- Location: 3 Lady Stair’s Cl, Lawnmarket, Edinburgh EH1 2PA
- Opening times: Monday to Sunday, 10.00am – 5.00pm.
- Entry: Free
- Access: No parking onsite – parking in city centre (charge).
After visiting Greyfriars Bobby and Greyfriars Kirkyard, I made my way to the Writers Museum, just off the Royal Mile approximately halfway between St. Giles Cathedral and the Castle Esplanade. The museum celebrates the lives and works of Scotland’s three foremost literary titans, Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott, and Robert Louis Stevenson.
Although most associated with the Borders, Scott was born in Edinburgh’s Old Town in August 1771. The street where he was born, College Wynd, is a short walk from the museum. Robert Louis Stevenson was also a native of the city, born in the new town in 1850. Burns, born 1759, hailed from Ayrshire on the west coast, but made several significant visits to Edinburgh, including one in the winter of 1786 – 1787 where he met a fifteen-year-old Walter Scott. It is also where he met Agnes Maclehouse, aka ‘Clarinda’, for whom he composed the poem ‘Ae Fond Kiss’.
The museum is located in Lady Stair’s Close, a ‘close’ being a Scottish word for a narrow alleyway, and that is exactly what you go through when approaching the museum from the Royal Mile. However, the close soon opens up into a large square surrounded by Old Town buildings on all four sides, and sporting street lighting designed to look like old gas lamps. It is like stepping back in time, and it looks like a surefire movie or television location, but a quick online search draws a blank. It is also surprisingly peaceful, despite being flanked by the Royal Mile and the Mound and their attendant hustle and bustle.
This square has now been christened Makar’s Court, ‘makar’ being another Scots word. Its broad meaning is “one who fashions, constructs or produces”, but has almost exclusively come to refer to a poet or bard. Looking down at the flagstones, the visitor will see a selection of them have being inscribed with quotes from a selection of Scottish writers, some famous and some – to me, at least – less so. This wonderful courtyard with its inscribed stones is a national monument to literary Scotland and is still very much a work in progress.
The most striking feature of Makar’s Court is the building that serves as the home of the museum, Lady Stair’s House. This was built as a family home by a merchant named Sir William Gray in 1622, and his and his wife’s initials can still be seen on the lintel above the entrance, along with the inscription ‘Feare the Lord and Depart from Evill (sic)’. His wife Egidia continued to live there following Gray’s passing in 1648, and the house became known as Lady Gray’s House, and the alley Lady Gray’s Close.
It got its lasting name when it was purchased in 1719 by Elizabeth, Dowager Countess of Stair, a granddaughter of the Grays. She was a popular patron of the arts and her home the scene of many a literary supper, so its future use as a museum dedicated to writers is appropriate. A family named Russell owned the house for much of the nineteenth century, by the end of which it had fallen into disrepair and was scheduled for demolition. Thankfully it was spared through the efforts of a town planner named Patrick Geddes, who feared the destruction of buildings like this would lead Edinburgh losing much of its character and charm. Geddes persuaded Gray’s descendent the Earl of Rosebury to pay for extensive overhauls, and there now appears to be some debate on how much of the house dates from 1622 and how much from Rosebury’s 1897 renovations. Rosebury gifted the house to the city in 1907, and it has served as a museum since 1913.
The interior is equally striking, with Burns, Scott, and Stevenson each having a small room or two dedicated to them. These display a selection of related artifacts and memorabilia as well as brief biographies, and while the contents can’t compare to Abbotsford or the various sites dedicated to Burns (see, for example, here and here), the Writers’ Museum is perfect for those visiting Scotland that don’t have Melrose, Alloway, or Dumfries on their itinerary. Plus, Stevenson is shamefully underrepresented in his native land, so the museum ticks that box nicely.
Left: The death of Robert Burns, as reported in the London Herald. Right: A playbill for a 1921 production of Stevenson’s Weir of Hermiston at Edinburgh’s Theatre Royal. This novel has been adapted many times despite being far from complete at the time of Stevenson’s death in 1894.
Destination or Diversion?
In terms of its contents, the actual building, and its immediate surroundings, the Writers’ Museum is a hidden gem, but it is a compact affair and can probably be done in under an hour. As such it is no more than a diversion, but one that can be easily fitted in to a tour of the city’s many other attractions.
Note: It is an old building with several floors connected by narrow corridors and stairwells, including a particularly confined spiral staircase, so is probably unsuitable for those with mobility issues.
