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Edinburgh Festival Fringe
A street performer on the High Street in 2010
Location(s)	Edinburgh, Scotland
Years active	1947-present
Inaugurated	1947
Genre	Arts festival
Website	edfringe.com

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe (The Fringe) is the world's largest arts festival, with the 2011 event spanning 25 days totalling over 2,500 international shows from 60 nations in 258 venues.^[1][2] Established in 1947 as an alternative to the Edinburgh International Festival, it takes place annually in Scotland's capital, in the month of August. ^[3] The Fringe is a showcase for the performing arts, particularly theatre and comedy (which has seen substantial growth in recent years), although dance and music are also represented. In 2009, 35% of shows were comedy and 28% theatrical productions.^[3] Theatrical productions range from the classics of ancient Greece, William Shakespeare and Samuel Beckett to modern works. In 2009, 37% of shows were having their world premiere.^[3]

The Fringe is an unjuried festival – with no selection committee, and therefore any type of performance may participate. The Fringe has often showcased experimental works that might not be invited to a more conservative arts festival. In addition to ticketed, programmed events, the Festival has included a street fair, located primarily on the Royal Mile. The Festival is organized by the Festival Fringe Society, which publishes the programme, sells tickets, and offers advice to performers. Their offices are on the Royal Mile.

The Board of Directors is drawn from members of the Festival Fringe Society, who are often Fringe participants themselves - performers or administrators. Elections are held once a year, in August, and Board members serve a term of three years. The Board appoints the Fringe CEO (formerly known as the Fringe Administrator or Director) and operates under the chairmanship of a well-known public personality. The first chairman was Lord Grant, a High Court judge, who gave way in 1970 to the actor Andrew Cruikshank. He was succeeded in 1983, by Dr. Jonathan Miller, and then by Elizabeth Smith, Baroness Smith (widow of former Labour Leader John Smith).

The first full-time Fringe chief was former teacher, John Milligan, who left in 1976 to run the Craigmillar Festival. He was succeeded by writer and historian Alistair Moffat, who left in 1981 to become Head of Arts at Scottish Television. He was replaced by Michael Dale, who departed in 1986 to become Head of Events for the Glasgow Garden Festival. He was succeeded by his deputy, Mhairi Mackenzie-Robinson, who left in 1993 to pursue a career in business. Hilary Strong served in the position until 1999, when she then became director of the Greenwich Theatre. She was followed by Paul Gudgin (2000-2007), Jon Morgan (2007-2008), and Kath Mainland, the current CEO.

The 2011 Fringe sold 1,877,119 tickets^[1] for 41,689 performances of 2,542 shows, in 258 venues, over 25 days,^[3] for an average of more than 75,000 admissions and 1,360 performances per day. There were an estimated 21,192 performers, from 60 countries participating. There were 607 free shows.

History[link]

John Bishop performing at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Early years[link]

The Fringe started life when eight theatre companies turned up uninvited to the inaugural Edinburgh International Festival in 1947. Seven performed in Edinburgh, and one undertook a version of the medieval morality play "Everyman" in Dunfermline Cathedral, about 20 miles north, across the river Forth, in Fife. These groups aimed to take advantage of the large assembled theatre crowds to showcase their own, alternative, theatre. The Fringe got its name the following year (1948) after Robert Kemp, a Scottish playwright and journalist, wrote during the second Edinburgh International Festival: ‘Round the fringe of official Festival drama, there seems to be more private enterprise than before ... I am afraid some of us are not going to be at home during the evenings!’.^[4]

The Fringe did not benefit from any official organization until 1951, when students of the University of Edinburgh set up a drop-in centre in the YMCA, where cheap food and a bed for the night were made available to participating groups. It was 1955 before the first attempt was made to provide a central booking service.^[5]

The advent of the Fringe was not warmly greeted by some sections of the International Festival (and the Edinburgh establishment), leading to outbursts of animosity between the two festivals. This lasted well into the 1970s.^{[citation needed]}

Formal organization progressed in 1959, with the formation of the Festival Fringe Society. A constitution was drawn up, in which the policy of not vetting or censoring shows was set out, and the Society produced the first guide to Fringe shows. Nineteen companies participated in the Fringe in that year.

The artistic credentials of the Fringe were established by the creators of the Traverse Theatre, John Calder, Jim Haynes and Richard Demarco in 1963. While their original objective was to maintain something of the Festival atmosphere in Edinburgh all year round, the Traverse Theatre quickly and regularly presented cutting edge drama to an international audience on both the Edinburgh International Festival and on the Fringe during August. It set a standard to which other companies on the Fringe aspired. The Traverse is occasionally referred to as 'The Fringe venue that got away', reflecting its current status as a permanent and integral part of the Edinburgh arts scene.

Problems began to arise as the Fringe became too big for students and volunteers to deal with. Eventually in 1969 the Society became a constituted body, and in 1970 it employed its first administrator, John Milligan, who left in 1976.^[5]

Between 1976 and 1981, under the direction of Alistair Moffat, the number of companies performing rose from 182 to 494, thus achieving its position of the largest arts festival in the world. At this point, the Fringe operated on only two full-time members of staff. In 1988 the Society moved from 170 High Street to its current expanded headquarters on the Royal Mile.

The Fringe today[link]

A street performer on the Royal Mile, with volunteer (2004).

The Fringe has grown dramatically since its inception. Statistics for 2011 Edinburgh Festival Fringe concluded that it was the largest on record: there were over 40,000 performances of over 2,500 different shows in 258 venues.^[1] Ticket sales amounted to around 1.8 million.^[1] There are now 12 full-time members of staff.

