Weavers, Gallows, and Victorian Tram Wheels: A Tour of Leith Walk

Leith Walk has been connecting Edinburgh's city centre to its ancient port for centuries, and the mile-long stretch tells a story that most visitors never hear. On this walking tour, you'll follow a route shaped by merchants, sailors, and revolutionaries – from a French weavers' village to Scotland's most infamous execution ground. You'll also discover how tramlines, tenements, and a certain 1990s film turned this street into one of the city's most distinctive thoroughfares.

The tour starts beside Martha and Gilbert, the scrap-metal giraffe sculptures outside the Omni Centre at Picardy Place, originally built in 1730 for linen weavers brought from France. From there, you'll head south along Elm Row, past Victorian tram cable wheels unearthed during modern construction works, and down through Shrubhill, once the site of Edinburgh's public gallows. You'll hear how this grim stretch of ground gave a cheap rum-and-lemon drink its name, and how the same sand and bone was later sold to builders working on the New Town.

As you continue, you'll pass the ornate McDonald Road Library, built in 1902, and the former Leith Central Station, whose Victorian interior inspired scenes from Trainspotting. The tour ends at the Foot of Leith Walk, in front of the Queen Victoria statue at Newkirkgate, where the 17th-century defensive rampart that once repelled Cromwell's army once stood.

On this 45-minute tour, you'll have a chance to:

• Hear how five theatres burned down on the same stretch near the Edinburgh Playhouse
• Learn why the tram boundary at Pilrig Church became known as the Pilrig Muddle
• Discover how anti-Italian riots in 1940 devastated the communities along Leith Walk
• See the building at 40–44 Elm Row, said to have been used in a David Bowie film shoot
• Visit the Central Bar, lined with over 250,000 Staffordshire pottery tiles, dating to 1899
• Find out how Leith residents, long after being relocated, still spoke of going to Edinburgh as if it were a foreign country

This tour makes you slow down and pay attention, while giving you the stories to make every step count.