The History of Princes Street and the Waverley Valley
Princes Street is culturally significant as the southern-most street of Edinburgh's New Town. Its elegant Georgian and Victorian architecture, lush gardens within the Waverley Valley and panoramic views of the castle, create a unique scene of urban grandeur.
Sitting in the heart of Edinburgh’s Old and New Towns World Heritage Site, its unique positioning mean we need to manage change with the greatest respect and sensitivity.
A brief history
Princes Street forms the southern edge of James Craig’s New Town of 1767, a competition winning urban grid, inspired by the classical architecture of Ancient Greece and Rome. This major, purpose-built, city expansion was designed to offer improved living conditions in response to the crowded medieval burgh of the Old Town.
The symmetry and order of the New Town layout contrasts with the organic form of the Old Town, clustered around the defensive site of Castle Rock.
Between the two towns, in the drained Nor’ Loch, Craig planned pleasure grounds for the New Town residents. The New Town’s formally planned streets and open spaces, together with underlying land form set up much valued views and vistas, including south over Princes Street Gardens to the Old Town ridge and east to Calton Hill. Equally, its roof-scape can be viewed from above, from the Castle, The Mound and Calton Hill. Princes Street‘s life began as a Georgian residential street, evolving to feature the mix of shops, cafes, offices, hotels and cultural attractions which characterise the street today.
In the 1780s, Princes Street’s construction began at its east end. Controls emerged to limit its sandstone buildings to three storeys and a basement with pitched roofs. Plans show the intention for up to 15 plots or feus fronting Princes Street. Modified townhouses remain on these narrower plots today, at corners and amongst the blocks, with 95 Princes Street retaining a basement well.
The street’s relationship to the Old Town and Leith Walk, as well as its popularity as a thoroughfare, led to an increase in commercial activity and by 1800, the east end of the street was mainly non-residential. By the 1820s, shops and hotels featured along the whole street. By the 1840s, additional floors appeared as height restrictions were relaxed. Grand Victorian and Edwardian commercial buildings soon replaced the townhouses and tenements, infilling rear gardens, extending shop fronts and sweeping away the grain of the original plots. In the early 20th century glazed extensions to form tea-rooms and restaurants on the first floor emerged to make the most of views to the Castle.
After World War II, Town Planner, Sir Patrick Abercrombie advised Princes Street should be remodelled to a standard, unifying design, separating pedestrians from traffic on a first-floor walkway.
This led to the street featuring seven modernist buildings to a pattern agreed by the 1954 Princes Street Panel. The panel design was later dropped when a conservation body and conservation policies for the New Town emerged.
The Princes Mall opened in 1985 at the east end, replacing the 1869 Waverley Market, which traded in fruit, vegetables and flowers. The Palace Hotel was destroyed by fire in 1991 and replaced by a 6-7 storey building with shops and offices at 113—117 Princes Street and corner of Castle Street.
The second decade of the 21st century and early 2020s has weighed heavily on Princes Street’s most familiar department stores and high street names, with many closing following the global financial crisis, growth in online retail, COVID 19 pandemic, or relocating to the St James Quarter.
However, the street is today showing an upturn in investment, with cafes and restaurants bringing new life to the street and a number of mixed-use developments consented at the former Debenham’s, Jenners, Next, Zara, and Russell and Bromley stores, adding to the success of the Johnnie Walker Experience at the west end.
