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The
plan for the building is of special significance; it is the first
completely regular design in Scotland with four equal  ranges
of buildings disposed round a central quadrangle, with four square
towers at each corner rising a storey higher. Nor had any other building
in the country previously been conceived on such a scale. It is clear
that William Wallace had carefully studied Linlithgow Palace - an
extremely competent piece of late medieval and Renaissance domestic
design. As at Linlithgow, the rooms in the Hospital are through-going
in the traditional Scottish  manner,
without connecting corridors. Six separate spiral staircases were
incorporated, one in each internal angle of the courtyard and one
in each of the two external lateral faces. Only two of those in the
courtyard remain, both in the south side, the others having been removed
in 1886 when the main staircases were built.
The disposition of the principal rooms on the west
and south sides is of particular interest. In earlier large medieval
houses the central feature was the festal Hall, where the entire household
had their meals together. At the lower end of the hall was the kitchen,
and the adjoining lower portion of the Hall provided an entrance door
from the service area. The fireplaces were set in gable and side walls,
if the Hall was large. Behind the Hall were the solar - or great -
chamber, the owners' private apartments, and opening off this chamber
was the Chapel.
At Heriot's Hospital, the Hall, designed as a Refectory
for the scholars, has a central door through which the boys came  into
the centre of the room. At either gable end is a fireplace and a service
door. If the Council Room is considered as corresponding functionally
to the medieval great chamber the sequence of principal or public
rooms at Heriot's - kitchen, Great Hall, Chamber and Chapel - follows
the traditional lines. The Chapel however is not entered from the
Hall and Chamber but directly from the Courtyard, In other words,
it is conceived no longer as the private or manorial chapel of aS
baron but as the collegiate place of worship of an enclosed community.
On the death of Cromwell in 1659, General Monk authorised
the restoration of the edifice to the Governors. Only then was it
finally devoted to the purpose envisaged by the Founder. On 11th April
1659, the first boys, thirty in number, were admitted. and John Nicoll's
contemporary "Diary" records that on Monday 1st June that year the
Hospital was "dedicat in a very solemn manner" with a sermon by Mr.
Robert Douglas.
 On
the south ridge above the Grassmarket stands the hospital, a great
Renaissance Palace standing above the town, detached from yet part
of the medieval Capital of Scotland.
From first to last the building is estimated to
have cost £27.000 (sterling) .
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