Of the shows, theatre had been the largest genre in terms of number of shows until 2008, when it was overtaken by comedy, which has been the major growth area over the last 20 years. The other genres are, in order of number of shows: Music, Dance & Physical Theatre, Musicals & Opera, and Children's Shows, in addition to assorted Events and Exhibitions.

It is possible to sample shows before committing to a full performance. For many years, the Fringe Club (variously in the High Street from 1971 and at Teviot Row Student Union from 1981) provided nightly showcases of Fringe fare to allow audiences to sample shows. The Fringe Club closed down in 2004, and various venues still provide "the Best of the Fest" and similar. The best opportunity used to be afforded by "Fringe Sunday", started in the High Street in 1981 and moved through pressure of popularity to Holyrood Park in 1983. Fringe Sunday was held on the second Sunday of the Fringe when companies performed for free. Having outgrown even Holyrood Park, this showcase took place on The Meadows until 2008. Alternatively, on any day during the Fringe the pedestrianised area of the High Street around St Giles' Cathedral and the Fringe Office becomes the focal point for theatre companies to hand out flyers, perform scenes from their shows, and attempt to sell tickets. Many shows are "2 for 1" on the opening weekend of the Festival.

Venues[link]

The Pleasance Courtyard during the 2006 Edinburgh Festival Fringe

According to the Fringe Society there were 258 venues in 2011, although over 80 of them housed events or exhibitions, which are not part of the main performing art genres that the Fringe is generally known for.

Over the first 20 years each performing group had its own performing space, or venue. However, by around 1970 the concept of sharing a venue became popular, principally as a means of cutting costs. It soon became possible to host up to 6 or 7 different shows per day in a hall. The obvious next step was to partition a venue into two or more performing spaces; the majority of today's venues fit into this category. This approach was taken a stage further by the early 1980s with the arrival of the "super-venue" – a location that contains multiple performing spaces. The Assembly Rooms started the trend in 1981, taking over the empty Georgian building that had once hosted the International Festival Club, and the following year The Circuit was prominent; it was in fact a "tented village”, that was situated on a piece of empty ground, popularly known as “The Hole in The Ground”, once the site of a snooker club (Pool's), where the Saltire complex was subsequently built in the early 1990s. The new Traverse Theatre opened here in 1993.

Venues now come in all shapes and sizes, with use being made of every conceivable space from proper theatres (e.g. Traverse or Bedlam Theatre), custom-made theatres (e.g. Music Hall in the Assembly Rooms), historic castles (C venues), to lecture theatres (Pleasance, George Square Theatre and Sweet ECA), conference centres, other university rooms and spaces, temporary structures (The Famous Spiegeltent and the Udderbelly ), churches and church halls, schools, a public toilet, the back of a taxi, and even in the audience's own homes.

The groups that operate the venues are also very diverse: some are commercial and others not-for-profit; some operate year-round, while others exist only to run venues at the Fringe. Many are based in London.

From the performers' perspective, the decision on where to perform is typically based on a mixture of cost, location (close proximity to other venues is seen as a plus), and the philosophy of the venue – some of whom specialise in amateur, school or college productions, some of whom are semi or wholly professional.

The professionalism of venues and of organisations has greatly increased. The church hall at Lauriston Place, used by Edinburgh University Theatre Company as Bedlam Theatre, was taken over by Richard Crane and Faynia Williams from the University of Bradford in 1975 to house "Satan's Ball". This was an ambitious benchmark production which inspired others.^{[citation needed]} By 1980 when William Burdett-Coutts set up the Assembly Theatre in the Assembly Rooms on George Street (formerly the EIF Festival Club), the investment in staging, lighting and sound meant that the original amateur or student theatricals were left behind. There was still theatre done on a shoestring, but several cultural entrepreneurs had raised the stakes to the point where a venue like Aurora (St Stephen's Church, Stockbridge) could hold its head up in any major world festival.

Computerised box office[link]

A computerised booking system was first installed in the early 1990s, allowing tickets to be bought at a number of locations around the city. The Internet arrived in 2000 with the launching of its official website, which sold over half a million tickets online by 2005. In the following year, a Half Price Ticket Tent was added in association with Metro, offering special ticket prices for different shows each day, selling 45,000 tickets in its first year.

Several venues use their own ticketing systems; this is partly due to issues of commissions and how ticket revenue is distributed,^[6] and was reinforced by the 2008 failure of the main box office.

2008 problems[link]

In 2008 the Fringe faced the biggest crisis in its history when the computerised ticketing system failed. The director of the Fringe resigned and the Board decided that the post of "Director" (invented in 1992 after years of being called "Fringe Administrator") would be abolished and replaced by a Chief Executive, thus reinforcing the Fringe chief's basic administrative function. A report into the failure was commissioned from accountancy firm Scott-Moncrieff.^[6]

The events surrounding the failed box office software led to the resignation of Fringe Director Jon Morgan after only one full year in post. The resultant financial loss suffered by the Fringe Society has been estimated at £300,000 which it was forced to meet from its reserves.^{[citation needed]} These events attracted much comment from the UK and world media. More debts emerged as the year went on, and an independent report criticised the Board and the current and previous Fringe Directors for a failure of management and an inability to provide the basic service.^{[citation needed]}

To make matters worse, Fringe Sunday – a vast free showcase of events held on the Meadows – was cancelled as a sponsor could not be secured.^[7] After an interim period, when Tim Hawkins from Brighton held the reins, established Edinburgh Book Festival and Fringe manager Kath Mainland was appointed in February 2009 to stabilise the situation, and became the Fringe's first Chief Executive.

Notable shows[link]

Edinburgh has spawned many notable original shows and helped establish the careers of many writers and performers.

