The Pleasance

The Pleasance is a street just outside the Old Town of Edinburgh, Scotland, a remnant of the Flodden Wall flanking the west side of the street between Drummond Street and the Cowgate. Historically, the street was one of the main routes into Edinburgh from the south, meeting St Mary's Wynd (now St Mary's Street) at St Mary's Wynd Port, one of the gateways of the town walls. The name derives from the Scots plesance, meaning a park or garden. It first appears in 1507 as the name of a nearby house, and was later transferred to the street and then the suburb which was part of the regality of the Canongate. The derivation of the name from a nunnery of St Mary of Placentia, often mentioned in histories of Edinburgh, is an invention by William Maitland in his 1753 History of Edinburgh.The street is largely residential - mainly 19th century tenements and 20th century flats - although the University of Edinburgh owns property in the area, including a large new [2017] university student flats complex on St Leonard's Street, the southerly extension of the Pleasance, on a site formerly occupied by a Homebase home improvements and gardening store. In addition, although the Pleasance along with St Leonard's Street is a quieter area than the nearby main commercial centres and streets of the Southside there are several restaurants, pubs, a few shops, lawyers' offices, churches, and the modern St Leonard's police station. After years of planning blight from the 1960s and 1970s in which redevelopment of the formerly rather run-down area was hampered after the abandonment of bizarre plans to build a major road comparable to a motorway, from the late 20th century onwards the area benefited from a gradual renaissance.

Pleasance Church was a Presbyterian church on the Pleasance in the Southside of Edinburgh, Scotland. Originating in the Relief Church in the 1820s, the congregation united with Charteris Memorial in 1953. In 1842, the congregations of Arthur Street Relief Church (founded in 1825 and known as Brighton Street Relief Church between 1827 and 1835) and Roxburgh Terrace Relief Church (founded as Bethel Relief Church in 1824) united. As with the rest of the Relief Church, they joined the United Presbyterian Church in 1847, adopting the name Pleasance United Presbyterian Church. On union with the United Free Church in 1900, the congregation became Arthur Street United Free Church. Historically one of the Southside's smaller congregations, it was strengthened in 1919 by its union with Pleasance Mission Church and the attached New College Settlement, after which it adopted the name Pleasance United Free Church. The congregation, as with most of the United Free Church, joined the Church of Scotland in 1929, becoming Pleasance Parish Church. The settlement closed in 1952 and Pleasance united with the nearby Charteris Memorial Church the following year. The church's building was constructed for a congregation of Baptists in 1811. The Relief congregation occupied it from 1835 and the addition of galleries the following year increased its capacity from 700 to 1,000. In 1883, David Robertson recast the building in the Norman style. The building was demolished in 1982, having latterly been occupied as a store by Henry Willis & Sons.

The New College Settlement was a student settlement based on the Pleasance in the Southside of Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by students of New College in 1893, its work continued until 1952. New College was the ministerial training college for the Free Church of Scotland. The New College Missionary Society had undertaken home mission work in deprived areas of Edinburgh since 1845, settling in the former buildings of Pleasance Free Church in 1876. In 1893, a tenement for resident student workers was added to the mission premises, establishing the mission as part of the growing settlement movement. Having previously relied on student wardens, a permanent, ordained warden, John Harry Miller, was appointed in 1908. In 1913, the settlement was constituted as Pleasance Mission Church. In 1919, this united with nearby Arthur Street United Free Church. Miller became minister of the united charge of Pleasance United Free Church, holding the role in tandem with the wardenship of the settlement. By the wake of the Second World War the Pleasance area was experiencing depopulation and the settlement closed in 1952. The settlement's buildings consisted of the former Pleasance Free Church and, next door, a tenement of 1891–1893 designed by Henry F. Kerr. The tenement is an example of both Arts and Crafts architecture and of the Old Edinburgh movement, popularised by Patrick Geddes. The buildings now form part of the University of Edinburgh's Pleasance complex.

