Every city has stories that are too good to check. Edinburgh has more than most, and the Royal Mile repeats them all day. Here are six, and what is true.
1. Greyfriars Bobby kept watch for fourteen years
The story says a small dog guarded his master's grave in Greyfriars Kirkyard for fourteen years. Historians argue about how much of it happened. Edinburgh decided long ago that it did not care, and Disney made him famous in 1961.
The part that isn't old at all is rubbing his nose for luck. Visitors have rubbed the bronze down to bare metal, and it does the statue no good. Leave him be.
2. The castle fired the Cannonball
Look at the west wall of Cannonball House, at the top of the Royal Mile, and you'll see a cannonball set in the stone. The popular story says the castle fired it during the Jacobite rising of 1745.
A ball that size would have gone straight through the wall. The likelier answer is that it marks the height of the city's first piped water supply. Nobody has proved it either way. See it from the top of the Castle Wynd steps.
3. George Heriot's is Hogwarts
The turreted school behind Greyfriars gets called the model for Hogwarts on every Potter tour. Rowling says it isn't. The real story is better. It was founded in 1628 with the fortune of George Heriot, goldsmith to James VI, for the fatherless children of the city. It is still a school.
4. Trainspotting is an Edinburgh film
The book is. The film mostly isn't. Danny Boyle shot most of Trainspotting in Glasgow. Edinburgh gets the opening chase along Princes Street and down Hanover Street, which ends on Calton Road under Regent Bridge.
The sequel made up for it. T2 Trainspotting came home in 2017 and filmed across the city, with Renton and Spud running up Arthur's Seat.
5. Dunbar's Close Garden is from the 1600s
Down a plain close beside Canongate Kirk is a walled garden laid out like a seventeenth century town garden. It looks centuries old. It was made in the 1970s. That doesn't make it any less worth five minutes on a bench.
6. White Horse Close is untouched
Near the bottom of the Canongate is a courtyard so pretty it looks like a film set. Partly it is one. It was heavily restored in the 1960s. Still lovely, just not as old as it pretends.
Why it matters
None of this is meant to spoil anything. The true stories are usually better than the invented ones, and they come with real people attached. A goldsmith, a dog, a city that built a wall against an army that never came. That's what the StoryLed Old Town walk is built on, and arguments on the way are welcome.
Walk it with StoryLed
Greyfriars and Bobby are both on the Old Town walk. Six guests at most, three hours, led by a resident of twelve years, and the true version of every story.
