If walls could speak…
Look closely at the seasoned walls of Observatory House and you will find a house within a house. Nestled against the straighter lines of a later era sits an older circular gothic tower - the oldest surviving building on Calton Hill.
This tower, perched on the very edge of the Hill’s summit, is the sole remnant of an observatory instigated in the 1770s by Leith optician Thomas Short. Architect James Craig, who later found fame as the designer of Edinburgh’s first new town, was engaged to lead the project and is said to have been influenced by Robert Adam’s interest in enhancing the wild landscape of the Hill with a dramatic gothic structure that could be seen from the city below.
However, in a pattern repeated elsewhere on the Hill, lack of funds and disagreements resulted in most of the proposed observatory never being built and the tower was for many years an uncomfortable reminder of grand scientific and civic plans which had come to nothing. By 1800 the House was suffering the indignity of occupation by the Town Militia, who used it primarily as a gunpowder store.
As Edinburgh and the Port of Leith, fuelled by an influx of profits from Britain’s colonial expansion, grew in wealth and ambition, so too did Calton Hill’s role as a site for conspicuous monuments and astronomical observation. The observatory you see today was completed in 1822 and for many years provided a key component of Imperial maritime power to the Port in the form of accurate time-keeping.
In 1883 Astronomer Royal Charles Piazzi Smyth oversaw the extension of the House to create more living space. This homely building has weathered Edinburgh’s changing seasons and fortunes ever since, even serving for a time as the city’s grandest council house.
Following our restoration of the observatory, led by Scottish architecture practice Collective Architecture, and re-opening as a centre for contemporary art in 2018, Collective began a project to bring the House back to life as a holiday home. Today, Edinburgh’s unique hilltop retreat invites guests to enjoy its grade I listed architecture and stylish contemporary finish.
