producing Edinburgh. Din became dùn in Scottish Gaelic, producing Dùn Èideann; the city is affectionately nicknamed Auld Reekie, Scots for Old Smoky, for the views from the country of the smoke-covered Old Town. Allan Ramsay said. A name the country people give Edinburgh from the cloud of smoke or reek, always impending over it."Thomas Carlyle said, "Smoke cloud hangs over old Edinburgh,—for since Aeneas Silvius's time and earlier, the people have the art strange to Aeneas, of burning a certain sort of black stones, Edinburgh with its chimneys is called'Auld Reekie' by the country people."A character in Walter Scott's The Abbot says "... yonder stands Auld Reekie--you may see the smoke hover over her at twenty miles' distance."Robert Chambers who said that the sobriquet could not be traced before the reign of Charles II attributed the name to a Fife laird, Durham of Largo, who regulated the bedtime of his children by the smoke rising above Edinburgh from the fires of the tenements.
"It's time now bairns, to tak' the beuks, gang to our beds, for yonder's Auld Reekie, I see, putting on her nicht -cap!"Some have called Edinburgh the Athens of the North for a variety of reasons. The earliest comparison between the two cities showed that they had a similar topography, with the Castle Rock of Edinburgh performing a similar role to the Athenian Acropolis. Both of them had fertile agricultural land sloping down to a port several miles away. Although this arrangement is common in Southern Europe, it is rare in Northern Europe; the 18th-century intellectual life, referred to as the Scottish Enlightenment, was a key influence in gaining the name. Such luminaries as David Hume and Adam Smith shone during this period. Having lost most of its political importance after the Union, some hoped that Edinburgh could gain a similar influence on London as Athens had on Rome. A contributing factor was the neoclassical architecture that of William Henry Playfair, the National Monument. Tom Stoppard's character Archie, of Jumpers, said playing on Reykjavík meaning "smoky bay", that the "Reykjavík of the South" would be more appropriate.
The city has been known by several Latin names, such as Aneda or Edina. The adjectival form of the latter, can be seen inscribed on educational buildings; the Scots poets Robert Fergusson and Robert Burns used Edina in their poems. Ben Jonson described it as "Britaine's other eye", Sir Walter Scott referred to it as "yon Empress of the North". Robert Louis Stevenson a son of the city, wrote, "Edinburgh is what Paris ought to be"; the colloquial pronunciation "Embra" or "Embro" has been used, as in Robert Garioch's Embro to the Ploy. The earliest known human habitation in the Edinburgh area was at Cramond, where evidence was found of a Mesolithi
Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, poet and historian. Many of his works remain classics of Scottish literature. Famous titles include Ivanhoe, Rob Roy, Old Mortality, The Lady of the Lake, The Heart of Midlothian and The Bride of Lammermoor. Although remembered for his extensive literary works and his political engagement, Scott was an advocate and legal administrator by profession, throughout his career combined his writing and editing work with his daily occupation as Clerk of Session and Sheriff-Depute of Selkirkshire. A prominent member of the Tory establishment in Edinburgh, Scott was an active member of the Highland Society, served a long term as President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and was a Vice President of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland; as Encyclopædia Britannica argues: "Scott gathered the disparate strands of contemporary novel-writing techniques into his own hands and harnessed them to his deep interest in Scottish history and his knowledge of antiquarian lore.
The technique of the omniscient narrator and the use of regional speech, localized settings, sophisticated character delineation, romantic themes treated in a realistic manner were all combined by him into a new literary form, the historical novel. His influence on other European and American novelists was immediate and profound, though interest in some of his books declined somewhat in the 20th century, his reputation remains secure." Walter Scott was born on 15 August 1771. He was the ninth child of a Writer to the Signet and Anne Rutherford, his father was a member of a cadet branch of the Scott Clan, his mother descended from the Haliburton family, the descent from whom granted Walter's family the hereditary right of burial in Dryburgh Abbey. Via the Haliburton family, Walter was a cousin of the pre-eminent contemporaneous property developer James Burton, a Haliburton who had shortened his surname, of his son, the architect Decimus Burton. Walter subsequently became a member of the Clarence Club, of which the Burtons were members.
