The secret doorway is hidden on the lower floors of the library (Image: BBC)
It is often said that are a gateway to knowledge and wisdom – but generally such insights are assumed to be reached through curling up with a good book rather than through an actual doorway.
At the National Library of Scotland in , both things could be said to be true, however – with a secret door buried beneath the city centre building offering a glimpse into what would have looked like hundreds of years ago.
Libberton’s Wynd was a small nook-and-cranny walkway running between Cowgate and the gallows in Lawnmarket before it was destroyed in the 19th century to make way for the George IV bridge.
But a stretch of the street has been discovered in a semi-preserved state in the depths of the National Library, down a corridor on the building’s lower floors that has ominously been dubbed The Void by staff.
The “wynd”, which means a narrow lane between houses, was home to John Dowie’s tavern, one of the most popular boozers in 18th and 19th century Edinburgh and saw a number of public executions in its time, including of notorious murderer William Burke in 1829.
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The tiny street was once crammed with businesses and shoppers (Image: Wikipedia)
The pub is also thought to have hosted prominent figures including the writers Robert Burns and Robert Fergusson, who would have had to squeeze into its tiny main room, which historians estimate would have had capacity for just 14 people.
According to The Scotsman, it was especially revered for “the excellence of its ale, Nor’ Loch trout, and Welsh rarebit”, and would have served Edinburgh Ale – “a potent fluid which almost glued the lips of the drinker together”.
The remaining part of the street, which contains parts of the buildings frequented by citizens over a hundred years ago, was discovered in a tiny space between the library and the bridge in the 1990s, when staff broke down a wall hatch and crawled through the gap on a hunch that something interesting lay beyond it.
They were right – an archway lined passage leads from the hatch into a network of chambers and rooms that date back to the “wynd” and were later used for storage under the bridge, before the library was built on its foundations in 1956.
Bill Jackson, former library director, was one of the first people to venture into the historic space, and told Scotland that he had spotted rotting furniture, ledgers and shoes that all looked over 100-years-old.
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The narrow street was a popular spot for public executions, including of murderer William Burke (Image: City of Edinburgh Council)
“My torch was hardly illuminating anything, it was very dark when I went through and a bit scary and I wanted to get out of there,” he said, adding that it had been a “fascinating” experience nonetheless.
While the passageway doesn’t offer an intact glimpse at the historic street, it does offer a hallowed insight into the architecture of the time, and despite now being decked out with lights and two doorways, it’s not difficult to imagine bustling shoppers packing out the small and crammed space, which spans 1,000 feet on a steep slope.
Its modern-day purpose is somewhat more practical than purely providing historic interest, however – with the corridor’s chambers now used to store water tanks for the library’s sprinkler system.
It’s a sharp departure from the Libberton Wynd’s heyday – when it would have packed a barbers, a shoemaker, grocers, merchants, a custom house, hosiers and glaziers on its narrow stretch, according to Scottish historian Jamie Corstorphine.
“It was a very busy street that would have been full of life at the time,” he told the .