In 1960 Alan Bennett, Dudley Moore, Peter Cook and Jonathan Miller performed at the Royal Lyceum theatre in Beyond the Fringe, introducing a new wave of British satire and heralding a change in attitudes towards politicians and the establishment. Ironically, this show was put together by the Edinburgh International Festival as a rebuff to the emerging Fringe. But its title alone helped publicise "the Fringe", especially when it went on to London's West End and New York's Broadway for the next 12 months.^[8]

Tom Stoppard's play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead was first performed in its full version at the 1966 Fringe.^[9]

It has also launched or advanced the careers of a number of noted actors, such as Derek Jacobi, who starred in a sixth-form production of Hamlet, which was very well regarded.^[10]

The 1986 Fringe saw the breakout performance of Craig Ferguson as "Bing Hitler", a "parody of all the über-patriotic native folk singers who seemed to infect every public performance in Scotland."^[11]

2003 saw a very successful production of 12 Angry Men staged at the Assembly Rooms using established comedians in the roles of the twelve jurors. It starred Owen O'Neill in the role made famous by Henry Fonda, Juror #8. Stephen Frost, Phil Nichol and Bill Bailey also featured.^[12]

A 2004 version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was beset by problems, including the lead actor Christian Slater contracting chicken pox and the original director, Guy Masterson, quitting the project before it opened. Masterson was replaced by Terry Johnson.^[13]

In 2005, a production of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple starring Bill Bailey and Alan Davies was staged at the Assembly Hall, the meeting place on the Mound of the Church of Scotland. This had been taken over by Assembly Theatre and transformed into an 840-seat theatre.^[14]

The Tattoo set-up at Edinburgh Castle served as the 6,000-seat venue for a one-off performance by Ricky Gervais of his latest stand-up show Fame in 2007. Gervais was accused of greed^[15] and taking audiences away from smaller shows. Gervais donated the profits from the show to Macmillan Cancer Support.^[16]

Fringe legacy[link]

The concept of fringe theatre has been copied around the world. The largest and most celebrated of these spawned festivals are Adelaide Fringe Festival, National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, South Africa, and Edmonton International Fringe Festival. The number of such events continues to grow, particularly in the USA and Canada. In the case of Edinburgh (est 1947) the Fringe is an addition to the Festival proper. Hence the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. But where there is no actual Festival to be added to – such as New York (est 1997) – or where the festival is more "fringe" than anything else, the word comes before the word "festival", thus the "Adelaide Fringe Festival." (est 1979).

In the field of drama, the Edinburgh Fringe has premièred several plays, most notably Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard (1966) and Moscow Stations (1994) which starred Tom Courtenay. Over the years, it has attracted a number of companies that have made repeated visits to the Fringe, and in doing so helped to set high artistic standards. They have included: the London Club Theatre Group (1950s), 7:84 Scotland (1970s), the Children's Music Theatre, later the National Youth Music Theatre under Jeremy James Taylor, the National Student Theatre Company (from the 1970s), Communicado (1980s and 1990s), Red Shift (1990s), Grid Iron, and Fitchburg State University. The Fringe is also the staging ground of the American High School Theatre Festival.

In the field of comedy, the Fringe has provided a platform that has allowed the careers of many performers to bloom. In the 1960s, various members of the Monty Python team appeared in student productions, as subsequently did Rowan Atkinson, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie and Emma Thompson, the latter three with the 1981 Cambridge Footlights. Atkinson was at Oxford. Notable companies in the 1980s have included Complicite and the National Theatre of Brent. More recent comedy performers to have been 'discovered' include Rory Bremner, Fascinating Aida, Reduced Shakespeare Company, Steve Coogan, Jenny Eclair, The League of Gentlemen, Al Murray and Rich Hall.

Criticism[link]

Open Access Arts Festival[link]

The role of the Fringe Society is to facilitate the festival, concentrating mainly on the challenging logistics of organising such a large event. Alistair Moffat (Fringe administrator 1976–1981) summarised the role of the Society when he said, “As a direct result of the wishes of the participants, the Society had been set up to help the performers that come to Edinburgh and to promote them collectively to the public. It did not come together so that groups could be invited, or in some way artistically vetted. What was performed and how it was done was left entirely to each Fringe group”. This approach is now sometimes referred to as an unjuried festival, open access arts festival or a fringe festival.^[2]

Quality[link]

Over the years this approach has led to adverse criticism about the quality of the Fringe. Much of this criticism comes from individual arts critics in national newspapers, hard-line aficionados of the Edinburgh International Festival, and occasionally from the Edinburgh International Festival itself.

The Fringe's own position on this debate may be summed up by Michael Dale (Fringe Administrator 1982–1986) in his book Sore Throats & Overdrafts, "No-one can say what the quality will be like overall. It does not much matter, actually, for that is not the point of the Fringe ... The Fringe is a forum for ideas and achievement unique in the UK, and in the whole world ... Where else could all this be attempted, let alone work?". Views from the middle ground of this perennial debate point out that the Fringe is not complete artistic anarchy. Some venues do influence or decide on the content of their programme, such as the Traverse and the now defunct Aurora Nova.

A frequent criticism, well-aired in the media over the last 20 years, has been that "stand-up comedy is taking over" the Fringe, that a large proportion of newer audiences are drawn almost exclusively to stand-up comics (particularly to television comedy stars in famous venues), and that they are starting to regard non-comedy events as "peripheral". The 2008 Fringe marked the first time that comedy has made up the largest category of entertainment.^[17]

The freedom to put on any show has led periodically to controversy when individual tastes in sexual explicitness or religion have been contravened. This has brought some into conflict with local city councillors. There have been the occasional performing groups who have deliberately tried to provoke controversy as a means of advertising their shows.^{[citation needed]}

Ticket prices[link]

In the mid 1990s only the occasional top show charged £10 per seat, while the average price was £5–£7; in 2006, prices were frequently over £10, and £20 was reached for the first time in 2006 for a show that lasted 1 hour. Some of the reasons that are put forward for the increases include: the increasing costs associated with hiring large venues; theatre licences and related costs; plus the price of accommodation during the Edinburgh Festival which is expensive for performers as well as for audiences.

