Usher Hall

About this audio guide

This guide to Usher Hall in Edinburgh follows whisky blender Andrew Usher, who in 1896 gave Edinburgh one hundred thousand pounds to build a concert hall seating three thousand, on one condition: good music for ordinary people. He died in 1898 before construction began, leaving his widow Marion to open the doors when the hall finally welcomed its first audience in March 1914, months before war broke out. The sweeping curve of the walls around you was made possible only by new advances in reinforced concrete.