The Cowgate (Scots: The Cougait) is a street in Edinburgh, Scotland, located about southeast of Edinburgh Castle, within the city's World Heritage Site. The street is part of the lower level of Edinburgh's Old Town, which lies below the elevated streets of South Bridge and George IV Bridge. It meets the Grassmarket at Cowgatehead at its west end and Holyrood Road to the east.

History

Early history

thumb|right|Cowgate and Cardinal Beaton's lodging in 1868

The Cowgate developed around 1330 and represented Edinburgh’s first municipal extension. The original settlement on the Cowgate was concentrated on the south side because of a burn on the north, though that was filled in around 1490 and built upon. Archaeological excavations in the 2006 and 2007 found a boundary ditch, dating to the 14th century, near St Patrick's Church which might have been the full extent of the Cowgate at that time.

The street's name is recorded from 1428, in various spellings, as Cowgate and in 1498 as Via Vaccarum. It is derived from the medieval practice of herding cattle down the street on market days; a number of other streets in the old town of Edinburgh (such as Grassmarket and Lawnmarket) also reflect their market roots. Gate is a Scots language word for "way" or "road", a cognate of similar words in other Germanic languages (compare with gait).

Cowgate Port, a gatehouse in the city wall, was erected in 1516 and stood at the junction with St Mary’s Wynd.

Cardinal David Beaton built a lodging with a corner turret in the Cowgate at the foot of Black Friar's Wynd. It was demolished in 1877. After the Scottish Reformation, the lodging passed to Archibald Stewart, a Provost of Edinburgh, and from 1581 became part of the royal mint.

Mary, Queen of Scots, stayed for a time in 1566 in a Cowgate house where the Court of the Exchequer met. The Exchequer Rolls mention that she and her nobles were provided with wine, bread, beer, meat fish, spices, pewter, and napkins. After her abdication, her enemies and George Buchanan described her visits to the Earl of Bothwell in an adjacent house, facilitated by Margaret Beaton, Lady Reres.

Between the mid 18th and mid 20th centuries the Cowgate was a poor, often overcrowded slum area. In the 19th century it was home to much of the city's Irish immigrant community and nicknamed "Little Ireland".

2002 fire and modern history

thumb|200px|South Bridge closed after the Cowgate fire in 2002

In the evening of 7 December 2002, a fire started above the Belle Angele nightclub off the Cowgate. It swept up through the eight storey structure to other buildings on Cowgate and above it on South Bridge.

The site was temporarily used as a Fringe venue again when it became the C venues' Urban Garden during the 2007 Edinburgh Festival.

The owners and displaced tenants together with Edinburgh City appointed McGregor CS to act as lead to piece together the interests so that the site could be redeveloped. The site was then marketed widely and six developers were shortlisted. The gap site was then acquired by the property developer Whiteburn, who were granted planning permission in January 2009 to build a new mixed-use development using the site and existing adjacent buildings. Construction began in 2012 and was completed in late 2013. The main components of the development are a small Sainsbury's supermarket, a 259-bed Ibis Hotel, shops, restaurants, a nightclub and a vennel.

In 2016, protesters (including local homeless people) camped out in Cowgate to prevent the building of luxury hotel by Jansons Property. The protesters argued that the development might damage Edinburgh's UNESCO status, would displace homeless people, would remove a medical facility for the homeless and would block the natural light of the Edinburgh Central Library. MSP Andy Wightman offered his support to the campaign. Planning permission for the Virgin Hotel, which includes the India Buildings on Victoria Street and a facade on Cowgate, was granted in 2016. However, in 2018 councillors asked that developers use light coloured materials to reflect more light into the Central Library.

On 2 November 2024 a severed head was discovered in the Cowgate. The head is believed to be that of a 74 year old man who had been hit by a bus. Police were called around 7:25 PM, closed off the area, blocked the view of the scene from the South Bridge and evacuated the nearby pubs.

Buildings

thumb|120px|[[Magdalen Chapel, Edinburgh|Magdalen Chapel in the Cowgate]]

The oldest building lies to the west end, but is sandwiched between other larger buildings and easily missed. It stands on the south side of the street, just west of where George IV Bridge crosses over the Cowgate. This is the Magdalen Chapel, a 16th-century almshouse chapel built with monies left by Michael MacQueen in 1537. Work was completed in 1544 and it operated as a hospital almshouse (dedicated to Mary Magdalen) under the control of MacQueen's widow, Janet Rynd until her death in 1553, when it passed to the Incorporation of Hammermen (metalworkers). The entrance as seen from the Cowgate was rebuilt in 1613. The spire was added in 1620. and was later incorporated as part of the Virgin Hotel.

Both the National Library of Scotland and the Edinburgh Central Library have their lower floors on the Cowgate, with public access being on George IV Bridge above.

Notable people

thumb|right|[[James Connolly, an Irish socialist leader who was born in Cowgate]]

  • Janet Boyman, executed for witchcraft on 29 December 1572; court documents record her home as the Cowgate.
  • James Connolly, Irish revolutionary was born in 1868 at number 107 Cowgate.
  • Football club Hibernian F.C. was founded by congregants of St Patrick's Roman Catholic Church in the Cowgate in August 1875 – the club was based at St Patrick's until the early 1890s, and cups the club won from this period are still displayed in the church.
  • Canon John Gray, poet and priest was a curate at St Patrick's.
  • Venerable Margaret Sinclair lived at Blackfriars Street, just off the Cowgate.

References

  • Map showing the Cowgate (Bartholomew 1932-33)
  • Chapter XXXI - The Cowgate in Old and New Edinburgh by James Grant, published by Cassell in the 1880s
  • 'SoCo' proposal for the Cowgate fire gap site