Five of Walter's siblings died in infancy, a sixth died when he was five months of age. Walter was born in a third-floor flat on College Wynd in the Old Town of Edinburgh, a narrow alleyway leading from the Cowgate to the gates of the University of Edinburgh, he survived a childhood bout of polio in 1773 that left him lame, a condition, to have a significant effect on his life and writing. To cure his lameness he was sent in 1773 to live in the rural Scottish Borders at his paternal grandparents' farm at Sandyknowe, adjacent to the ruin of Smailholm Tower, the earlier family home. Here he was taught to read by his aunt Jenny, learned from her the speech patterns and many of the tales and legends that characterised much of his work. In January 1775 he returned to Edinburgh, that summer went with his aunt Jenny to take spa treatment at Bath in England, where they lived at 6 South Parade. In the winter of 1776 he went back to Sandyknowe, with another attempt at a water cure at Prestonpans during the following summer.
In 1778, Scott returned to Edinburgh for private education to prepare him for school, joined his family in their new house built as one of the first in George Square. In October 1779 he began at the Royal High School of Edinburgh, he was now well able to explore the city and the surrounding countryside. His reading included chivalric romances, poems and travel books, he was given private tuition by James Mitchell in arithmetic and writing, learned from him the history of the Church of Scotland with emphasis on the Covenanters. After finishing school he was sent to stay for six months with his aunt Jenny in Kelso, attending the local grammar school where he met James and John Ballantyne, who became his business partners and printed his books. Scott began studying classics at the University of Edinburgh in November 1783, at the age of 12, a year or so younger than most of his fellow students. In March 1786 he began an apprenticeship in his father's office to become a Writer to the Signet. Whilst at both high school and university, Scott had become a friend of Adam Ferguson, the son of Professor Adam Ferguson who hosted literary salons.
Scott met the blind poet Thomas Blacklock, who lent him books and introduced him to James Macpherson's Ossian cycle of poems. During the winter of 1786–87 the 15-year-old Scott met Robert Burns at one of these salons, for what was to be their only meeting; when Burns noticed a print illustrating the poem "The Justice of the Peace" and asked who had written the poem, only Scott knew that it was by John Langhorne, was thanked by Burns. Scott describes this event in his memoirs where he whispers the answer to his friend Adam who tells Burns Another version of the event is described in Literary Beginnings When it was decided that he would become a lawyer, he returned to the university to study law, first taking classes in moral philosophy and universal history in 1789–90. After completing his studies in law, he became a lawyer in Edinburgh; as a lawyer's clerk he made his first visit to the Scottish Highlands directing an eviction. He was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in 1792, he had an unsuccessful love suit with Williamina Belsches of Fettercairn, who married Scott's friend Sir William Forbes, 7th Baronet.
As a boy and young man, Scott was fascinated by the oral traditions of the Scottish Borders. He was an obsessive collector of stories, developed an innovative method of recording what he heard at the feet of local story-tellers using carvings on twigs, to avoid
Edinburgh Castle
Edinburgh Castle is a historic fortress which dominates the skyline of the city of Edinburgh, Scotland from its position on the Castle Rock. Archaeologists have established human occupation of the rock since at least the Iron Age, although the nature of the early settlement is unclear. There has been a royal castle on the rock since at least the reign of David I in the 12th century, the site continued to be a royal residence until 1633. From the 15th century the castle's residential role declined, by the 17th century it was principally used as military barracks with a large garrison, its importance as a part of Scotland's national heritage was recognised from the early 19th century onwards, various restoration programmes have been carried out over the past century and a half. As one of the most important strongholds in the Kingdom of Scotland, Edinburgh Castle was involved in many historical conflicts from the Wars of Scottish Independence in the 14th century to the Jacobite rising of 1745.
Research undertaken in 2014 identified 26 sieges in its 1100-year-old history, giving it a claim to having been "the most besieged place in Great Britain and one of the most attacked in the world". Few of the present buildings pre-date the Lang Siege of the 16th century, when the medieval defences were destroyed by artillery bombardment; the most notable exceptions are St Margaret's Chapel from the early 12th century, regarded as the oldest building in Edinburgh, the Royal Palace and the early-16th-century Great Hall, although the interiors have been much altered from the mid-Victorian period onwards. The castle houses the Scottish regalia, known as the Honours of Scotland and is the site of the Scottish National War Memorial and the National War Museum of Scotland; the British Army is still responsible for some parts of the castle, although its presence is now ceremonial and administrative. Some of the castle buildings house regimental museums which contribute to its presentation as a tourist attraction.