In recent years a different business model has been adopted by two organisations; The Free Fringe and The Laughing Horse Free Edinburgh Fringe Festival have introduced the concept of the free entry show, though there are collections at the end of each performance. There were 22 shows that came under this banner in 2005, growing rapidly to over 600 in 2011. There was also the "pay what you can" model of the Forest Fringe, discussed below.

Costs to performers[link]

Putting on a show at the Fringe is costly to performers,^[18] due to registration fees, venue hire, cost of accommodations, and travel to Edinburgh. There are graduated registration fees, inexpensive venues, and inexpensive accommodations, but despite this, few shows even break even.^{[citation needed]} Instead, the festival is touted as a networking opportunity, training ground or springboard for future career advancement, and exciting and fun for performers as well as spectators.^[19]

Costs to venues[link]

Putting on shows is costly to venues as well, due to theatre license fees which by 2009 had risen 800% in the preceding three years, and were eight times as high as fees in English cities, starting at £824 for a venue of up to 200 people and rising to £2,472 for a venue of up to 5,000 people.^[20] These fees have been cited as punitive to smaller venues and site-specific performances by such figures as Julian Caddy,^[21] which in 2009 featured site-specific shows in such venues as Inchcolm island and a swimming pool at the Apex International Hotel.

Fringe of the Fringe[link]

The Fringe itself at times sprouts a fringe. While the festival is unjuried, participating in the Fringe requires registration, payment of a registration fee,^[18] and use of a Fringe venue. For example, the 2008 registration fee was £289.05.^[22] Some outdoor spaces also require registration, notably the Royal Mile.^[23][24] Thus some artists perform outside of the auspices of the Fringe, either individually or as part of a festival or in association with a venue, either outdoors or in non-Fringe venues.

Started by Deborah Pearson in 2007, and continuing in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011, under the co-directorship of Andy Field and Deborah Pearson, a primary "Fringe of the Fringe" festival is the,^[25][26] at The Forest, with support from 2008 to 2010 by the Battersea Arts Centre (BAC) and currently supported by several organisations including the Jerwood Foundation and Queen's University in Canada. The aim is to encourage experimentation by reducing costs to performers – not charging for space, and providing accommodation. The same applies to audiences: all shows being "pay what you can".^[27]

Reviews and awards[link]

Sources of reviews[link]

For many groups at the Fringe the ultimate goal is a favourable review which, apart from the welcome kudos, may help to minimise any financial losses that are suffered in putting on the show.

Edinburgh based newspaper The Scotsman, known for its comprehensive coverage of the Edinburgh Festival, originally aimed to review every show on the Fringe. Now they are more selective, as there are simply too many shows to cover, although they do see almost every new play being staged as part of the Fringe's theatre programme, because of their Fringe First awards.

Other Scottish media outlets that provide coverage include: The Herald, Scotland on Sunday, Sunday Herald and the Scottish edition of Metro. Scottish arts and entertainment magazines The List and Fest Magazine – also provide extensive coverage.

A number of independent reviewing organisations cover the Fringe, including Edinburghguide.com, ThreeWeeks, Broadway Baby, Fringe Review, and Fringe Guru.

The Festival Media Network was founded in 2010 to act as a trade organisation for these independent media. Its members are Broadway Baby, Festival Previews, Fringe Guru, FringeReview, Hairline, iFringe, ThreeWeeks and WhatsOnStage.com.^[28]

In 2011, the most prolific reviewers were ThreeWeeks which published well over 1000 reviews^[29] Broadway Baby with 679 reviews and The Scotsman with 639 reviews. The List published 497 reviews and WhatsOnStage.com published 418.^[30]

Most of the London-based broadsheets also review, in particular The Guardian and The Independent, while arts industry weekly The Stage publish a large number of Edinburgh reviews, especially of the drama programme.

Awards[link]

Gabriel Byrne holding his Herald Angel

There are a growing number of awards for Fringe shows, particularly in the field of drama:

• The Scotsman introduced the prestigious 'Fringe First' awards in 1973. These awards were established by Scotsman arts editor Allen Wright to encourage new theatre writing, and are given only to new plays (or new translations), and several are awarded for each of the three weeks of the Fringe – usually by a celebrity at a prestigious ceremony.
• Herald Angels are awarded by the team of arts writers of The Herald to performers or shows deemed worthy of recognition. Similar to Fringe Firsts, they are given each week of the Fringe.
• The Stage has awarded the Stage Awards for Acting Excellence since 1995. There are currently four categories: best actor, actress, ensemble and solo show.
• 'Total Theatre Awards' has presented their Total Theatre Awards for excellence in the field of physical and visual theatre since 1997. The categories under which these awards are given vary from year to year. A notable addition in 2007 was the inclusion of a 'Wild Card' award chosen by the festival-going public.
• Amnesty International introduced the Amnesty Freedom of Expression Award in 2002.^[31]
• The Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award for best drama was introduced in 2004. To be eligible for this award a show must have received a four or five star rating in The Scotsman and must not have previously played in New York, as the prize is to put the show on in New York.
• The ThreeWeeks Editors' Awards^[32] was introduced in 2005 and are given to the ten things that have most excited the ThreeWeeks editors each year.
• The Terrier Awards (hosted by The Scotsman Piano Bar) joined The Tap Water Awards (hosted by the Holyrood Tavern) as alternative awards in 2006.
• The Edinburgh Musical Theatre Awards were introduced in 2007 by Musical Theatre Matters, to encourage the writing and production of new musicals on the Fringe.
• The Holden Street Theatres Edinburgh Award – presented at The Scotsman Fringe Awards Ceremony. The Award offers an outstanding production the opportunity to tour as the headline act for Holden Street Theatres in its Adelaide Fringe Program in the following year.^{[citation needed]}

