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St Andrew Square is a garden square in Edinburgh, Scotland, located at the east end of George Street. The construct of St Andrew Square began in 1772, as the first part of the New Town, designed by James Craig. Within six years of its completion St Andrew Square became one of the most desirable and most fashionable residential areas in the city. As the 19th century came to a close, St Andrew Square evolved into the commercial centre of the city. Most of the square used to be made up of major offices of banks and insurance companies, making it one of the major financial centres in Scotland. At one time, St Andrew Square could claim to be the richest area of its size in the whole of Scotland. The gardens are owned by a number of private parties and belong to the collection of New Town Gardens. They were made open to the public in 2008 and are managed by Essential Edinburgh. The square has several shops, including the department store Harvey Nichols and the designer precinct Multrees Walk. It is also home to The Edinburgh Grand Hotel and apartments, as well as a series of London chain restaurants and bars on its south side, such as Hawksmoor, Drake & Morgan, Dishoom and The Ivy.
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Occupy Edinburgh
Occupy Edinburgh was a protest against economic and social inequality as part of the global Occupy movement.
The "occupation" began with the erection of a number of tents in St. Andrew Square on 14 October 2011. The site was chosen because St. Andrew Square is the historic centre of the Edinburgh's financial sector and location of the head branch of the Royal Bank of Scotland, which was partly nationalised in 2008 following its role in the 2008 financial crisis.
Journalist Peter Geoghegan visited St. Andrew Square on the second day of its occupation and described the participants:
A large number of the 200-odd people on St Andrew's Square were old stagers from the trade union movement or leftist political parties, but just as many were unaffiliated, concerned citizens angry at an economic system that seems to benefit the status quo and a party political structure is aloof, unresponsive and in hock to big business.
On the night of 24 November 2011, Edinburgh City Council became the first governmental body in the world to grant both the Occupy Edinburgh and the worldwide Occupy Movement official recognition.
On 24 December Occupy Edinburgh activists raised a pirate flag above the nearby RBS Head Branch, claiming it was "it was the work of santa".
The group was urged to leave the site by Essential Edinburgh, the business group that manages St. Andrew Square, and the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber's deputy chief executive, Graham Birse, said: "We did not spend all that public money for St Andrew Square to become a campsite for those with nowhere else to go." On 30 January the group relocated to The Meadows, a park within Edinburgh, before leaving this site a couple of weeks later ahead of a legal bid to have them evicted by the City Council.
The occupation of St. Andrew Square lasted 108 days.
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Melville Monument
The Melville Monument is a large column in St Andrew Square, Edinburgh constructed between 1821 and 1827 as a memorial to Scottish statesman Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville.
Dundas, one of the most prominent Scotsmen of his day, was a dominant figure in British politics during much of the late 18th century. Plans to construct a memorial to him began soon after his death in 1811 and were largely driven by Royal Navy officers, especially Sir William Johnstone Hope. After a successful campaign for subscriptions, construction of the monument began in 1821 but time and costs soon spiralled out of control. The project was not completed until 1827 and not paid off until 1837.
In the 21st century, the monument became the subject of increasing controversy as a result of claims that Dundas had delayed the abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire. In the wake of protests following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, the City of Edinburgh Council affixed a plaque to the monument blaming Dundas for "deferring the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade" as well as "imposing colonial rule on indigenous peoples", in accordance with the recommendations of the Edinburgh Slavery and Colonialism Legacy Review. Installation of the plaque was completed in October 2021. In March 2023, the council's planning committee voted to remove the contentious plaque, but the council later stated that it did not intend to do so.
Designed by William Burn, the column is modelled after Trajan's Column in Rome. Robert Stevenson provided additional engineering advice during construction. The column is topped by a 4.2 m (14 ft) tall statue of Dundas designed by Francis Leggatt Chantrey and carved by Robert Forrest. The total height of the monument is about 45 m (150 ft). It is one of Edinburgh's most prominent landmarks.
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Dundas House
Dundas House is a Neoclassical building in Edinburgh, Scotland. It is located at 36 St Andrew Square, in the city's first New Town. The building was completed in 1774 as a private town house for Sir Lawrence Dundas by the architect Sir William Chambers. Much altered internally and extended over the years, today it is the registered office of the Royal Bank of Scotland and its parent, NatWest Group and is protected as a category A listed building.
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Scottish National Portrait Gallery
National Galleries Scotland: Portrait is an art museum on Queen Street, Edinburgh. Portrait holds the national collections of portraits, all of which are of, but not necessarily by, Scots. It also holds the Scottish National Photography Collection.
Since 1889 it has been housed in its red sandstone Gothic revival building, designed by Robert Rowand Anderson and built between 1885 and 1890 to accommodate the gallery and the museum collection of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. The building was donated by John Ritchie Findlay, owner of The Scotsman newspaper. In 1985 the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland was amalgamated with the Royal Scottish Museum, and later moved to Chambers Street as part of the National Museum of Scotland. The Scottish National Portrait Gallery expanded to take over the whole building, and reopened on 1 December 2011 as “Portrait” after being closed since April 2009 for the first comprehensive refurbishment in its history, carried out by Page\Park Architects.
Portrait is part of National Galleries Scotland, a public body that also owns the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh.