FOR at least 500 years the Grassmarket has been an important focal point of the Old Town.

It has been a trading place since the earliest times. The first written record of a market there is in 1477, and the tradition of this weekly event survived into the early years of the present century. By that time, a greatly expanded city and modern trading practices dictated the need for purpose-built markets outwith the confines of the city centre.

One of the most attractive things about the Grassmarket today is that it is immediately recognisable as a market-place. Buildings rise up on all four sides, enclosing a large open area overlooked by the towering castle. An examination of paintings of old Edinburgh shows that the historic Grassmarket has always been a favourite spot for artists in search of the picturesque.

St Patrick's Catholic Church

Historical associations abound. At the east end of the Grassmarket, near the foot of Victoria Street, a small garden, a plaque, and stone markers in the centre of the roadway commemorate the place of execution where many Covenanters were put to death because they would not renounce their Presbyterian faith.

Victoria Street is still known to local folk as the West Bow, which once was a steep, twisting street leading up to the top of the Royal Mile and Castlehill.

It was in the Grassmarket in 1736 that an Edinburgh mob lynched Captain Porteous, the commander of the Town Guard. Porteous had ordered the guard to fire upon a crowd with fatal results. He was put on trial and convicted of murder - but then he received a reprieve from London. Incensed, the mob dragged Porteous from the Old Tolbooth, which stood in the Royal Mile near St Giles', purchased a rope in the West Bow, and hanged him in the Grassmarket from a dyer's pole.

There are elements of mystery in the affair, in that it is said the abduction and hanging were carried out with orderliness and some evidence of organisation (a guinea was left on the shop counter to pay for the rope) and the crowd dispersed immediately after the fatal deed.

In London Queen Caroline, the wife of George II, was acting as Regent during the King's absence in Hanover. The news of Porteous's death infuriated the Queen, who made all sorts of dire threats, including abolition of the city charter. However, she was eventually persuaded to substitute a fine.

Bannerman's Pub

On the north side of the Grassmarket, one of the hostelries is the White Hart Inn, where Robert Burns found lodgings in 1791 during his final visit to Edinburgh. It was during this visit that his farewell to 'Clarinda' (Mrs Agnes MacLehose) inspired him to compose 'Ae Fond Kiss'. In 1803 another poet, William Wordsworth, and his sister Dorothy, stayed at the White Hart during the course of their travels in Scotland.

The Grassmarket was also the haunt of the infamous murderers Burke and Hare. During 1827 and 1828 they suffocated close on a score of men and women in their lodgings in Tanner's Close, in the nearby West Port, as a way of providing cadavers for the university's lecturing anatomists, who didn't ask too many questions. Burke was hanged at the Lawnmarket; Hare escaped the rope, having turned King's evidence after their arrest.

West Port

At the western end of the Grassmarket, the name of King's Stables Road recalls that this was the area in which the royal stables attached to the castle once stood. And in the Vennel, leading by a flight of steps to Lauriston, it is still possible to see a stretch of the Flodden Wall, hurriedly constructed by the town following the disaster on Flodden Field in 1513, when it seemed likely that the English would follow up their victory with the sacking of Edinburgh. At this point the wall forms the boundary of George Heriot's School, which was founded by Heriot (1563-1624), a jeweller who was also banker to King James VI and, as a result, known as Jinglin' Geordie.

On leaving the Grassmarket at its eastern end we enter the Cowgate. The line of this ancient thoroughfare, once a path along which cows were driven to pasture, follows the south flank of the Old Town ridge as far as St Mary's Street. Centuries ago the Cowgate was a fashionable quarter of the town, but by the early nineteenth century its status had deteriorated badly, and its profile subsequently was altered out of all recognition when encroached upon by new building.

A few interesting fragments remain. Magdalen Chapel, for example, was completed in 1544, and at the Scottish Reformation the chapel was the meeting place of the first General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, held in 1560. It contains the only surviving examples of pre-Reformation stained glass in Scotland. The chapel has been undergoing careful restoration and is now the headquarters of the Scottish Reformation Society. It is open to the public from Monday to Friday, 9.30 am to 4.30 pm but can also be opened at other times by arrangement: phone the Rev. Sinclair Horne on (031) 220 1450.

St Cecilia's Hall (1763), which is owned by the Department of Music of Edinburgh University, is a charming concert hall in the Cowgate. It is in use regularly for a variety of concerts and other events, and it is also the home of the Russell Collection of Harpsichords and Clavichords. This is an assembly of more than 30 historical keyboard instruments, including also forte-pianos, spinets, virginals and chamber organs. It is also possible to visit the Edinburgh University Collection of Historical Musical Instruments at the Reid Concert Hall, Bristo Square: the display consists of 1,000 items, including stringed, woodwind, brass and percussion instruments, as well as some folk instruments.