Cardinal Beaton's House

Cardinal Beaton’s House, Cowgate
United Kingdom
United Kingdom › Scotland › Edinburgh
1868

This photograph from 1868 shows Cardinal Beaton's House on the Cowgate, one of the oldest streets in Edinburgh. The building can be identified by its distinctive hexagonal turret, visible on the left side of the image.

The house was originally built for James Beaton, who served as Archbishop between 1509 and 1522. Located at the southeast corner of Blackfriars Wynd (today’s Blackfriars Street), the residence was once referred to on an 1849 Ordnance Survey map as the “Palace” of Archbishop Beaton. The house even hosted James V of Scotland at one point during its early history.

By the nineteenth century, however, the building had lost much of its former grandeur. Photographer Archibald Burns included this scene in his 1868 publication Picturesque Bits from Old Edinburgh, partly to illustrate the crowded and deteriorated living conditions that had developed in parts of the Cowgate.

The historic house was ultimately demolished in 1874 following the City Improvement Act 1867, which aimed to modernize and widen many of the city’s older, narrower streets.

Today, photographs like this provide a rare glimpse into the dense medieval urban fabric of old Edinburgh before the large-scale Victorian redevelopment of the area. 📷