Image: Portrait of James Craig by David Allan

Description: August, around what PUBLIC WORKS I see Lo! Stately streets, Lo! Squares that court the breeze See! Long canals and deepened rivers join Each part with each, and with the encircling Main The whole enlivened Isle. (lines from James Thomson's poem 'Liberty' engraved on Craig's original plan for Edinburgh's New Town) Craig's original, imaginative but impractical conception was for the street plan to resemble the Union Flag with diagonal streets radiating from the centre. This was subsequently modified in favour of three parallel main streets running in a straight line between terminating squares. In the painting he is seen with a further modification which envisaged a circus as the central focus, but this was not adopted. The plan for a canal skirted by promenades in place of the drained valley of the Nor Loch was abandoned.
Title: Portrait of James Craig by David Allan
Credit: scanned from The Story Of Scotland, First Press and Scottish Daily Record Group, 1999-2000
Author: David Allan
Usage Terms: Public domain
License: Public domain
Attribution Required?: No