• The Perrier Awards for Comedy came into existence in 1981 when the award was won by the Cambridge Footlights. (Two further award categories have since been added.) Perrier, the mineral water manufacturer ended its long association in 2006 and was succeeded by the Scottish-based company Intelligent Finance. In 2009 IF also withdrew and could not be replaced so the awards are now temporarily being funded by promoter Nica Burns and rebranded as the Edinburgh Comedy awards, or "Eddies".
• The Malcolm Hardee Award "for comic originality of thought or performance"^[33] is to be presented for ten years, 2008–2017.^[34][35] An initial one-off Malcolm Hardee Award had been made at the Fringe in 2005, the year of Hardee's death, to American musical comic Reggie Watts.^[36]

See also[link]

• List of Fringe Festivals
• List of Edinburgh Comedy Award winners

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Bain, A., The Fringe: 50 Years of the Greatest Show on Earth, The Scotsman Publications Ltd, 1996
• Dale, M., Sore Throats and Overdrafts: An illustrated story of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Precedent Publications Ltd, Edinburgh, 1988
• McMillan, J., Carnegie, J., The Traverse Theatre Story 1963–1988, Methuen Publishing, London, 1988
• Moffat, A., The Edinburgh Fringe, Cassell Ltd, London and Edinburgh, 1978

External links[link]

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More spoken articles

• Media related to Edinburgh Festival at Wikimedia Commons
• Official website
• Official Edinburgh Festival Guide full listings and reviews for all the Edinburgh festivals
• Histories of the Fringe and other Edinburgh summer festivals
• Edinburgh Festival Classroom resources

City of Edinburgh Scottish Gaelic: Dùn Èideann Scots: Edinburgh
—  Unitary authority & city  —
City of Edinburgh
Clockwise from top-left: View from Calton Hill, University of Edinburgh Old College, View of a section of Old Town, Edinburgh Castle, Princes Street as seen from Calton Hill.
Flag Coat of arms of City of Edinburgh Coat of arms Logo of the Council
Nickname(s): "Auld Reekie", "Athens of the North", "Edina", "Dunedin"
Motto: "Nisi Dominus Frustra" "Except the Lord in vain" associated with Edinburgh since 1647, it is a normal heraldic contraction of a verse from the 127th Psalm, "Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it. Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain"
City of Edinburgh Location in Scotland
Coordinates: 55°57′11″N 3°11′20″W / 55.95306°N 3.18889°W / 55.95306; -3.18889Coordinates: 55°57′11″N 3°11′20″W / 55.95306°N 3.18889°W / 55.95306; -3.18889
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Country	Scotland
Council area	City of Edinburgh
Lieutenancy area	Edinburgh
Admin HQ	Edinburgh City Centre
Founded	prior to the 7th century
Burgh Charter	1125
City status	1889
Government
• Type	Unitary Authority, City
• Governing body	The City of Edinburgh Council
• Lord Provost	George Grubb
• MSPs	6 Kenny MacAskill (SNP) Marco Biagi (SNP) Malcolm Chisholm (L) Gordon MacDonald (SNP) Jim Eadie (SNP) Colin Keir (SNP)
• MPs:	5 Alistair Darling (L) Gavin Strang (L) Nigel Griffiths (L) Mark Lazarowicz (L) John Barrett (LD)
Area
• Unitary authority & city	100.00 sq mi (259.0 km2)
Population (2010)
• Unitary authority & city	486,120[1]
• Urban	420,893[2]
• Urban density	4,776/sq mi (1,844/km2)
Time zone	Greenwich Mean Time (UTC+0)
• Summer (DST)	British Summer Time (UTC+1)
Postcode	EH
Area code(s)	0131
ISO 3166-2	GB-EDH
ONS code	00QP
OS grid reference	NT275735
NUTS 3	UKM25
Website	www.edinburgh.gov.uk (Official Council site) www.edinburgh-inspiringcapital.com (Visitor-facing site)

Edinburgh (ⁱ/ˈɛdɪnbʌrə/ ED-in-burr-ə; Scottish Gaelic: Dùn Èideann) is the capital city of Scotland and the seat of the Scottish Parliament. It is the second largest city in Scotland and the seventh most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a 30 square miles (78 km²) rural area. Located in the south-east of Scotland, Edinburgh lies on the east coast of the Central Belt, along the Firth of Forth, near the North Sea.

