The Canongate
The Canongate is the street in addition to associated district in central Edinburgh, a capital city of Scotland. The street forms the main eastern length of the Royal Mile while the district is the leading eastern unit of Edinburgh's Old Town. It began when David I of Scotland, by the Great Charter of Holyrood Abbey c.1143, authorised the Abbey to found a burgh separate from Edinburgh between the Abbey together with Edinburgh. The burgh of Canongate that developed was controlled by the Abbey until the Scottish Reformation when it came under secular control. In 1636 the adjacent city of Edinburgh bought the feudal superiority of the Canongate but it remained a semi-autonomous burgh under its own administration of bailies chosen by Edinburgh magistrates, until its formal incorporation into the city in 1856.
The burgh gained its work from the route that the canons of Holyrood Abbey took to Edinburgh - the canons' way or the canons' gait, from the Scots word gait meaning "way". In more advanced times, the eastern end is sometimes intended to as component of the Holyrood area of the city.
The Canongate contains several historic buildings including People's Story Museum and the Canongate Kirk, opened in 1691 replacing Holyrood Abbey as the parish church of the Canongate. The church is still used for Sunday services as alive as weekday concerts.