page_title: The Canongate
section_title: Modern era
hierarchical_section_title: The Canongate / Modern era
caption_attribution_description: English: Thomsons Land, Canongate. Modern private student accommodation behind Sugarhouse Close, with old brewery buildings and Salisbury Crags behind.
context_page_description: The Canongate is a street and associated district in central Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland. The street forms the main eastern length of the Royal Mile while the district is the main eastern section of Edinburgh's Old Town. It began when David I of Scotland, by the Great Charter of Holyrood Abbey c.1143, authorised the Abbey to found a burgh separate from Edinburgh between the Abbey and Edinburgh. The burgh of Canongate that developed was controlled by the Abbey until the Scottish Reformation when it came under secular control. In 1636 the adjacent city of Edinburgh bought the feudal superiority of the Canongate but it remained a semi-autonomous burgh under its own administration of bailies chosen by Edinburgh magistrates, until its formal incorporation into the city in 1856.
  The burgh gained its name from the route that the canons of Holyrood Abbey took to Edinburgh - the canons' way or the canons' gait, from the Scots word gait meaning "way". In more modern times, the eastern end is sometimes referred to as part of the Holyrood area of the city.
context_section_description: The area has seen various attempts at improvements and slum clearance, including various schemes by Ebenezer James MacRae in the 1930s and Sir Robert Hurd in the 1950s in traditional style replicating original facades. Another scheme, completed in 1969, by the Basil Spence practice was in modern style but in proportion to surrounding buildings.
  Due to the redevelopments of the 1950s/60s the overcrowded and impoverished area suffered from serious depopulation. From the 1960s onwards the Canongate area became notably less industrial, with all of the breweries closing. Residential redevelopment began on former industrial sites in the 1990s and 2000s with flats, offices and other commercial operations being built south of the main road, reversing the decline in population. Whilst much of this development has a modern appearance, some attempt has been made in terms of layout to retain the "fishbone" pattern characteristic of the Royal Mile.
  As of 2006, the redevelopment of former industrial land to the north of the Canongate, once occupied by Victorian gasworks and a later bus garage, has proved controversial, partly due to the original proposal, now abandoned, to demolish some of the replacement buildings from the 1930s.
  Above all, the construction of the new Scottish Parliament Building on the site of the old Younger's Abbey Brewery has led to a resurgence of the area's vitality with the Canongate becoming the centre of Scottish political life.
  Although modern development is arguably of high quality it fails to reflect the traditional character of the area.
caption: Sugarhouse Close is an example of a modern development in the Canongate. Note the renovated brewery buildings.
exif: {}