The city was one of the historical major centres of the Enlightenment, led by the University of Edinburgh, helping to earn it the nickname Athens of the North.^[3] The Old Town and New Town districts of Edinburgh were listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995 in recognition of the unique character of the Medieval Old Town and the planned Georgian New Town. It covers both the Old and New Towns together with the Dean Village and the Calton Hill areas. There are over 4,500 listed buildings within the city.^[4] In May 2010, it had a total of 40 conservation areas covering 23% of the building stock and 23% of the population, the highest such ratios of any major city in the UK.^[5] In the 2011 mid-year population estimates, Edinburgh had a total resident population of 495,360.^[6]

The city hosts the annual Edinburgh Festival, a group of official and independent festivals held annually over about four weeks beginning in early August. The number of visitors attracted to Edinburgh for the Festival is roughly equal to the settled population of the city. The best-known of these events are the Edinburgh Fringe, the largest performing-arts festival in the world; the Edinburgh International Festival; the Edinburgh Military Tattoo; and the Edinburgh International Book Festival. Other annual events include the Hogmanay street party and the Beltane Fire Festival. Edinburgh attracts over 1 million overseas visitors a year, making it the second most visited tourist destination in the United Kingdom.^[7]

Etymology[link]

The name "Edinburgh" appears to derive from the Celtic British place name Eidyn, mentioned in a number of medieval Welsh sources.^{[8][9][10]:297} Kenneth H. Jackson argued strongly that "Eidyn" referred exclusively to the location of modern Edinburgh,^[11] but others, such as Ifor Williams and Nora K. Chadwick, suggest it applied to the wider area as well.^[12][13] The name "Eidyn" may survive today in other toponyms, such as Dunedin and Carriden (from Caer Eidyn), fifteen miles to the west.^[10]

Edinburgh Castle

Present-day Edinburgh was the location of Din Eidyn, a dun or hillfort associated with the kingdom of the Gododdin.^[14] The modern Scottish Gaelic name "Dùn Eideann" derives directly from the British Din Eidyn; the English and Scots form are similar, adding the element -burgh, from the Old English burh, also meaning fort.^[15] Some sources claim Edinburgh's name is derived from an Old English form such as Eadwinesburh, in reference to the 7th century king Edwin of Northumbria.^[16] However, modern scholarship refutes this, as the form Eidyn predates Edwin.^[15][17]

The first evidence of the existence of the town as a separate entity from the fort lies in an early 12th century royal charter, generally thought to date from 1124, by King David I granting land to the Church of the Holy Rood of Edinburgh. This suggests that the town came into official existence between 1018 (when King Malcolm II secured the Lothians from the Northumbrians) and 1124.^[18] By the 1170s King William the Lion was using the name "Edenesburch" in a charter (in Latin) confirming the 1124 grant of David I.^[19]

History[link]

Humans have settled the Edinburgh area from at least the Bronze Age, leaving traces of primitive stone settlements at Holyrood, Craiglockhart Hill and the Pentland Hills for example.^[20] Local culture was influenced through the Iron Age by Hallstatt and La Tene Celtic cultures from central Europe. By the time the Romans arrived in Lothian at the beginning of the 1st millennium AD, they discovered a Celtic Brythonic tribe whose name they recorded as Votadini, likely to be a Latin version of the name they called themselves.

The Angles of Northumbria had a significant influence in what was to become South-East Scotland, notably from AD 638 when it appears the Gododdin stronghold was besieged. Though far from exclusive (cf Picts and Scots), this influence continued over three centuries. It was not until c. AD 950 when, during the reign of Indulf, son of Constantine II, the city, referred to at this time in the Pictish Chronicle as 'oppidum Eden',^[21] fell to the Scots and finally remained under their jurisdiction.^[22] During this period of Germanic influence in south east Scotland, when the city's name gained its Germanic suffix, 'burgh', the seeds for the language we know today as Scots were sown.

Edinburgh in the 17th century

By the 12th century Edinburgh, founded upon the famous castle rock, the volcanic crag and tail geological feature shaped by 2 million years of glacial activity, was well established becoming one of the earliest Scottish Royal Burghs. Founded in the mid 12th century, a separate Burgh of regality, known as the Canongate and held by the Abbey of Holyrood, developed to the East. Through the late medieval period Edinburgh grew quickly and continued to flourish economically and culturally through the Renaissance period. It was at the centre of the 16th century Scottish Reformation and the Wars of the Covenant a hundred years later.

In 1603, King James VI of Scotland succeeded to the English throne, uniting the two kingdoms in a personal union known as the Union of the Crowns. Scotland remained a sovereign kingdom with the Parliament of Scotland in Edinburgh. King James VI progressed to London where he established his court, maintaining his rule in Scotland through his Privy Council which merely received his written instructions and executed his will.^[23] Despite promising to return every three years, he returned to Edinburgh only once, in 1617.

Disputes between the Presbyterian Covenanters and the Anglican Church in 1639 led to the Bishops' Wars, the initial conflict of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. During the Third English Civil War Edinburgh was taken by the Commonwealth forces of Oliver Cromwell prior to Charles II's eventual defeat at the Battle of Worcester.

In 17th century Edinburgh a defensive wall, built in the 16th century largely as protection against English invasion following James IV's defeat at the Battle of Flodden and hence named the Flodden Wall, still defined the boundaries of the city. Due to the restricted land area available for development, houses increased in height instead. Buildings of 11 storeys were common and there are records of buildings as high as 14 or even 15 storeys,^[24] an early version of the modern-day skyscraper. Many of the stone-built structures can still be seen today in the Old Town.

In 1706 and 1707 the Acts of Union were passed by the Parliaments of England and Scotland uniting the two Kingdoms into the Kingdom of Great Britain. As a consequence, the Parliament of Scotland merged with the Parliament of England to form the Parliament of Great Britain, which sat at Westminster in London. The union was opposed by many Scots at the time and this led to riots within the city.^[25]

From early times, and certainly from the 14th century, Edinburgh (like other royal burghs of Scotland) used armorial devices in many ways, including on seals. In 1732, the 'achievement' or 'coat of arms' was formally granted by the Lord Lyon King of Arms. These arms were used by Edinburgh Town Council until the reorganisation of local government in Scotland in May 1975, when it was succeeded by the City of Edinburgh District Council and a new coat of arms, based on the earlier one, was granted. In 1996, further local government reorganisation resulted in the formation of the City of Edinburgh Council, and again the coat of arms was updated.^[26]

Edinburgh Castle from the Grass Market, 1865

During the Jacobite rising of 1745, Edinburgh was briefly occupied by Jacobite forces before their march into England. Following their ultimate defeat at the Battle of Culloden, near Inverness, there was a period of reprisals and pacification, largely directed at the Catholic Highlanders. In Edinburgh the Hanoverian monarch attempted to gain favour by supporting new developments to the north of the castle, naming streets in honour of the King and his family; George Street, Frederick Street, Hanover Street and Princes Street, named in honour of George III's two sons.

