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The Mound

Street in Edinburgh, Scotland

Field	Value
name	The Mound
native_name
image	File:The Mound, Edinburgh - geograph.org.uk - 3503955.jpg
image_alt	view of the road going uphill
caption	View up the Mound towards the Bank of Scotland
map_type	Scotland Edinburgh Central
map_caption	Location in Edinburgh city centre
map_alt	map of Edinburgh
former_names	The Earthen Mound
length_m	380
length_notes	(including The Mound and North Bank Street)
postal_code	EH1
coordinates
direction_a	North (bottom)
terminus_a	Princes Street
direction_b	South (top)
terminus_b	Bank Street/Royal Mile
completion_date	1827

The Mound is an artificial slope and road in central Edinburgh, Scotland, which connects Edinburgh's New and Old Towns. It was formed by dumping around 1,501,000 cartloads of earth excavated from the foundations of the New Town into Nor Loch, which was drained in 1765 and forms today's Princes Street Gardens.

History

The construction of the Earthen Mound, as it was originally called, was first proposed in 1783 by the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, John Grieve to support merchants on the Royal Mile to improve connection to the residents on Princes Street (which was then built only from St Andrew Square to Hanover Street and was wholly residential) in correct anticipation of the need for such a new route. Its completion was not formally agreed until the 1827 Improvement act. It was improved over the years until by 1830 it was macadamised and landscaped so that it appeared more or less complete. A need for a railway tunnel was pre-empted in 1844 with the current southern tunnel completed in 1846 to a design by William Henry Playfair (prior to the construction of the gallery above). A second northern tunnel was added in 1892 beneath the then extant galleries above.

Description

The Mound is a busy, if fairly steep, thoroughfare taking traffic to and from Princes Street in the New Town to the Royal Mile in the Old Town. The top end of the Mound is named Bank Street North, adjoining Bank Street. The lower end, or 'Foot' of the Mound is a few metres' walk from the Princes Street tram stop. Due to its raised elevation, the Mound commands expansive views over Princes Street and the New Town of Edinburgh and towards Calton Hill. An 'electric blanket' was installed under the surface of the roadway of the mound to keep this clear of ice and snow in 1959. It is no longer operational but was one of the first of its type.

Notable buildings

Some of Edinburgh's most notable buildings and institutions have their premises on the Mound, including the National Gallery of Scotland, the Royal Scottish Academy, the spires of the University of Edinburgh's New College, the General Assembly Hall of the Church of Scotland, the elegant domed Headquarters of the commercially owned Bank of Scotland, and its museum, Museum on the Mound.

File:National Gallery of Scotland restitch1 2005-08-07.jpg|The Scottish National Gallery File:EdinburghMuseumOnTheMound-pjt.jpg|The Bank of Scotland headquarters on The Mound File:Edinburgh July 2014 IMG 4532 (14691033851).jpg|New College and the General Assembly File:HS27744 Royal Scottish Academy 02.JPG|Royal Scottish Academy

References

Grant's Old and New edinburgh vol.2 p.255
Kay's Original Portraits: The Lawnmarket Coach
"Lost Edinburgh: The Mound".
Buildings of scotland: Edinburgh by Gifford, McWilliam and Walker p.309
"Looking down the Mound".

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

hills-of-edinburgh streets-in-edinburgh royal-mile 1781-establishments-in-great-britain

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