The University of Edinburgh School of GeoSciences, is a school within the College of Science and Engineering, which was formed in 2002 by the merger of four departments. It is split between the King's Buildings and the Central Area of the university. The institutes of Ecological Sciences and Earth Science are located at the King's Buildings, whilst the Institute of Geography is located on Drummond Street in the Central Area. In 2013 the department was ranked 8th best place to study geography in the country by The Guardian University Rankings, down from 2nd in 2006.The school is ranked as one of the best in the UK for Earth Sciences. A 2008 Research Assessment Exercise assessment ranked the "Earth Systems and Environmental Science" department as the best in the UK by number of world leading research and staff. Its Geography department was ranked 15th in the world according to the 2015 QS rankings.There are over 1100 undergraduate students and 250 postgraduate students in the School of GeoSciences. There are also around 100 research and teaching staff within the school.The School collaborates with the University of Edinburgh Business School and the School of Economics, to offer a Carbon Management MSc degree, the first in the world, which has students from over 20 countries. The school also has exchange programmes though the Erasmus programme, in addition to universities in Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand.The head of the School of GeoSciences is currently Professor Simon Kelley. Famous recent alumni of the School include former BP chief executive Tony Hayward. Former Rector of the university Peter McColl matriculated at one of the predecessors, the Department of Geography.Competition for entry is highly selective, in 2010, the School received 2221 applications, but only 275 offers were made, representing a 16.9% of an applicant receiving an offer. The school currently offers 11 undergraduate courses and a range of postgraduate degrees.

The Institute for the Study of Science, Technology and Innovation (ISSTI) is an interdisciplinary research centre based in the UK. The research network was established in 2001 to bring together groups of academics and individual researchers across the University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK. It consolidates activities in research, teaching and knowledge transfer on social and policy aspects of science, technology and innovation. ISSTI emerged from the interdisciplinary research collaboration established amongst specialist groups and scholars at the University of Edinburgh under the ESRC Programme on Information and Communications Technology, coordinated by the Research Centre for Social Sciences. Other founding members were the Sociology subject group, the Science Studies Unit, the Japanese European Technology Studies Institute (JETS) and the Entrepreneurship and Innovation group in the Business School and Economics, and the Innogen Centre. Over time this collaboration has expanded to include a wider array of scholars and specialist centres across the University including the Schools of Informatics, Law, Public Health, and Edinburgh College of Art with links also to Geosciences, Engineering and Philosophy. Today ISSTI comprises over 100 staff and research students. It constitutes one of the most interdisciplinary groupings in the field of science, technology and innovation studies measured in terms joint publication and publication outliets.

The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (RCSEd) is a professional organisation of surgeons. The College has seven active faculties, covering a broad spectrum of surgical, dental, and other medical practices. Its main campus is located on Nicolson Street, Edinburgh, within the Surgeons' Hall, designed by William Henry Playfair, and adjoining buildings. The main campus includes a skills laboratory, the Surgeons' Hall Museums, a medical and surgical library, and a hotel. A second office was opened in Birmingham (UK) in 2014 and an international office opened in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 2018. It is one of the oldest surgical corporations in the world and traces its origins to 1505, when the Barber Surgeons of Edinburgh were formally incorporated as a craft of Edinburgh. The Barber-Surgeons of Dublin was the first medical corporation in Ireland or Britain, having been incorporated in 1446 (by Royal Decree of Henry VI). RCSEd represents members and fellows across the UK and the world, spanning a number of disciplines, including surgery, dentistry, perioperative care, pre-hospital care, and remote, rural and humanitarian healthcare. The majority of its UK members are based in England with others across Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Its membership includes people at every stage of their career, from medical students through to trainees, consultants, and those who have retired from practice. The Council is the governing body of RCSEd, and represents the professional interests of the College's membership. Decisions made by Council formulate policy and direct the College in its mission to promote the highest standards of surgical practice. As a charitable organisation, the Members of Council are also Trustees of the College. The Council comprises five Office-Bearers, 15 elected members, one Trainee member and the Dean of the Faculty of Dental Surgery.

