Grassmarket

Where it sits. The Grassmarket is a long rectangular open space in Edinburgh's Old Town, lying in the hollow immediately south-west of the Castle rock, whose sheer south face rears over the northern side of the square. It is reached from the Royal Mile above by two very different routes: the steep, straight flights of the Castle Wynd steps, and the curving climb of Victoria Street and the West Bow. The square's floor is around thirty metres below the Lawnmarket, which is why the whole area feels like the bottom of a canyon.

The story behind it. A market has been held here since a royal charter of 1477, and for more than four centuries this was where cattle, horses and grain changed hands, with the livestock trade continuing into the early twentieth century. The east end was also Edinburgh's principal place of public execution until 1784. Over a hundred Covenanters were put to death here in the seventeenth century, commemorated by a memorial at the eastern end, and the site of the gallows is marked in the paving. The square's most durable legend belongs to Maggie Dickson, hanged in 1724, who revived on the cart carrying her body home and lived for decades afterwards; a pub on the south side carries her name. The White Hart Inn on the same side claims origins in the sixteenth century and is among the oldest licensed houses in the city.

Victoria Street and the West Bow. The curving street that climbs from the square's north-east corner is the reason a large share of today's visitors come. The original West Bow was a narrow zigzag, and in the 1830s the city drove a new curved street — Victoria Street — through the tenements to give a gentler gradient up to the new George IV Bridge, part of a wider programme of Old Town improvement. The result is unusual and slightly theatrical: a two-level street, with shopfronts at road level and a raised terrace of buildings, Victoria Terrace, running above them. The bright paint on the shopfronts is a modern scheme, not a historic survival, and it is what makes the street photograph so well.

The Potter question, honestly. Victoria Street is universally described as the inspiration for Diagon Alley. The truth is more careful than that. Rowling lived and wrote in Edinburgh, walked this area constantly, and the curving, crooked, closely built street does resemble the alley as readers imagine it — but she has never confirmed it as the source, and the Diagon Alley seen on film was a purpose-built set at Leavesden Studios designed by Stuart Craig, with Leadenhall Market in London used for the exterior approach to the Leaky Cauldron. What Victoria Street has become instead is something genuinely interesting in its own right: a street reshaped by the association, with several dedicated Harry Potter shops trading from its lower end and a steady flow of visitors who came because of a resemblance rather than a fact.

What you actually see today. The square hosts a Saturday market, has a broad pedestrian area on its northern side facing the Castle, and is ringed by pubs, restaurants and independent shops. It is a good place to understand Edinburgh's vertical geography — from the middle of the square you can see the Castle above, the tenements of the West Bow climbing away, and the back of George IV Bridge. Nearby are Greyfriars Kirkyard and its terrier statue, two minutes east, and the National Museum of Scotland just beyond.

Getting there and timing. It is a ten-minute walk from Waverley station, five from the Royal Mile. Buses serve the Grassmarket's western end and George IV Bridge above. Early morning is the only reliably quiet time on Victoria Street; from mid-morning it fills with tour groups, and the pavements are narrow enough that photographers, delivery vans and pedestrians genuinely obstruct one another. The pinch point at the foot of the street is a known problem, and pedestrianisation has been debated for years. During the August festival the whole area is at capacity from morning until late at night.

Practical notes. The square itself is level and easy underfoot; Victoria Street is a real gradient with cobbles and kerbs, and the terrace above is reached by steps, so wheelchair users are better served approaching from George IV Bridge. Nightlife here is loud at weekends. Prices in the immediate square run above the city average, and better value is a few streets south in Bruntsfield or west in Fountainbridge.