The Town Below the Ground

Good. Inscribed inside front cover.

Below Scotland's capital, hidden for almost two centuries, is a metropolis whose very existence was all but forgotten until recently.The story of The Town below the Ground is one of the most disturbing in Scots history. For almost 250 years Edinburgh was surrounded by a giant defensive wall. Unable to expand its boundaries, it became the most densely populated city in Europe. The towering tenements of the Royal Mile were a direct result of this massive overpopulation and, when the city buildings couldn't get any higher, people were forced to construct new edifices over what was already there. An underground slum developed which existed for over 350 years.Trapped in lives of poverty and crime, these subterranean dwellers lived in darkness and misery, ignored by chroniclers of the time. Edinburgh's population came to believe the underground city, out of sight and out of mind since its abandonment in the mid-nineteenth century, had never been there at all. It is only in the last few years that the truth is finally emerging.

This is the first book to chronicle fully Edinburgh's secret city: its history and structure; its inhabitants and the lives they led; the story of its rediscovery; the amazing tales, both ancient and modern, that made it legendary; the areas where it existed and where to find the parts that remain.

jan-Andrew Henderson is a storyteller based in Edinburgh. He has been conducting tours of the underground city for the past four years.