48 YEARBOOK 2026 those in modern times. One such radical intervention was the construction of the North Bridge, started in 1763. This landscape scale project transformed the city and was key to its expansion northward and the creation of the neo-classical New Town. It resulted in an abandonment of the Old Town by the intellectual and middle classes, leaving it to slowly decay over time. The collapse of tenements on the High Street, largely due to the lack of investment in maintenance and repair was one outcome, which generated a political narrative around replacement, not refurbishment. However, civic organisations like the Society of Antiquaries in Scotland and influential individuals like Lord Cockburn intervened, sometimes unsuccessfully but their voices against such destructive change were increasingly heard. Edinburgh was fortunate in that it emerged from the second world war relatively unscathed. It was a much smaller place than it is today with its historic city centre, tenemental suburbs such as Marchmont and Gorgie together with satellite towns such as Leith, Portobello and Stockbridge comprised much of the urban fabric. The Old Town, and indeed much of the built-up area had been suffering from the lack of investment from the first world war and in the case of the Old Town, even earlier. Perez de Arce noted that the modern city has a tendency towards dispersal and fragmentation with the effect that it prevents the consolidation of urban fabric, ultimately leading to a discontinuity between past and present. Urban expansion in the 1930s in Edinburgh was in the form of low-density bungalows. A steady depopulation or at least A model showing new highways and the widespread clearance of historic buildings in Edinburgh proposed by Sir Patrick Abercrombie and architect Derek Plumstead in 1949. (Photo: Edinburgh World Heritage Trust) Charlotte Square, Edinburgh was designed by Robert Adam shortly before his death in 1892. In 1996 conservation architects Simpson & Brown were commissioned to repair and restore numbers 26-31 for the headquarters of the National Trust for Scotland. The work demonstrated to the city that fine Georgian buildings could be sensitively adapted for modern office use without gutting them. (Photo: Edinburgh World Heritage Trust)
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