1.     For the background to the New Town competition and its outcome, see AJ Youngson, The Making of Classical Edinburgh, 1750-1840, (Edinburgh University Press, 1966 and 1988), pp.70-79.

2.     See K Cruft and A Fraser (ed.), James Craig, 1744-1795, (Mercat Press, Edinburgh, 1995), especially the third Paper, "A Reassessment of Craig’s New Town Plans, 1766-1774," by Andrew Fraser.

3.     Town Council Minutes, 20th July 1785, quoted by Andrew Fraser in K Cruft and A Fraser (ed.), James Craig, 1744-1795, (Mercat Press, Edinburgh, 1995), p.31 and footnote 16.

4.     See AJ Youngson, The Making of Classical Edinburgh, 1750-1840, (Edinburgh University Press, 1966 and 1988),  p.92, for a description of the westward progress of development within the New Town.

5.     These conditions are given by AJ Youngson, The Making of Classical Edinburgh, 1750-1840, (Edinburgh University Press, 1966 and 1988),  pp.80-82.

6.     J Farington, Notebook No 3, unprinted MS in the Edinburgh Room, Edinburgh Public Library, quoted in AJ Youngson, The Making of Classical Edinburgh, 1750-1840, (Edinburgh University Press, 1966 and 1988),  p.93.  Farington was writing in 1788.

7.     St James’ Square, behind Register House, dating from 1773, was designed by James Craig as a unified scheme with "palace" facades.  However, this was a private development and lay beyond the boundaries of the New Town proper.  See AJ Youngson, The Making of Classical Edinburgh, 1750-1840, (Edinburgh University Press, 1966 and 1988), p.98, and K Cruft and A Fraser (ed.), James Craig, 1744-1795, (Mercat Press, Edinburgh, 1995), pp.104-5.  The terraced blocks facing on to South Bridge were also provided with unified facades to designs by Robert Kay, although these were very pedestrian compared to the designs shown in Robert Adam’s two schemes.

8.      J Gifford, C McWilliam and D Walker, The Buildings of Scotland: Edinburgh, (Penguin, 1984), p.293 and footnote.

9.     M Sanderson, Robert Adam and Scotland: Portrait of an Architect, (Scottish Record Office and HMSO, 1992), p.121.  Andrew Fraser considers that the commission for Charlotte Square came in early March 1791: see AG Fraser, The Building of Old College, (Edinburgh University Press, 1989), p.99.

10.   M Sanderson, Robert Adam and Scotland: Portrait of an Architect, (Scottish Record Office and HMSO, 1992), p.121.

11.    Letter from John Paterson to Robert Adam, dated 23rd March 1791, quoted by AJ Youngson, The Making of Classical Edinburgh, 1750-1840, (Edinburgh University Press, 1966 and 1988), pp.96 and 303, note 42.  In 1966, the letter was in the ownership of Dr DC Simpson.

12.    Letter from John Paterson to Robert Adam, quoted in AG Fraser, The Building of Old College, (Edinburgh University Press, 1989), p.99.  The location of the letter is not given, although it is likely to form part of the collection of correspondence between the two referred to by Fraser in his preface (p.ix) as having recently passed from private hands into the care of the National Library of Scotland, and it is even possible that it is the same letter as that quoted in footnote 11.

13.    For this account of Adam’s charges for the Charlotte Square designs, see AJ Youngson, The Making of Classical Edinburgh, 1750-1840, (Edinburgh University Press, 1966 and 1988), p.96.

14.    Soane Museum, Adam Collection, Volume 32, Drawings 1-4.  Drawing 1 shows the identical north and south sides, drawings 2 and 4 the east and west sides respectively, and drawing 3 is a plan showing the layout of the square.  The sketch designs are Volume 1, Drawings 59 (north and south sides) and 60 (west side).  No sketch design for the east side survives.

15.    Soane Museum, Adam Collection, Volume 32, Drawings 5-7.

16.    See T Mowl and B Earnshaw, John Wood, Architect of Obsession, (Millstream Books, 1988), passim.

17.    AJ Youngson, The Making of Classical Edinburgh, 1750-1840, (Edinburgh University Press, 1966 and 1988), p.95.

18.    This was one of the standard feu-conditions stipulated and enforced by the Council from 1782 onwards.  See AJ Youngson, The Making of Classical Edinburgh, 1750-1840, (Edinburgh University Press, 1966 and 1988), pp.81-2.

19.    The City of Edinburgh, (Royal Commission on Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland - 1951), p.207.

20.    It is suggested in J Gifford, C McWilliam and D Walker, The Buildings of Scotland: Edinburgh, (Penguin, 1984), p.294, that the designer may have been Alexander Stevens, who built these houses.

21.    For the progress of building in Charlotte Square, see AJ Youngson, The Making of Classical Edinburgh, 1750-1840, (Edinburgh University Press, 1966 and 1988), pp.97 and 217.

22.    This is less surprising than it might seem, and can be paralleled in towns and cities up and down Britain.  In Bristol, for example, Royal York Crescent was designed in the late 1780s and construction was begun - on a substantial vaulted basement comparable to the one Adam designed for the Leith Street terrace in Edinburgh, because of the sloping site - in the summer of 1791.   The outbreak of the wars with France caused a serious financial crisis in Bristol and its builder went bankrupt.  Construction was suspended and the final houses in the crescent were built only in about 1820, the same year as Charlotte Square.  See Walter Ison, The Georgian Buildings of Bristol, (Faber and Faber, 1952), pp.223-231.

23.   AJ Youngson, The Making of Classical Edinburgh, 1750-1840, (Edinburgh University Press, 1966 and 1988), p.311, note 20.

24.   AJ Youngson, The Making of Classical Edinburgh, 1750-1840, (Edinburgh University Press, 1966 and 1988), pp.206-13.