Page 103 - BBC History The Story of Science & Technology - 2017 UK

THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT:
FIVE MORE PLACES TO EXPLORE

2 Siccar Point, 4 Edinburgh New Town
VISIT
near Cockburnspath edinburgh.org
Glasgow University scottishgeology.com
Edinburgh New Town was begun in 1767
Siccar Point, on the North Sea coast, to a design by James Craig (1739–95) on
40 miles east of Edinburgh, is famous for land north of Edinburgh’s densely
displaying vertical strata of rock jutting populated Old Town. A classic gridiron
up through horizontal strata of less plan, it consists of three principal east-
resistant rock. The rocks’ remarkable west streets joining St Andrew’s Square in
formation helped James Hutton (1726–97), the east and Robert Adams’s Charlotte
a genius of the Scottish Enlightenment, Square to the west. It was later expanded
formulate the idea of ‘deep time’ – the to the east and the north, forming a
concept that the Earth is far, far older magnificent area of continuous Georgian
than the few thousand years suggested layout and architecture. The nomenclature
by creationists. of the streets is Hanoverian and unionist, a
reminder that an early design for
Edinburgh New Town was in the form of
the Union Jack. The Old and New Towns
are now officially a World Heritage Site.
The University of Glasgow
Glasgow G12 8QQ
gla.ac.uk 5 New Lanark, South
Lanarkshire
newlanark.org
1 Arniston House,
Glasgow Now a World Heritage Site, this purpose-
Gorebridge, Midlothian
University 2 built mill village was founded by
arniston-house.co.uk 4 1 businessman and merchant David Dale
In 1726 Robert Dundas, Lord Arniston, 3 5 (1739–1806) in 1785. The welfare and
commissioned the Enlightenment education of the workers, many of them
architect William Adam (1689–1748) to children, was important to Dale. After 1799,
build a new country house on the site of his son-in-law Robert Owen introduced
the existing tower house. Completed by better safety rules, a contributory fund for
William’s son John, this truly magnificent medical care, and an astonishingly
Palladian building, incorporating two enlightened system of education for all.
rooms of the original tower house and This was a realisation of Adam Smith’s
with amazing baroque plaster-work by doctrine that economic activity should be
Joseph Enzer in the hall, remains largely within a moral framework.
unchanged. There have been Dundases
at Arniston since 1571.

3 Robert Burns Birthplace
Museum, Alloway, Ayr
burnsmuseum.org.uk
The cottage in which poet Robert Burns
ALAMY/THE ARNISTON ESTATE Arniston House is a Palladian gem 1730s; the south end, consisting of a living New Lanark offered mill workers
(1759–96) was born was built in the
room and byre (cowshed), was built by his
father, William, in 1757. It is now a fine
museum. Nearby are the ruins of the
Auld Kirk of Alloway, the scene of the
demon revelry in Burns’s 1790 poem
a very different way of life to their
that has barely changed in 250 years
Tam o’ Shanter.
19th-century counterparts

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