Stockbridge is a village that the city grew around without ever quite swallowing. It has a river, a Sunday market, a high street of delis and one genuinely strange terrace of workers' housing — and it wears all of it lightly, like somewhere that has never had to try.
Start at the Stockbridge Colonies, the parallel rows off Glenogle Road built from 1861 by a co-operative of tradesmen, with outside stairs to the upper flats and the building trades carved on the gable ends. Walk down to the Sunday market in the yard off Kerr Street — street food and makers, but only on a Sunday, which is why you came today. Then St Stephen Street, the curving lane of antique dealers and basement bars where browsing is the whole activity.
Playfair's St Stephen's Church closes the hill with its enormous clock tower. Drop to the Water of Leith for two minutes of green quiet — the same river as Dean Village, here between back gardens — then back up to Hamilton Place for the bakery queue and the delis. Eat now or carry it home; the bus stops along the main street.
