The Royal High School is currently a state comprehensive school located in the Barnton area of the city of Edinburgh. It houses approximately 1000 pupils from the Cramond, Barnton, Davidson's Mains, Blackhall, Cammo, Silverknowes and Clermiston suburbs of the city. Its feeder Primary Schools are Cramond Primary, Blackhall Primary, Clermiston Primary and Davidson's Mains Primary.

History of the Royal High School

The Royal High School is generally considered as the oldest in Scotland and one of the oldest in Europe, tracing its roots back to 1128. Originally associated with Holyrood Abbey, the school started life as an institution for the training of Franciscan Monks. Through the centuries, it has been located at many sites throughout the city including Blackfriars, Infirmary Street, Jock's Lodge, the famous building on Calton Hill and its current site at Barnton, which it moved to in 1968. Up until the 1970s, the Royal High School (commonly known as "The RHS") was an all-male Public School. Many of its former pupils over the centuries made contributions to Scottish life. The two who are most famous internationally were Sir Walter Scott and Alexander Graham Bell. In 1974 it became a co-educational state school.

The building on Calton Hill

The neo-classical Calton Hill building, dating from 1829 and designed by Thomas Hamilton was long considered as a home for the Scottish Parliament. The building was converted in anticipation of the 1979 Scotland referendum, with a debating chamber built, but the referendum failed due to a rule requiring the support of 40% of the entire electorate. Following the successful referendum in 1997 it was considered again, until Donald Dewar eventually chose the Holyrood site for the Scottish Parliament Building, supposedly due to fears of the building being a Nationalist shibboleth.

As of 2004 there are proposals to convert the building into the Scottish National Photography Centre, which is seen as an appropriate site for such a centre, given its proximity to the former studio of Robert Adamson and David Octavius Hill.

External links

• The Royal High School's Home Page
• The Royal High School on Calton Hill at edinburgharchitecture.co.uk