Advocates Close

The Old Town of historic Edinburgh, with its tall tenement blocks crowded together, was centered on the High Street or "Royal Mile" that ran between Edinburgh Castle and Holyroodhouse Palace. This was one of the first places in the world where people lived in multistory buildings up to 14 floors high. This lane, Advocates Close, runs downhill from The Royal Mile to Cockburn Street. One of the houses on this lane is reputed to be the oldest in Edinburgh, dating back to the late 15th century. It is now used as an art gallery, visible in this panorama towards the top of the stairs, having a diamond shaped silver coloured shop sign hanging outside. The doorway closest to the camera has He Who Tholes Overcomes sculpted above the door. To thole is to suffer or endure.

It was in this lane that James Boswell, brilliant diarist, biographer, and drinker, joined the list of victims of Edinburgh's convulsive streetscape: "I found myself on a sudden bouncing down an almost perpendicular stone stair," he noted, painfully, on the evening of November 4, 1774. "I could not stop, but when I came to the bottom of it, fell with a good deal of violence, which sobered me much."

---

Europe / UK-Scotland

Lat: 55° 55' 5.9" N
Long: 4° 16' 54" W

→ maps.google.com [EXT]

Precision is: Unknown / Undeclared.

Taken with Nikon D100, Sigma 8mm Fisheye, handheld, 5 vertical shots, PanoTools, Photoshop.