In the mid-19th century the entire village, which had been a separate entity from Edinburgh for hundreds of years, was wiped out to make way for the capital's Waverley Station.
Situated at the bottom of the deep ravine below the southern face of Calton Hill, and lying comfortably outside of the boundaries of old Edinburgh, the Calton, or Caltoun, was a small, but important, barony which had various owners stretching back to at least the 12th century.
One of the earliest recorded permanent buildings in the area was the Trinity College Kirk, which was founded in 1460 by Queen Mary of Gueldres in memory of her husband, King James II, who had been slain at the siege of Roxburgh Castle.
