Plan for the New Town of Edinburgh by James Craig (1768)

            Drafted for the city planning committee in 1768 by James Craig, this is the definitive plan of Edinburgh, Scotland’s New Town. Oriented to the North, this plan details the streets of Edinburgh north of the Loch Nor (today the Prince’s Street Gardens) between St. George’s Square (modern day Charlotte Square) and St. Andrews Square. A dedication to King George the III illustrates the lower part of the map. An elaborate title cartouche decorates the lower left hand quadrant. Thompson’s poem appears in a secondary cartouche at the top center. In 1766 the City Fathers of Edinburgh lead by Lord Provost George Drummond instituted a plan to extend the city’s border to encompass the field’s north of the Nor Loch. The plan, intended to modernize the city and ease the crowded conditions of the old Royal Burgh, was turned into a competition. James Craig, an Edinburgh native, having around this time just completed his apprenticeship as a mason, found the he had a fine hand for drafting. Inspired by his uncle James Thomson’s well known poem Liberty , August, around, what Public Works I see, Lo’ stately Streets, lo’ Squares that Court the breeze, See’ long Canals, and deepened Rivers join Eash part with each, and with the circling Main The whole enlivened Isle… Craig submitted this plan. Though conservative in its vision, Craig’s plan won the city’s design contest and he was awarded with the “Freedom of the City” in 1767. Sadly the Lord Provost George Drummond who instituted the contest died before his dream of expanding the city was realized. It was left to his successor, the Lord Provost Gilbert Laurie, who is named on this map, to realize Craig’s plan. Today the streets are laid out much as Craig envisioned them with broad east –west avenues separating housing blocks bisected by smaller mews. Drawn by James Craig and engraved by P. Begbie in 1768. When this plan was printed in 1768, only 500 were issued. With such a small printing run as an independently issued map, we can safely assume that very few examples, other than the one you see here, have survived to this day. Only one recorded example of this map has appeared at auction in the last 30 years. Dated and copyrighted “Published according to Act of Parliament, Jan. 1st, 1768.

Photo added to give context to my album "Edinburgh's New Town"

Taken on: April 1, 2015

Tags:

james craig

new town

Edinburgh « less

Sets appears in: • New Town Life • Historic Edinburgh

Groups appears in: • Views: 2000

Stats: 2,785 views / 2 comments

close tools panel

Badge creator

Use Flickriver Badge Creator to create a badge linking to your photos, your group or any other Flickriver view.

You can place your badge on your Flickr profile, Blog or Website.

Add to your iGoogle or Netvibes page

Flickriver widget for iGoogle or Netvibes can display almost any Flickriver view - most interesting today, by user, by group, by tag etc. Once added to your personalized homepage, just edit widget settings to select your desired view.

Clickr on one of the buttons below to install:

Embed on your Web site

To embed this view, Copy and Paste the following HTML code:

Black background (preview):

White background (preview):

Firefox and Chrome addons

Adds a 'Flickriver' button to your browser. While viewing any Flickr photos page, click on this button to open the same view on Flickriver.

Install in Firefox
Install in Chrome

Search plugin

Add 'Search on Flickriver' to your browser's search box. Works with Firefox and Internet Explorer. Install search plugin

"View on Flickriver" Greasemonkey script

A Greasemonkey script that adds Flickriver links to various Flickr photo pages - user photos, favorites, pools etc, allowing to quickly open the corresponding Flickriver view.

Also, allows quickly viewing any Flickr photo on black background in large size.

Install "View on Flickriver" script

Bookmarklet

While viewing any Flickr photos page, click on the bookmarklet to open the same view on Flickriver.

To install: drag and drop the following link to your Bookmarks toolbar.
IE users - add the link to your Favorites under the Links folder