New plan to put Edinburgh's New Town back on map

ITS striking landmarks have earned Edinburgh the famous moniker of the "Athens of the North", while most of the Georgian New Town has been fiercely protected by the capital's heritage watchdogs ever since it began to take shape in 1766.

But now they have admitted the city is failing to make the most of its neo-classical architecture, its carefully laid out streetscapes and its role in shaping the Scottish Enlightenment.

Experts believe many of its highlights are missed out completely by visitors to the city who are lured into the various attractions in and around the Royal Mile and may venture no further than Princes Street Gardens.

Now the first campaign to promote the New Town for more than 30 years is to be run to help persuade tourists to discover the delights of famous addresses like Charlotte Square, Heriot Row, Great King Street and Moray Feus.

It is hoped the New Town campaign will help revive interest in the work of architects like James Craig, William Playfair, Thomas Hamilton and Robert Adam, as well as the former homes of writers Sir Walter Scott, JM Barrie and Robert Louis Stevenson, and medical pioneers James Simpson and James Clerk Maxwell.

Visitors will be encouraged to venture into some of the city's most historic graveyards, discover the origins of the many monuments on Calton Hill and George Street, seek out locations featured in films and television programmes, and visit protected pubs like the Cafe Royal.

The New Town, along with the Old Town, has been a designated world heritage site by Unesco since 1995.

• Background: How 'Athens of the North' was created

Under the Edinburgh World Heritage Trust campaign, a series of heritage trails will be created to help visitors navigate their way around, while special events will see the public given a rare chance to venture inside some buildings and beauty spots. Other highlights of the campaign - which is due to get underway in May and run until the end of the year - will give visitors the chance to relive the fashions of late 18th century and early 19th Edinburgh, when the New Town took shape, discover the "upstairs-downstairs" lives of the inhabitants of the area, and learn the "etiquette and manners" of the era.

New technology will be deployed to allow visitors to download information on monuments, buildings and famous addresses to their mobile phone by scanning a bar code at each site. Adam Wilkinson, director of the heritage trust, said: "The New Town is the largest and best preserved example of Georgian town planning in the world. It contains over 1,000 listed buildings in the New Town, with over 500 at category A.

"This is historic streetscape of the highest quality, and it is possible to walk for a mile through the New Town and see only category A buildings on your journey. That experience cannot be matched in any other UK city.Our intention is to reveal the hidden meaning behind the design of buildings such as the Burns Monument. The campaign will also look at everyday life in the New Town at the time of Sir Walter Scott, the social life, fashions and life below stairs. The New Town offers a unique experience for visitors and our aim is to bring its history to life for everyone."

Marion Williams, director of the Cockburn Association, the city's long-running conservation body, said: "A lot of visitors do not get any further than the Royal Mile or Princes Street Gardens. It's been quite hard until now to persuade them to venture further."