Old Edinburgh Club

A Walk around the City Walls

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A Walk around the City Walls

The Walk

In its Centenary Year, 2008, the Old Edinbrugh Club arranged a conducted walk around the walls of the city of Edinburgh. 

This followed the route taken, exactly a hundred years earlier, on a walk organised by the Survey Section of Edinburgh Photographic Society in which members of the the Old Edinburgh Club were invited to participate.

The city walls used to protect the south and west sides of the city.  Natural protection was provided on other sides by the steep slopes of the Castle Rock on the east and by the Nor' Loch (now drained) on the north.

The Photo

Here, Graeme Cruickshank, dresses in green, leader of the Old Edinburgh Club walk in 2008, stops with his group at the west end of the Grassmarket.

The group looks up towards the Vennel, where their walk is to continue following the route of the Flodden Wall then the Telfer Wall beside George Heriot's School.

The steps in the background on the right are Granny Green's Steps, leading up to Johnston Terrace that runs along the south side of Edinburgh Castle.

The railings and other clutter in the top-left corner are part of a major scheme to refurbish the Grassmarket, lifting, cleaning and re-laying all the old cobble stones and landscaping the area to make it more 'pedestrian friendly'.