The Governor’s House overlooking Waverley Station is one of the few surviving buildings from Edinburgh’s former Calton Jail.
For visitors arriving in Edinburgh by train, one of the first surprises can come before they have even left Waverley Station. Looking up towards Calton Hill, a small, turreted stone building appears dramatically above the railway. With its castellated outline, it is sometimes mistaken by first-time visitors for Edinburgh Castle. The real castle, of course, stands considerably further west on Castle Rock. The building overlooking the eastern end of Waverley is the Governor’s House, one of the few surviving reminders of Edinburgh’s formidable Calton Jail.
The Governor’s House was built around 1815–17 as part of the new Calton Jail complex, designed by Scottish architect Archibald Elliot, who was also responsible for nearby Waterloo Place and the Regent Bridge. The building contained accommodation and administrative rooms associated with the prison’s operations, including a committee room used by the commissioners responsible for the jail. Its deliberately picturesque, fortress-like architecture contributed to the imposing appearance of the entire prison complex. Calton Jail opened in 1817 and became one of Scotland’s most important prisons; contemporary descriptions emphasised its grim and forbidding character.
Indeed, confusion with Edinburgh Castle is not entirely a modern phenomenon. The prison occupied a spectacular position above the city and railway, and its walls, towers and battlements gave it the appearance of a medieval fortress. Even today, with almost all of the prison gone, the surviving Governor’s House retains enough of that character to deceive the occasional visitor looking up from Waverley Station.
Calton Jail eventually closed in the 1920s as prisoners were transferred to the new prison at Saughton. Most of the old complex was subsequently demolished in the 1930s to make way for St Andrew’s House, the monumental government building that opened in 1939 and now forms part of the Scottish Government estate. Much of the demolished prison stone found another use: rubble from Calton Jail was recycled during construction of the Hopes Reservoir dam in the Lammermuir Hills. The Governor’s House, sections of the prison walls and some remains incorporated into St Andrew’s House survived.
The little building nearly acquired a very different role after the creation of the devolved Scottish Government. During Alex Salmond’s period as First Minister, the Governor’s House was considered a possible alternative official residence to Bute House in Charlotte Square. The proposal never came to fruition, however, and Bute House remains the First Minister’s official residence.
Governor’s House – Today
Today the Governor’s House remains part of the Scottish Government estate and is not open to the public.
It has previously accommodated government staff, including the Scottish Government’s multimedia team, and more recently has been used by the Scottish Fiscal Commission, Scotland’s independent fiscal institution.
It is an intriguing survivor: a miniature castle that was never a castle, standing above one of Edinburgh’s busiest transport hubs as a reminder of a much larger building that has almost completely disappeared. For anyone who knows the story of Calton Jail, the Governor’s House also makes it easier to imagine just how imposing and intimidating the eastern approach to Edinburgh must once have appeared.
The image on this page is licensable via ALAMY
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