Walking Tour: Stop T

Theatre Royal

Waterloo Place (now Waverley Gate), EH1 3EG

Site of Edinburgh’s principal eighteenth-century theatre where Scott participated in the city’s theatrical life and supported early performances of Scottish drama.

GPS Coordinates: 55°57'11.0"N 3°11'26.7"W

Scott Connection:

Sir Walter Scott was closely involved in Edinburgh’s theatrical life. His influence helped Henry Siddons secure the Edinburgh Theatre Royal patent in 1809, and he actively encouraged the production of Scottish plays. One of the most important was Joanna Baillie’s historical tragedy The Family Legend, first performed in Edinburgh in January 1810.

Scott’s interest in the theatre reflected a wider ambition: to encourage Scottish writers, history and traditions to find a place on the public stage.

Date Range Relevant to Scott: 1809–1810

Current Status:

The theatre no longer survives. It closed in 1859 and was demolished to make way for the General Post Office, which opened in 1866. The site is now associated with the Waverley Gate complex, near the junction of North Bridge and Waterloo Place.

Accessibility:

The former theatre cannot be entered or viewed as a surviving building. The site can be approached from the surrounding public streets, although the original layout of Shakespeare Square has disappeared. Pavements and road crossings in this busy city-centre area may affect access. (Exterior viewing only.)

Why This Place Matters

For much of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the Theatre Royal was a major venue for Edinburgh’s dramatic life. It brought professional actors, visiting performers and audiences together at a time when theatre management in Scotland operated under strict licensing arrangements.

The building also formed part of the cultural world in which Scott worked. His interest in drama was not confined to writing and reading: he cultivated relationships with managers and writers and used his influence to support productions that he believed deserved an audience.

Historical Context

Edinburgh’s first Theatre Royal opened in December 1769 at Shakespeare Square, near the east end of Princes Street. It held a royal patent permitting it to stage a wider range of drama than theatres operating without that licence. The patent gave its holders an important commercial advantage, but it also placed theatre managers in a competitive and legally complicated environment.

When Henry Siddons arrived in Edinburgh in 1809, the Shakespeare Square theatre was in poor condition. He transferred the patent to a refurbished theatre in the former Circus at the top of Leith Walk, beside what is now St Mary’s Cathedral. The Shakespeare Square building continued for a time as a minor theatre, while the Leith Walk venue became the principal Theatre Royal under Siddons’s management.

This distinction is important to the story of The Family Legend. Joanna Baillie’s tragedy, based on a Scottish historical tradition, premiered on 29th January 1810 at the Leith Walk Theatre Royal, not at the Shakespeare Square building described here. Scott helped champion the play, and its production became an important example of his efforts to encourage Scottish historical drama.

The Shakespeare Square Theatre Royal nevertheless remained central to Edinburgh’s theatrical history. It continued in use until 1859, when the site was acquired for the new General Post Office.

Scott Here

Scott’s involvement in the theatre was practical as well as literary. He encouraged Henry Siddons’s management and supported new work that might broaden the appeal of the Scottish stage. His friendship with Joanna Baillie was especially important to the fortunes of The Family Legend: he advocated for the play and took a keen interest in its reception.

The production brought together several figures in Scotland’s literary and theatrical circles. Baillie supplied the drama, Siddons was responsible for its staging, and Scott helped generate interest and support. Its reception demonstrated that a play grounded in Scottish history could attract a substantial Edinburgh audience.

Scott’s theatrical activity formed part of his wider cultural life, alongside his legal work, writing, collecting and participation in Edinburgh’s literary society.

The Bigger Theme

Scott’s support for the theatre illustrates his commitment to making Scotland’s history and cultural traditions visible in contemporary life. The stage offered something different from the printed page: historical characters and events could be presented directly to a shared audience, through acting, costume, scenery and speech.

Scott did not work alone. The development of Scottish drama depended on writers, managers, actors, patrons and audiences. His contribution lay partly in bringing these people together and using his standing to encourage work that might otherwise struggle to reach the stage.

Literary Connections

Joanna Baillie, The Family Legend (1810)

Baillie’s tragedy draws on a Highland story and explores family loyalty, conflict and the consequences of violence. Its Edinburgh production was supported by Scott, who admired Baillie’s dramatic writing and wanted Scottish subjects to receive serious theatrical treatment.

Baillie was one of the most respected dramatists of her generation. Her success offers a useful counterpoint to the idea that Scott alone shaped the emergence of Scottish historical drama: his advocacy mattered, but it supported the work of an accomplished writer in her own right.

Scott’s own historical novels later provided material for the stage, including Rob Roy, adapted for the Theatre Royal in 1819. The theatre’s history therefore connects his support for other writers with the later theatrical adaptations of his own fiction.

What to Notice On Site

The position of the former theatre: It stood at the eastern end of Princes Street, in the area now occupied by the Waverley Gate complex and near Waterloo Place.
The relationship with North Bridge: The theatre was part of the changing cityscape created as Edinburgh’s New Town developed and the Old and New Towns became more closely connected.
The later Post Office: The building that replaced the theatre reflects the changing civic and commercial priorities of nineteenth-century Edinburgh. The theatre’s demolition marked the end of a significant chapter in the city’s performance history.

The original building and Shakespeare Square are gone, so the location is best understood through historic maps, illustrations and accounts of Edinburgh’s theatre.

Questions to Consider

What can a theatre contribute to a city’s cultural identity that books alone cannot?

How much influence should a prominent writer or public figure have over which plays are produced?

Why might audiences be particularly interested in drama based on their own country’s history?

What is lost when a historic cultural building is demolished, even if its site continues to serve the city?

Did You Know?

The Theatre Royal at Shakespeare Square and the Theatre Royal at the top of Leith Walk were two different buildings. The transfer of the royal patent between them is the key to understanding where The Family Legend was first performed in 1810.

The Shakespeare Square theatre later hosted the visit of George IV during his visit to Edinburgh in 1822, when Scott played a prominent role in organising the royal celebrations.