Such were the walled boundaries of Edinburgh, within which the city made shift to contain its increasing population during a period of about two hundred and fifty years. Practically the Edinburgh of these centuries lay between the Castle and Holyrood lengthwise, and in breadth between the Nor' Loch and some distance beyond the Cowgate on the south. There was no lack, however, at any period of persons who preferred to live outside the city walls. In fact, old writers are continually remarking on such a strange and perverse disposition, for which they cannot account, especially in those old days when the danger from England was a very grim reality. The propensity led to the gradual growth of a few suburban hamlets, and the only wonder is that they were not larger and more numerous. Of these outside regions the Canongate was the largest, but it was really at first an independent ecclesiastical burgh, established by David I. in 1128 under the Abbey of Holyrood. It did not come under the jurisdiction of the city till the year 1636, when the Town Council bought it from the Earl of Roxburgh. Another 'burgh' of ancient fame was 'Portsburgh' at the other end of the city, extending from the West Port to Toll Cross. Straggling houses belonging to citizens were also to be found farther afield on the Glasgow Road, and in the district now named Dairy. The suburb of Bristo Street, as we have seen, adjoined one of the city gates, and beyond it were the grounds of Ross House, which about 1764 supplied a site for George Square, named after the reigning monarch, George III.
Within these bounds, then, is all that Scott meant when he wrote the words, 'mine own romantic town.' And indeed it was full of romance in every quarter. To him the New Town was but an appendage, a fast-growing appendage of the city itself--a fringe which set off the beauty of the general view. From his Castle Street mansion he looked across to the city of his imagination, and had he lived to see the beginning of the twentieth century, he might have gone farther afield. The city improvements of a large and important provincial centre could hardly have consoled his outraged spirit for the ruthless and needless destruction of priceless relics of the past in which he lived.