The city was at the heart of the Scottish Enlightenment.^[27] Celebrities from across the continent would be seen in the city streets, among them famous Scots such as David Hume, Walter Scott, Robert Adam, David Wilkie, Robert Burns, James Hutton and Adam Smith. Edinburgh became a major cultural centre, earning it the nickname Athens of the North because of the Greco-Roman style of the New Town's architecture, as well as the rise of the Scottish intellectual elite who were increasingly leading both Scottish and European intellectual thought.^[28]

In the 19th century, Edinburgh, like many cities, industrialised, but did not grow as fast as Scotland's second city, Glasgow, which replaced it as the largest city in the country, benefiting greatly at the height of the British Empire.

The Scotland Act 1998 which came into force in 1999 established a devolved Scottish parliament and Scottish Executive, both based in Edinburgh responsible for governing Scotland, with reserved matters such as defence, taxation and foreign affairs remaining the responsibility of Westminster.

A panorama of Edinburgh, seen from the Scott Monument

Geography[link]

Arthur's Seat viewed across southern parts of Edinburgh from Blackford Hill

The Water of Leith near the Dean Village

Bounded by the Firth of Forth to the north and the Pentland Hills, which skirt the periphery of the city to the south, Edinburgh lies in the eastern portion of the Central Lowlands of Scotland.^[29] The city sprawls over a landscape which is the product of early volcanic activity and later periods of intensive glaciation.^[30] Igneous activity between 350 and 400 million years ago, coupled with faulting led to the dispersion of tough basalt volcanic plugs, which predominate over much of the area.^[30] One such example is Castle Rock which forced the advancing icepack to divide, sheltering the softer rock and forming a mile-long tail of material to the east, creating a distinctive crag and tail formation.^[30] Glacial erosion on the northern side of the crag gouged a large valley resulting in the now drained Nor Loch. This structure, along with a ravine to the south, formed an ideal natural fortress which Edinburgh Castle was built upon.^[30] Similarly, Arthur's Seat is the remains of a volcano system dating from the Carboniferous period, which was eroded by a glacier moving from west to east during the ice age.^[30] Erosive action such as plucking and abrasion exposed the rocky crags to the west before leaving a tail of deposited glacial material swept to the east.^[31] This process formed the distinctive Salisbury Crags, which formed a series of teschenite cliffs between Arthur's Seat and the city centre.^[32] The residential areas of Marchmont and Bruntsfield are built along a series of drumlin ridges south of the city centre, which were deposited as the glacier receded.^[30]

Other viewpoints in the city such as Calton Hill and Corstorphine Hill are similar products of glacial erosion.^[30] The Braid Hills and Blackford Hill are a series of small summits to the south west of the city commanding expansive views over the urban area of Edinburgh and northwards to the Forth.^[30]

Edinburgh is drained by the Water of Leith, which finds its source at the Colzium Springs in the Pentland Hills and runs for 29 kilometres (18 mi) through the south and west of the city, emptying into the Firth of Forth at Leith.^[33] The nearest the river gets to the city centre is at Dean Village on the edge of the New Town, where a deep gorge is spanned by the Dean Bridge, designed by Thomas Telford and built in 1832 for the road to Queensferry.^[33] The Water of Leith Walkway is a mixed use trail that follows the river for 19.6 kilometres (12.2 mi) from Balerno to Leith.^[34]

Designated in 1957, Edinburgh is ringed by a green belt stretching from Dalmeny in the west to Prestongrange in the east.^[35] With an average width of 3.2 kilometres (2 mi) the principal objective of the green belt was to contain the outward expansion of Edinburgh and to prevent the agglomeration of urban areas.^[35] Expansion within the green belt is strictly controlled but developments such as Edinburgh Airport and the Royal Highland Showground at Ingliston lie within the zone.^[35] Similarly, urban villages such as Juniper Green and Balerno sit on green belt land.^[35] One feature of the green belt in Edinburgh is the inclusion of parcels of land within the city which are designated as green belt even though they do not adjoin the main peripheral ring. Examples of these independent wedges of green belt include Holyrood Park and Corstorphine Hill.^[35]

Areas[link]

Old and New Towns of Edinburgh *
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Country	Scotland
Type	Cultural
Criteria	ii, iv
Reference	728
Region **	Europe and North America
Inscription history
Inscription	1995 (19th Session)
* Name as inscribed on World Heritage List ** Region as classified by UNESCO

Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, is divided into areas that generally encompass a park (sometimes known as "links"), a main local street (i.e. street of local retail shops), a high street (the historic main street, not always the same as the main local street, such as in Corstorphine) and residential buildings. In Edinburgh many residences are tenements, although the more southern and western parts of the city have traditionally been more affluent and have a greater number of detached and semi-detached villas.

The historic centre of Edinburgh is divided into two by the broad green swath of Princes Street Gardens. To the south the view is dominated by Edinburgh Castle, perched atop the extinct volcanic crag, and the long sweep of the Old Town trailing after it along the ridge. To the north lies Princes Street and the New Town. The gardens were begun in 1816 on bogland which had once been the Nor Loch.

To the immediate west of the castle lies the financial district, housing insurance and banking buildings. Probably the most noticeable building here is the circular sandstone building that is the Edinburgh International Conference Centre.

