Charlotte Square is a prestigious terraced square built as the terminus and west end of Edinburgh New Town. It formed part of James Craig’s gridded design for the New Town, shown in his competition-winning masterplan of 1766-67 in symmetry with St Andrew Square at the east end.

Charlotte Square was one of the last parts of Craig’s town plan to be constructed and the only part to be designed as a unified scheme. The buildings in the existing streets had been designed by a number of different architects and builders which had resulted in an assorted mix of neo-classical buildings without an overarching cohesive design. This had become a talking point for prominent architects such as Robert Adam, who was openly critical of the varied quality of design in the city.

Letters between Adam and his Edinburgh clerk of works, John Paterson, of October 1790 reveal early discussions with Lord Provost James Stirling, regarding the design of Charlotte Square and Adam’s possible involvement. A plasterer, James Nisbet, was initially asked to make designs, having designed a number of buildings on George Street.

Adam had developed a reputation with the Town Council for creating elaborate designs that would result in great expense. Paterson was instrumental in quelling these concerns of the magistrates and advocating for Adam’s designs and appointment. In March 1791, Stirling agreed to Adam making designs for the square, requesting that they be as economical as possible with an ‘elegant simplicity’ similar to his design for the north front of The College, that is the Old College of Edinburgh University.

The Adam office made a design for each side of the Square, with a church in the centre of the west front, opposite George Street, and an additional angled street to the rear. The proposed facades were three-storey, palace fronts that embodied Adam’s civic pride in the city. They were decorated with a mixture of Ionic and Corithian columns, medallions, festoons, sphinxes, and heraldry. The north and south fronts were of the same design, whilst the east and west fronts were similar but not the same. The proposed church on the west side of the Square was a grand design with a tall cupola and large pedimented portico. These designs for the church were not executed but a church was built on the site in 1811 to designs by Robert Reid which was a broadly similar, if not plainer design. Reid was the King’s Surveyor and Architect and was involved in a number of Adam’s projects in the early-nineteenth century in addition to Charlotte Square including Edinburgh University and Register House. The proposed angled street to the rear of the west side of the Square was not executed either.

The Square wasn’t completed until 1820, 28 years after Robert Adam’s death and the constructed square varied slightly from Adam’s initially proposed plans. These modifications were generally limited to the omission of sculptural roof decoration to each block, and minor variations and omissions to some of the windows and doors such as the proposed fanlights in the east blocks. Despite this, the Square was an architectural triumph and by the early-nineteenth century notable residents including Sir John Sinclair, instigator of the Statistical Account of Scotland. The square has been subject to further alterations in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, particularly at roof level, resulting in a less convincingly unified appearance.

Literarure:
National Library Scotland: MSS.19992-19993, Letters from John Paterson to Robert Adam, 1790-91; A.T. Bolton, The Architecture of Robert and James Adam, 1922, Volume II, pp. 212-217; Index, p. 11; A. J. Youngson, The Making of Classical Edinburgh 1750-1840, 1966, pp. 92-97, 101; Gifford (et. al), The Buildings of Scotland: Lothian, 1978, pp. 293-7; A. G. Kinghorn, Drawn From the Past: Modelling techniques, with particular reference to the modelling of Robert Adam’s unbuilt design for a Church for Charlotte Square in Edinburgh, August 1992, MSc thesis, University of Strathclyde, Scotland; A. A. Tait, Robert Adam, The Creative Mind: from the sketch to the finished drawing, 1996, p. 42; D. King, The Complete Works of Robert & James Adam and Unbuilt Adam, 2001, Volume 1, pp. 77, 99-102; Volume 2, pp. 63-64, 66; A. Rowan, Vaulting Ambition: The Adam Brothers, Contractors to the Metropolis in the reign of George III, 2007, p. 73

With thanks to the Arts Society Fund and the Art Fund’s Jonathan Ruffer Curatorial Grant which enabled archival visits in Edinburgh to support research for this scheme.

Louisa Catt, 2023