Photos

1 and 3

Location

Photo 1 includes St James Square - the open area near the NE boundary of the land enclosed by the yellow line that was developed to create the St James Centre shopping mall, government offices and King James Hotel.

At the bottom centre is St Mary's Roman Catholic Cathedral, and beside it stands the shell of the Theatre Royal, destroyed by fire in 1946.

This photo was published in the Edinburgh Evening News on August 12, 1958.

Photo 3 is the same as Photo 1, but with a key added.

Demolition and Redevelopment

Almost all of the buildings in the St James Square area were demolished around 1970, to allow the area to be redeveloped as the Saint James' Centre Government Offices, hotel and shopping complex.

Thank you to Alan Monk for emailing me to remind me that the buildings on the right hand side of Photos 1 and 3 above (those with the light upper floor, on the west side of the square) were not demolished around 1970, and are in fact still standing today. *

This prompted me to take some photos of the area as it is today. I hope to add these to the web site soon.