Princes street Edinburgh

About this audio guide

This guide to Princes Street follows George Meikle Kemp, a self-taught joiner with no architectural training who entered Edinburgh's biggest monument competition under a false name in eighteen thirty-eight, certain his design would be tossed out if judges knew who he really was. You'll hear how his Gothic spire honoring novelist Sir Walter Scott beat established professional architects, and about the foggy night along the Union Canal that kept Kemp from ever seeing it completed. Count the carved characters from Scott's novels as you climb the spiral stair inside.