Calton Hill Research Project

A partnership of Edinburgh World Heritage, the University of Edinburgh and the City of Edinburgh Council have been awarded funding from the AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council) for a PhD student to research the history and cultural significance of Calton Hill.

The research will help inform a future management plan for Calton Hill, by helping to identify the wider importance of its historic monuments, buildings, collections, landscape and burial grounds.

Adam Wilkinson, Director of Edinburgh World Heritage said: “Calton Hill is one of the most important focal points within the World Heritage Site, and our understanding of its significance needs to be improved before we can make any long term decisions about its future management.

Our ultimate aim is to improve not only the physical access to Calton Hill, but also to be able to better explain its importance for visitors. In the past the hill has been everything from a place of execution to the focus for a new city identity – the Athens of the North.”

The research project is titled ‘The Genius Loci of the Athens of the North: the cultural significance of Edinburgh’s Calton Hill’. The intention is to bring together the existing research and identify gaps in knowledge, but most of all to gain a better understanding of the changing significance of Calton Hill over time

The results will form a key part of the management plan, which will take a sustainable, integrated and co-ordinated approach to the future direction and management arrangements for the whole of the site. 

The plan will develop a strategic vision for Calton Hill, its buildings and the surrounding area, addressing not only the physical but also the intellectual access to the site for visitors and local residents alike. It will help develop a future management strategy in terms of public access to the hill, paths, roads, traffic, control, security, grounds, future maintenance, and the use of the hill for special events and activities.

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