The castle, in the care of Historic Environment Scotland, is Scotland's most-visited paid tourist attraction, with over 2 million visitors in 2017 and over 70 percent of leisure visitors to Edinburgh visiting the castle. As the backdrop to the Edinburgh Military Tattoo during the annual Edinburgh Festival the castle has become a recognisable symbol of Edinburgh and of Scotland; the castle stands upon the plug of an extinct volcano, estimated to have risen about 350 million years ago during the lower Carboniferous period. The Castle Rock is the remains of a volcanic pipe, which cut through the surrounding sedimentary rock before cooling to form hard dolerite, a type of basalt. Subsequent glacial erosion was resisted by the dolerite, which protected the softer rock to the east, leaving a crag and tail formation; the summit of the Castle Rock is 130 metres above sea level, with rocky cliffs to the south and north, rising to a height of 80 metres above the surrounding landscape. This means that the only accessible route to the castle lies to the east, where the ridge slopes more gently.
The defensive advantage of such a site is self-evident, but the geology of the rock presents difficulties, since basalt is impermeable. Providing water to the Upper Ward of the castle was problematic, despite the sinking of a 28-metre deep well, the water supply ran out during drought or siege, for example during the Lang Siege in 1573. Archaeological investigation has yet to establish when the Castle Rock was first used as a place of human habitation. There is no record of any Roman interest in the location during General Agricola's invasion of northern Britain near the end of the 1st century AD. Ptolemy's map of the 2nd century AD shows a settlement in the territory of the Votadini named "Alauna", meaning "rock place", making this the earliest known name for the Castle Rock; this could, refer to another of the tribe's hill forts in the area. The Orygynale Cronykil of Andrew of Wyntoun, an early source for Scottish history, names "Ebrawce", a legendary King of the Britons, as having "byggyd Edynburgh".
According to the earlier chronicler, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Ebraucus had fifty children by his twenty wives, was the founder of "Kaerebrauc", "Alclud" and the "Maidens' Castle". The 16th-century English writer John Stow, credited Ebraucus with building "the Castell of Maidens called Edenbrough" in 989 BC; the name "Maidens' Castle" occurs up until the 16th century. It appears in charters of his successors, although the reason for it is not known. William Camden's survey of Britain, records that "the Britans called Castle Myned Agned, the Scots, the Maidens Castle and the Virgins Castle, of certaine young maidens of the Picts roiall bloud who were kept there in old time". According to the 17th-century antiquarian Father Richard Hay, the "maidens" were a group of nuns, who were ejected from the castle and replaced by canons, considered "fitter to live among soldiers". However, this story was considered "apocryphal" by the 19th-century antiquarian Daniel Wilson and has been ignored by historians since.
The name may have been derived from a "Cult of the Nine Maidens" type of legend. Arthurian legends suggest that the site once held a shrine to one of nine sisters. St Monenna, said to be one of nine companions, reputedly invested a church at Edinburgh, as well as at Dumbarton and other places. Similar names are shared by many other Iron Age hillforts and may have described a castl
Edinburgh town walls
There have been several town walls around Edinburgh, since the 12th century. Some form of wall existed from the foundation of the royal burgh in around 1125, though the first building is recorded in the mid-15th century, when the King's Wall was constructed. In the 16th century the more extensive Flodden Wall was erected, following the Scots' defeat at the Battle of Flodden in 1513; this was extended by the Telfer Wall in the early 17th century. The walls had a number of gates, known as ports, the most important being the Netherbow Port, which stood halfway down the Royal Mile; this gave access at that time, a separate burgh. The walls never proved successful as defensive structures, were breached on more than one occasion, they served more as a means of controlling trade and taxing goods, as a deterrent to smugglers. Throughout their history, the town walls of Edinburgh have served better in their role as a trade barrier than as a defensive one. By the mid 18th century, the walls had outlived both their defensive and trade purposes, demolition of sections of the wall began.
