9 Queen Street

The present home of the College was built at No. 9 Queen Street to a design by Thomas Hamilton and completed in 1846. 

Carefully restored, the temple-like grandeur of the entrance hall and staircase is much as Hamilton, also the architect of the Burns Monument on Calton Hill, saw it. 

The stair balustrade is gilded with two coats of the finest gold leaf. 

The hanging lamps are one of the remaining original features of the design. Initially oil burning, the lamps were first changed to gas and then converted for electricity.

A bust of Hippocrates stands above the central door at the top of the stairs and Aesculapius, the Greek god of medicine, is above the entrance to the hall.

There are two large portraits on the staircase, of Sir James Young Simpson and Alexander Wood, both Presidents of the College and both medical innovators – Simpson discovered the anaesthetic use of chloroform, while Wood invented the modern hypodermic syringe.