Merchiston

Merchiston is a prosperous, mainly residential area in the south-west of Edinburgh, Scotland. The housing is primarily a mixture of large, late Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian villas – several of the latter by Edward Calvert – together with a smaller number of Victorian tenements and some relatively large, early-20th century villas. In recent years many of these villas have been subjected to development with blocks of flats being built in their once expansive gardens and the original houses themselves being divided into small numbers of flats.

A campus forming a major part of Edinburgh Napier University is in the area; it includes Merchiston Tower (or Castle), once the home of John Napier, 8th Laird of Merchiston and the inventor of logarithms. The university also uses a variety of other buildings in this and surrounding areas, such as former schools and churches, some of which would otherwise have been demolished or made into further flats. The tower was sold by the Honourable John Scott Napier, 14th Laird of Merchiston in 1914 to the Merchiston Castle School board who used it up until 1930 when the school moved to a new site at Colinton (whilst retaining the Merchiston Castle name).

The area is home to writers Ian Rankin (author of the Inspector Rebus novels), Lin Anderson, Colin Douglas, Alexander McCall Smith (author of the The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency novels) and comedian Dylan Moran. J.K. Rowling had her Edinburgh home in Merchiston for many years but is said to have moved to Cramond. Merchiston was also the childhood home of Scotland and British Lions rugby legends Gavin Hastings and Scott Hastings.

Also in the area are a number of independent schools including George Watson's College and a Steiner School. On the fringes of the area where it meets Craiglockhart (to the west) is the suburban railway line, which is mooted for reopening. To the north of the area is the Union Canal. North of the canal (in the area sometimes known as North Merchiston or Shandon and sometimes taken to be part of Polwarth) are Craiglockhart Primary School and the site of the former Merchiston railway station, a railway station on the now-closed Caledonian Railway line to Edinburgh Princes Street railway station.

Other nearby areas include Morningside to the southeast, Burghmuirhead (including Holy Corner and Church Hill) to the east and Bruntsfield to the northeast.