Writers' Museum


The Writers’ Museum, housed in Lady Stair's House at the Lawnmarket, on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, presents the lives of three of the foremost Scottish writers: Robert Burns, Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson.
Run by the City of Edinburgh Council, the collection includes portraits, works and personal objects.
Beside the museum lies the Makars' Court, the country's emerging national literary monument.

Lady Stair's House

The current building is a clever faux-medieval masterpiece by Stewart Henbest Capper dating from 1892. It was presented by the Earl of Roseberry to the city for use as a museum in 1907. Only then did it acquire the name of "Lady Stairs House".
It incorporates replicas of various carved stones probably from the earlier building. The house it replaced was demolished in 1890.
Lady Stair's House is located within Lady Stair's Close, just off the Lawnmarket. The original house was built in 1622 for Sir William Gray of Pittendrum. The lintel over the entrance is dated 1622 and carries the initials WG and GS, for William Gray and Geida Smith, his wife, and the inscription "FEARE THE LORD AND DEPART FROM EVILL". The building was initially known as Lady Gray's House and the close known as Lady Gray's Close.
The tenement is now named after the Gray's granddaughter: the society beauty Lady Stair, Elizabeth, Dowager Countess of Stair, the widow of John Dalrymple, 1st Earl of Stair. She purchased the building in 1719.
In the 1890s the original building was inherited by Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery, a descendant of Lady Stair's first husband. The rebuilding of 1892 includes nothing of the original building other than unseen basement areas.
In 1907, the Earl gave the house to the royal burgh of Edinburgh, for use as a municipal museum.
Lady Stair's House is designated a Category A listed building by Historic Environment Scotland.