Work on the renovation of a popular Edinburgh bar has uncovered the entrance to a now-forgotten square built hundreds of years ago.
Oz Bar on Candlemaker Row shared the exciting discovery after they were forced to strip back the entire venue to its bare bones following the George IV Bridge fire.
Sparking around the Patisserie Valerie cafe back in August 2021, the devastating blaze ruined several properties in the building, including the bar, who suffered smoke and water damage.
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Closed for months to allow for a complete renovation, the building works and repairs have now revealed a once busy entrance and passageway to Brown Square, a now demolished site that was a thriving hub in the 1700s.
With construction workers discovering the old stonework arches, old maps and paperwork has shown that the arches were a route into the square, and would have also housed an ironmongers.
The BBC reports that the now visible route passed through a slum tenement and shop on Candlemaker Row, with the bar now set on keeping the piece of history as a permanent feature.
Giving an incredible insight into Edinburgh's past, owner of Oz Bar Iain Ponton told the BBC he had no idea the venue was hiding the forgotten entrance.
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He said: "When I got a photograph from the contractors saying 'look what we've found' I immediately drove down to the pub. They had to remove layers and layers of wood and corrugated iron on top of plaster. When it all came off it exposed this arch.
"I got up on the ladder to see as I was very curious, and then over a week they revealed more and more.I thought maybe the wall was something to do with the furniture store. I had no idea it would actually be evidence of all this history, it's incredible."
An affluent and state-of-the-art development at the time of its construction in the 1760s, Brown Square was designed by the same architect who put together George Square, James Brown.
Home at the time to some top members of society from doctors to well-known writers, the square was eventually demolished and built on top of in the decades to come.
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