Edinburgh

Cabinet 18

Just south of Edinburgh Castle is the Grassmarket. Traditionally, an area that accommodated weekly horse and cattle markets (up to 1911) and public hangings, it nowadays boasts numerous eateries, pubs and a vibrant club scene.

One popular story out of Grassmarket concerns Maggie Dickson, a fishwife who was hanged in 1728 for murdering her baby. Miraculously she survived the hanging and, under Scottish law, was allowed to go free. Half-Hangit Maggie (as she became known as) had a pub named after her.

‘Edinburgh Castle, from the Grassmarket’. From John Parker Lawson’s Scotland Delineated. London: Day and Son, 1858.