Merchiston
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Merchiston is a prosperous, mainly residential area in the south-west of Edinburgh. The housing is primarily a mixture of large, late Georgian and Victorian villas – several of the latter by Edward Calvert – together with a smaller number of Victorian tenements and some relatively large, early-twentieth century villas. In recent years many of these villas have been subjected to development with blocks of flats being built in their once expansive gardens and the original houses themselves being divided into small numbers of apartments.
A campus forming a major part of Napier University is in the area; it includes Merchiston Tower (or Castle), once the home of John Napier, eighth Laird of Merchiston and the inventor of logarithms. The university also uses a variety of other buildings in this and surrounding areas, such as former schools and churches, some of which would otherwise have been demolished or made into further flats. The tower was sold by The Honourable John Scott Napier, fourteenth Laird of Merchiston in 1914 to the Merchiston Castle School board who used it up until 1930, when the school moved to a new site in Colinton (whilst retaining the Merchiston Castle name).
The area is home to writers Ian Rankin (author of the Inspector Rebus novels) and Alexander McCall Smith (author of the The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency novels).
Also in the area are a number of independent schools including George Watson's College and a Steiner School. On the fringes of the area where it meets Craiglockhart (to the west) is the suburban railway line, which is mooted for reopening. To the north of the area is the Union Canal. Other nearby areas include Morningside to the south-east, Burghmuirhead (including Holy Corner and Church Hill) to the east and Bruntsfield to the north-east.
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