📍17 Heriot Row, Edinburgh EH3 6HP, UK
1857 – 1880“From the age of six I grew up at 17 Heriot Row, a tall Georgian house in Edinburgh's New Town, the only child of Thomas Stevenson, an engineer of lighthouses, and my mother, Margaret. I was sickly from birth and spent long winters in bed, and my faithful nurse, Alison Cunningham — Cummy — sat with me through the coughing nights, filling my head with stories of Covenanters, sin, the devil and ghosts in good broad Scots. Thirty years later I dedicated A Child's Garden of Verses to her. From my window I watched the lamplighter, Leerie, coming along Heriot Row each evening with his ladder, and wrote a poem about him. Across the street lie the private Queen Street Gardens, with a pond and a little island, and it is said that island was the first seed of Treasure Island. Beyond the New Town's orderly streets lay the dark closes and wynds of the Old Town, where I prowled as a student; the two faces of my city became the two faces of Jekyll and Hyde. The house is still a private home, with a plaque by the door.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today