A row of colourful gabled buildings lines the Water of Leith, their reflections mirrored in the still water beneath overhanging trees.

Edinburgh

Stockbridge

An old village on the Water of Leith below the New Town, of Georgian terraces, a market arch of 1825 and a street of independent shops and cafés.

Welcome

Walk down the hill from the New Town and the grand terraces soften into something closer to a village.

At the bottom the Water of Leith runs under the bridge, a row of painted gables mirrored in the water, and the streets on either side fill with bakeries, delis, cheesemongers and cafés.

It is a place for wandering rather than sightseeing. Curving rows of sandstone tenements catch the evening sun, cobbled lanes run off between the houses, and parked bicycles lean on railings outside the shopfronts. Duck through the old market arch into the quiet streets beyond, follow St Stephen Street for its small shops, and on a Sunday join the crowds at the market by the river. Then take the walkway along the Water of Leith, upstream or down, for a green way out of the city.

Before you go

Stockbridge is a short walk downhill from the New Town, with good buses from the centre.

Parking is hard to find, so it is best reached on foot or by bus.

Where: North of the New Town, where Deanhaugh Street crosses the Water of Leith.

Did you know

Timber, or cattle.

Nobody is sure where the name comes from. The bridge part is plain enough, but stock may mean timber, or cattle. For centuries this was the only place to cross the Water of Leith for some distance.

A curved row of sandstone tenements lines a quiet Edinburgh street.

Did you know

A painter's village.

Modern Stockbridge began in 1813, when the portrait painter Sir Henry Raeburn, who owned land here, began to build on it with the architect James Milne.

A corner sandstone tenement rises above a cobbled Edinburgh street at golden hour.

Did you know

Front gardens, for once.

Ann Street, begun in 1814 and named after Raeburn's wife, is unusual in the New Town for having front gardens.

Did you know

Butcher meat, fruits, fish.

A market opened here in 1825. Its arch still stands, carved with what was once sold inside: butcher meat, fruits, fish and poultry.

A cobbled lane runs between stone tenements toward a distant building.

Did you know

The Colonies.

The Stockbridge Colonies, eleven parallel streets running down to the river, were built after 1860 by the Edinburgh Co-operative Building Company as cheap homes for working people. Today they are among the most sought after in the city.

A curved sandstone tenement rises above a cobbled corner in Edinburgh.

Did you know

A tower that moved.

The church tower that stands over Stockbridge was put up here in 1868, after a railway pushed its church off Lothian Road. The rest of the church came down in 1980.