The Netherbow Port was pulled down in 1764, demolition continued into the 19th century. Today, a number of sections of the three successive walls survive, although none of the ports remain. Edinburgh was formally established as a royal burgh by King David I of Scotland around 1125; this gave the town the privilege of holding a market, the ability to raise money by taxing goods coming into the burgh for sale. It is probable, that some form of boundary was constructed around this time, although it may have been a timber palisade or ditch, rather than a stone wall. To the north of Edinburgh lay the marshy Nor Loch, formed in the early 15th century in the depression where Princes Street Gardens are now laid out; this natural defence was augmented by the steep slope up to the northern edge of the Old Town. Edinburgh Castle, on its rocky outcrop, defended the western approach. Walls were therefore needed on the south and east sides of the burgh. Early records mention a west gate in 1180, a south gate in 1214, the Netherbow Port in 1369.
In 1362 the Wellhouse Tower was built beneath the north wall of the castle, protecting the castle's water supply, defending the approach along the south shore of the Nor Loch. The King's Wall is first recorded in 1427, in a title deed which refers to the wall as the property boundary. In 1450, King James II issued a charter permitting the burgesses of Edinburgh to defend their town, as follows: In a further royal charter of 28 April 1472, King James III ordered the demolition of houses built on or outside the King's Wall, which were hampering efforts to strengthen the defences. Edinburgh was thus one of only three Scottish towns to have medieval stone walls, the others being Stirling and Perth, though other towns had earth walls or palisades; the wall ran along the south side of the Royal Mile, above the Cowgate, from the slope of the Castle Hill in the west as far as the modern St Mary's Street in the east, where it turned to cross the Royal Mile. In all, the King's Wall enclosed a space no larger than 0.8 by 0.4 kilometres.
The alignment of the wall was irregular, as existing property boundaries or walls were reinforced to form a defence. The early wall had two ports: the Upper Bow or Over-Bow, in the vicinity of what is now Victoria Street, the Nether Bow, on the Royal Mile near Fountain Close, located near around 46 metres further west than the structure. In addition, posterns were provided, for example at Gray's Close. In 1513, King James IV led an invasion of northern England in support of the French and the Auld Alliance. On 9 September, the Scots met the English at the Battle of Flodden, were defeated, with King James killed on the field. An English invasion was expected, in Edinburgh it was resolved to build a new town wall. However, the new wall was an opportunity to control smuggling into the burgh, the town council accordingly decided to extend the wall south to take in the Grassmarket and Cowgate areas of the burgh. Construction began the following year, but was not completed until 1560. Work started at the western end, the final section was the stretch from Leith Wynd to the Nor Loch, incorporating the New Port.
The cost of this last work was £4/10s Scots per rood for the wall, plus 40s per rood for the battlements. The Flodden Wall, as it became known, was around 1.2 metres thick and up to 7.3 metres high. The Flodden Wall began at the south side of the castle, running south across the west end of the Grassmarket, where the West Port was located, continued uphill along the Vennel. A watch-tower or bastion survives at the south-west extent of the wall, it ran east, wrapping around Greyfriars Kirkyard, to the Bristo Port and the Potterow Port, both located in the vicinity of the National Museum of Scotland. Continuing east, the wall passed the Kirk o' Field, where the Old College now stands, ran along Drummond Street, turning north at the Pleasance to enclose the former Blackfriars Monastery; the Cowgate Port was located at the foot of the Pleasance, the wall ran up the line of St Mary's Street, where it was formed by strengthening existing walls rather than new walling, to the Netherbow Port, which stood across the Royal Mile.
