1700– Modern Edinburgh
Around the start of the 18th century the nobility were increasingly joined in their wealth by a section of society who'd acquired riches through trade and industry.
The Museum on the Mound helps trace the role of banking and money in one industry vital to the city. The Scottish Enlightenment blossomed too, as the Writers’ Museum attests.
Both transitions created enough wealthy and urbane citizens to demand Edinburgh provide more opulent surroundings than the chaotic and cramped Old Town could offer. The city responded with a planned and orderly expansion into a 18th-century New Town – where the rich could live in style in properties such as Georgian House.