Overview of New Parliament House

Located on Regent Road on the side of Calton Hill in Edinburgh, New Parliament House (often still referred to as the Old Royal High School) lies in need of a new purpose having been controversially spurned as the permanent debating chamber for the reconvened Scottish Parliament (created in 1999) in favour of purpose-built new building in the Canongate.

Widely regarded as the city's best Neo-Classical building, it takes the form of a Greek temple and occupies a dramatic location high above the Canongate. It was built in 1829 by Thomas Hamilton (1784 - 1858) and is regarded as his finest work. There was great rivalry between this building for the Royal High School and Burn's Edinburgh Academy in Inverleith, and Hamilton's budget was augmented to ensure his was the grandest, yet the cost of £24,000 seems a bargain, even then. It consists of a central block with two small temples forming pavilions, all with grand porticos and linked by colonnades. By the middle of the 20th Century the building had become too small and was difficult to adapt to the needs of a modern school, thus it was abandoned and very ordinary new buildings in the Barnton district of the city occupied in 1969.

Inside, there is a fine debating chamber, refurbished with the unrealised expectation that the devolution campaign of 1978 would give rise to a legislative assembly.

The High School was originally founded in 1128 making it one of the oldest schools in the United Kingdom. It had at first been associated with Holyrood Abbey, although since the 16th Century had been located in the High School Yards in the south of the Old Town.