Edinburgh - Cowgate c1544

Edinburgh - Cowgate c1544

Intangible Heritage

Our depiction of Edinburgh and the Canongate was inspired by a drawing in the British Library made by the English military engineer Richard Lee, who accompanied Hertford’s forces in 1544. Lee’s drawing is the earliest moderately realistic picture of Edinburgh and would influence how the English portrayed the Scottish capital into the seventeenth century (a variant of Lee’s illustration is included in John Speed’s atlas, The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britain, published c.1611). It is possible that Lee’s plan was created to explain the outcome of the Edinburgh expedition to Henry VIII of England. On 19 May 1544 the Earl of Hertford informed Henry that he was sending him ‘Master Lee, who I assure your Majesty hath served in the journey both honestly and willingly, [and] doth bring unto your Highness a plat of Leith and Edinburgh so as your Majesty shall perceive the situations of the same, which is undoubtedly set forth as well as is possible.’ The project was funded by Innovate UK.

reconstructions,movablecollections

2017

image/png

Reconstruction

182

In Copyright (InC)

current,55.94249623,-3.186332588;

https://www.openvirtualworlds.org/cowgate-1544/

https://player.vimeo.com/video/224288438

Smart History

TEXT

https://canmore.org.uk/site/120878

Firstly, a digital landscape was created using survey data and height maps. Following extensive historical research and collaboration with specialists, 3D models are created and imported into UNREAL Engine (a cross-platform game engine for creating virtual worlds). Models are textured, scaled, oriented and assembled. Scenes are created and populated with appropriate objects, including furniture and artefacts. Landscapes populated with flora and fauna. Weather settings and atmospheric lighting. Clothing and characters researched, created, imported and animated.

The Cowgate runs along the southern foot of the hill on which the Old Town of Edinburgh grew up. In the sixteenth century it was one of the burgh’s more prosperous streets. According to the Scottish writer and theologian Alexander Alesius (who lived 1500 to 1565) the Cowgate was ‘where the nobility and the chief men of the city reside…and where nothing is mean or tasteless’. By the sixteenth century Cowgate was considered one of the more prosperous parts of Edinburgh. The writer and theologian Alexander Alesius (who was born in Edinburgh in 1500) claimed that Cowgate was where ‘the nobility and chief men of the burgh reside’. In the early sixteenth century the archbishop of St Andrews had a residence there, which survived until Victorian times.

Richard Fawcett (University of St Andrews), John Lawson (CECAS), Bess Rhodes (University of St Andrews)

Sarah Kennedy, Iain Oliver, Bess Rhodes, Catherine Anne Cassidy, CJ Davies, Adeola Fabola, John McCaffrey, Alan Miller

1544