The wall continued north to the Nor Loch, since replaced by Waverley railway station, terminating at the New Port. The Flodden Wall enclosed an area of just under 57 hectares, remained the limit of the burgh until the 18th century. Contained within this area, in 1560, was a population of around 10,000. There were six ports in the Flodden
Old Town, Edinburgh
The Old Town is the name popularly given to the oldest part of Scotland's capital city of Edinburgh. The area has preserved much of many Reformation-era buildings. Together with the 18th/19th-century New Town, it forms part of a protected UNESCO World Heritage Site; the "Royal Mile" is a name coined in the early 20th century for the main street of the Old Town which runs on a downwards slope from Edinburgh Castle to Holyrood Palace and the ruined Holyrood Abbey. Narrow closes no more than a few feet wide, lead steeply downhill to both north and south of the main spine which runs west to east. Significant buildings in the Old Town include St. Giles' Cathedral, the General Assembly Hall of the Church of Scotland, the National Museum of Scotland, the Old College of the University of Edinburgh and the Scottish Parliament Building; the area contains underground vaults and hidden passages that are relics of previous phases of construction. No part of the street is called The Royal Mile in terms of legal addresses.
The actual street names are Castlehill, High Street and Abbey Strand. The street layout, typical of the old quarters of many northern European cities, is made picturesque in Edinburgh, where the castle perches on top of a rocky crag, the remnants of an extinct volcano, the main street runs down the crest of a ridge from it; this "crag and tail" landform was created during the last ice age when receding glaciers scoured across the land pushing soft soil aside but being split by harder crags of volcanic rock. The hilltop crag was the earliest part of the city to develop, becoming fortified and developing into the current Edinburgh Castle; the rest of the city grew down the tail of land from the Castle Rock. This was an defended spot with marshland on the south and a man-made loch, the Nor Loch, on the north. Access to the town was restricted by means of various gates in the city walls, of which only fragmentary sections remain; the original strong linear spine of the Royal Mile only had narrow closes and wynds leading off its sides.
These began to be supplemented from the late 18th century with wide new north–south routes, beginning with the North Bridge/South Bridge route, George IV Bridge. These rectilinear forms were complemented from the mid-19th century with more serpentine forms, starting with Cockburn Street, laid out by Peddie and Kinnear in 1856, which improved access between the Royal Mile and the newly rebuilt Waverley Station; the Edinburgh City Improvement Act of 1866 further added to the north south routes. This was devised by the architects David John Lessels, it had quite radical effects: St Mary's Wynd was demolished and replaced by the much wider St Mary's Street with all new buildings. Leith Wynd which descended from the High Street to the Low Calton was demolished. Jeffrey Street started from Leith Wynd's junction with the High Street, opposite St Mary's Street, but bent west on arches to join Market Street. East Market Street was built to connect New Street. Blackfriars Street was created by the widening of Blackfriars Wynd, removing all the buildings on the east side.
Chambers Street was created, removing Brown Square and Adam Square. It was named after the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, Sir William Chambers, his statue placed at its centre. Guthrie Street was created. In addition to the Royal Mile, the Old Town may be divided into various areas, namely from west to east: West Port, the old route out of Edinburgh to the west Grassmarket, the area to the south-west Edinburgh Castle The Cowgate, the lower southern section of the town Canongate, a name applied to the whole eastern district Holyrood, the area containing Holyrood Palace and Holyrood Abbey Croft-An-Righ, a group of buildings north-east of Holyrood Due to the space restrictions imposed by the narrowness of the "tail", the advantages of living within the defensive wall, the Old Town became home to some of the world's earliest "high rise" residential buildings. Multi-storey dwellings became the norm from the 16th century onwards. Many of these buildings were destroyed in the Great Fire of Edinburgh in 1824.
The construction of new streets including North Bridge and South Bridge in the 18th century created underground spaces, such as the Edinburgh Vaults below the latter. Traditionally buildings were less dense in the eastern, section; this area underwent major slum clearance and reconstruction in the 1950s, thereafter becoming an area of Council housing. From 1990 to 2010, major new housing schemes appeared throughout the Canongate; these were built to a much higher scale than the older buildings and have increased the population of the area. In 1824 a major fire destroyed most of the buildings on the south side of the High Street section between St. Giles Cathedral and the Tron Kirk. During the Edinburgh International Festival the High Street and Hunter Square become gathering points where performers in the Fringe advertise their shows through street performances. On 7 December 2002, the Cowgate fire destroyed a small but dense group of old buildings on the Cowgate and South Bridge, it destroyed the famous comedy club, The Gilded Balloon, much of the Informatics Department of the University of Edinburgh, including the comprehensive artificial intelligence library.
The site was redeveloped 2013-2014 with a single new building
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