Gladstones Land

Just a stone’s throw from the castle, this 500-year-old building is a towering testament to tenement life in Edinburgh’s Old Town. It was once owned by merchant Thomas Gladstone, who extended and remodelled the building to create opulently decorated apartments. Gladstone attracted wealthy tenants including William Struther, Minister of St Giles’ Cathedral, and Lord Crichton, as well as the high-end grocer John Riddoch, who traded from the ground floor. By the mid-1800s, only the poorest of the city’s inhabitants remained in the Old Town and this once luxurious tenement fell into disrepair. Gladstone’s Land was one of the first buildings that the National Trust for Scotland acquired, rescuing it from demolition in 1934. Today, Gladstone’s Land shows how the wealthy went about their lives at a time when the cramped Lawnmarket was at the heart of one of the fastest-growing and most influential cities in the world.