When Burns first came to Edinburgh he stayed with his friend Richmond who lodged at The Lawnmarket, under the castle at Baxters Close. On Burns first day there he was too ill and tired to leave his bed.

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Baxters Close is no longer there but there is a plaque at Lady Stairs Close to show where Burns would have looked out to. The actual site of where Burns stayed is now the pub of Deacon Brodie's.

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Deacon Brodie (William Brodie) was the name of a Scottish cabinet maker and respectable member of town council who would have mingled with Burns but by night he was a housebreaker thief with a gambling habit and mistresses.

 

Robert Louis Stevenson wrote a play about his double life but then also used him as inspiration for Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Robert Louis Stevenson is celebrated in the Writers Museum alongside Burns and Sir Walter Scott.

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The Writers Museum holds Burns writing desk, one of only three plaster casts of his skull and a 'Man's A Man' inscription on the pavement outside on one of the Makars Court Slabs. See if you can find it!

 

The Lawnmarket remains a lively place of interest to this day with, like Burns time, traditional pubs and memories of close lodgings  ...