The King Khalid Building is an event space in the Southside, Edinburgh, Scotland, owned and operated by the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. The building was constructed Roxburgh Free Church in 1847 and converted to its current use in 1982. The building's first occupants, Roxburgh Free Church, began as a Relief congregation in 1803, subsequently joining the Church of Scotland in 1833 then the Free Church at the Disruption of 1843. The congregation united with McCrie Free in 1886. Between 1888 and 1965, the buildings were occupied by St Michael's Episcopal Church. After a period of dereliction, the buildings were converted for use as a lecture theatre. In recognition of a major donation from King Khalid of Saudi Arabia, the building was given the full name: King Khalid bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia Symposium Hall. It also operates as a Fringe venue under the name Symposium Hall. The building was designed in the Gothic style by Thomas Hamilton and opened in 1847. It was altered by John Kinross ahead of its reopening as an Episcopal Church in 1888. In 1982, James Parr & Partners created the a two-storey interior with a lecture theatre above and smaller rooms below. A further renovation in 2005 increased the seating capacity.

The Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women was founded by Sophia Jex-Blake in Edinburgh, Scotland, in October of 1886, with support from the National Association for Promoting the Medical Education of Women. Sophia Jex-Blake was appointed as both the Director and the Dean of the School. The first class of women to study at the Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women consisted of eight students, the youngest of whom was nineteen years of age. Throughout its twelve years in operation, the school struggled to find financial funding to remain open. A rival institution, the Edinburgh College of Medicine for Women, set up by Elsie Inglis with the help of her father John Inglis, attracted several students of Jex-Blake, including Martha Cadell and Grace Cadell. St Mungo's College and Queen Margaret College in Glasgow also accepted women medical students and when the Scottish universities began to do so the Edinburgh School of Medicine could no longer compete. The school closed in 1898. Over the twelve years of its operation, the Edinburgh School of Medicine provided education to approximately eighty female students. Of those eighty students, thirty-three completed the full course of medical training at the Edinburgh School while many others chose to finish their education at outside institutions.

The Greyfriars Charteris Centre is a community centre in the Southside, Edinburgh, Scotland, part of the mission of Greyfriars Kirk. The centre opened in 2016 and occupies the 20th century church buildings which became Kirk o' Field Parish Church in 1969. The church originated in the St Ninian's Mission, founded in 1891 at the instigation of Archibald Charteris to minister in the area of the Pleasance. The mission was staffed by the Church of Scotland's recently founded order of Deaconesses, who also ran the neighbouring Deaconess Hospital. An attached church, named Charteris Memorial Church, was founded in 1912. As the Southside's population and church congregations declined in the wake of the Second World War, neighbouring churches united with Charteris Memorial: first Pleasance in 1953, forming Charteris-Pleasance Church; then Buccleuch and Nicolson Street in 1969, when the name Kirk o' Field Parish Church was adopted; then St Paul's Newington in 1983. Kirk o' Field itself united with Greyfriars, Tolbooth and Highland Kirk in 2013. The united congregation retained the buildings for use as a community centre named in memory of Charteris, which opened in 2016. The former Kirk o' Field church building was completed in 1912 to a design by James Bow Dunn in the late Scottish Gothic style. Robert Wilson designed the neighbouring St Ninian's buildings, which opened in 1891. Between 2019 and 2022, the buildings underwent a major programme of refurbishment and alternations under Konishi Gaffney Architects.

The murder of Lord Darnley, second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, took place on 10 February 1567 in Edinburgh, Scotland. Darnley's lodgings were destroyed by gunpowder; his body and that of his servant were found nearby, apparently having been strangled rather than killed in the explosion. Suspicion was placed upon Queen Mary and the Earl of Bothwell, whom Mary went on to marry three months after Darnley's murder. Bothwell was indicted for treason and acquitted, but six of his servants and acquaintances were subsequently arrested, tried, and executed for the crime.

The Public Dispensary of Edinburgh was the first free-of-charge hospital in Scotland.

The Burning of Edinburgh in 1544 by an English sea-borne army was the first major action of the war of the Rough Wooing. A Scottish army observed the landing on 3 May 1544 but did not engage with the English force. The Provost of Edinburgh was compelled to allow the English to sack Leith and Edinburgh, and the city was burnt on 7 May. However, the Scottish artillery within Edinburgh Castle harassed the English forces, who had neither the time nor the resources to besiege the Castle. The English fleet sailed away loaded with captured goods, and with two ships that had belonged to James V of Scotland.