Flodden Wall

Flodden Wall above the West Port
©2011 Gazetteer for Scotland

A defensive structure built around Edinburgh after the disastrous Battle of Flodden (1513), in which King James IV was killed. The construction was a response to threatened English invasion after a war started by James in support of the French and the 'Auld Alliance'. Although construction continued into the middle of the 16th-century, the hurriedly-conceived project offered little protection when the Protector Somerset sacked Edinburgh during the 'Rough Wooing'. Its main effect, before being dismantled from the middle of the 17th-century, was to restrict the southern development of Edinburgh's Old Town.

Today, the wall is best inspected at two locations; in the Vennel to the west of the Grassmarket and on the west side of the Pleasance turning up Drummond Street, where it originally enclosed the Blackfriar's Monastery.

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