Old Town[link]

Map of the city, showing New Town, Old Town, and the West End.

The Old Town has preserved its medieval plan and many Reformation-era buildings. One end is closed by the castle and the main artery, the Royal Mile, leads away from it; minor streets (called closes or wynds) lead downhill on either side of the main spine in a herringbone pattern. Large squares mark the location of markets or surround public buildings such as St. Giles' Cathedral and the Law Courts. Other notable places nearby include the Royal Museum of Scotland, Surgeons' Hall and McEwan Hall. The street layout is typical of the old quarters of many northern European cities, and where the castle perches on top of a rocky crag (the remnants of an extinct volcano) the Royal Mile runs down the crest of a ridge from it.

Due to space restrictions imposed by the narrowness of the "tail", the Old Town became home to some of the earliest "high rise" residential buildings. Multi-storey dwellings known as lands were the norm from the 16th century onwards with ten and eleven storeys being typical and one even reaching fourteen or fifteen storeys.^[36] Additionally, numerous vaults below street level were inhabited to accommodate the influx of immigrants during the Industrial Revolution.

Panoramic view of the North Bridge and north elevation of the Old Town

New Town[link]

The New Town was an 18th century solution to the problem of an increasingly crowded Old Town. The city had remained incredibly compact, confined to the ridge running down from the castle. In 1766 a competition to design the New Town was won by James Craig, a 22-year-old architect. The plan that was built created a rigid, ordered grid, which fitted well with enlightenment ideas of rationality. The principal street was to be George Street, which follows the natural ridge to the north of the Old Town. Either side of it are the other main streets of Princes Street and Queen Street. Princes Street has since become the main shopping street in Edinburgh, and few Georgian buildings survive on it. Linking these streets were a series of perpendicular streets. At the east and west ends are St. Andrew Square and Charlotte Square respectively. The latter, designed by Robert Adam, influenced Edinburgh street architecture into the early 19th century.^[37] Bute House, the official residence of the First Minister of Scotland, is on the north side of Charlotte Square. Sitting in the hollow between the Old and New Towns was the Nor Loch, which had been both the city's water supply and place for dumping sewage. By the 1820s it was drained. Craig's original plans included Princes Street Gardens and an ornamental canal^[38] in place of the Nor Loch. Excess soil from the construction of the buildings was dumped into the loch, creating what is now The Mound and the canal idea was abandoned. In the mid-19th century the National Gallery of Scotland and Royal Scottish Academy Building were built on The Mound, and tunnels to Waverley Station driven through it. The New Town was so successful that it was extended greatly. The grid pattern was not maintained, but rather a more picturesque layout was created.

Edinburgh New Town viewed from Edinburgh Castle

Southside[link]

A popular residential part of the city is its south side, comprising a number of areas including St Leonards, Marchmont, Newington, Sciennes, The Grange and Blackford. The Edinburgh "Southside" is broadly analogous to the area covered by the Burgh Muir, and grew in popularity as a residential area following the opening of the South Bridge. These areas are particularly popular now with families (many state and private schools are here), students (the central University of Edinburgh campus is based around George Square just north of Marchmont and the Meadows, and Napier University (with major campuses around Merchiston & Morningside), as well as with visiting festival-goers. These areas are also the subject of several works of fiction: Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus lives in Marchmont and worked in St Leonards; and Churchhill, in Morningside, was the home of Muriel Spark's Miss Jean Brodie.

Leith[link]

Forth Road Bridge which connects Edinburgh and Fife

Leith is the port of Edinburgh. It still retains a separate identity from Edinburgh, and it was a matter of great resentment when, in 1920, the burgh of Leith was merged^[39] into the county of Edinburgh. Even today the parliamentary seat is known as 'Edinburgh North and Leith'. With the redevelopment of Leith, Edinburgh has gained the business of a number of cruise liner companies which now provide cruises to Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands. Leith also has the Royal Yacht Britannia, berthed behind the Ocean Terminal and Easter Road, the home ground of Hibernian F.C.

Urban area[link]

The urban area of Edinburgh is almost entirely contained within the City of Edinburgh Council boundary, merging with Musselburgh in East Lothian. Nearby towns close to the city borders include Dunfermline, Bonnyrigg, Dalkeith, Loanhead, Newtongrange, Penicuik, Livingston and Broxburn. The EU classifies this area as a Larger Urban Zone with a population of nearly 800,000 people.

Climate[link]

Like much of the rest of Scotland, Edinburgh has a temperate, maritime climate which is relatively mild despite its northerly latitude.^[40] Winters are generally mild, with daytime temperatures rarely falling below freezing, and compare favourably with places such as Moscow, Labrador and Newfoundland which lie at similar latitudes.^[40] Summer temperatures are normally moderate, with daily upper maxima rarely exceeding 22 °C.^[40] The highest temperature ever recorded in the city was 31.4 °C (88.5 °F) on 4 August 1975^[40] at Turnhouse Airport. The lowest temperature recorded in recent years was −14.6 °C (5.7 °F) during December 2010 at Gogarbank.^[41]

The proximity of the city to the sea mitigates any large variations in temperature or extremes of climate. Given Edinburgh's position between the coast and hills, it is renowned as a windy city, with the prevailing wind direction coming from the south-west which is associated with warm, unstable air from the North Atlantic Current that can give rise to rainfall – although considerably less than cities to the west, such as Glasgow.^[40] Rainfall is distributed fairly evenly throughout the year.^[40] Winds from an easterly direction are usually drier but colder, and are usually accompanied by Haar (fog), a persistent coastal fog. Vigorous Atlantic depressions, known as European windstorms, can affect the city between October and May.^[40]