The Castle rock is at the end of the street
You come off West Port into a courtyard, put the key back in the safe, and open a door on the ground floor. No stairs, no tenement close, no lugging a suitcase up three flights, which in this part of Edinburgh is close to a miracle. A hundred metres away the Grassmarket opens out under the Castle rock, and the Vennel's seventy steps to the framed view start beside you.
The flat itself is about thirty-nine square metres and sleeps two. A double bedroom, an open-plan living room and kitchen with a pine floor and a Persian rug, a traditional fireplace as a feature, and a bathroom with a bath and a shower over it. The kitchen is properly fitted, recently renovated, and guests say so: it is the second thing they praise after the position.
It is managed by Reserve Apartments, an Edinburgh operator running lets here and in Glasgow since 2007, and it holds a Scottish short-term let licence, EH-71190-R, published openly on their own site. That is a small thing that says something: it is a properly run let, not a flat somebody is quietly renting out.
Three things to get straight before you book
First, it sleeps two. Not four. Several listing sites still carry a title claiming four, which dates from when a paid extra bed was available. It is not any more, and cots have gone too, so two is the ceiling. There is a sofa bed in the living room, but it carries a fee and it does not raise the occupancy.
Second, there is no parking. The reservation listing carries a free-parking tag, which is simply wrong for this address. On-street parking here is pay-and-display at roughly £1.50 to £3.50 an hour, and the nearest car park is NCP Castle Terrace, a few minutes away. In the Old Town you are better off without a car.
Third, the lead guest has to be twenty-five or over, hen and stag groups are not accepted, and payment is by card only, with a £200 refundable damage deposit taken before you arrive and returned within a week of check-out. None of that is unusual for an Old Town let, but all of it surprises people who did not read the fine print.
The honest weak point
Read the reviews in order and one thing keeps surfacing: a musty or stale smell and poor ventilation in the bathroom. It is mentioned by guests in 2025 and again into 2026, so it is not a one-off, and it is the main reason the overall score sits below where the location alone would put it. One guest described a faint cigar-smoke smell in the flat as well.
We would rather say that plainly than let you find it. The practical answer is to open the bathroom window on arrival and leave it open. Guests who mention the smell still rate the flat highly, because everything else about it works: the bed is comfortable, the kitchen is well stocked, and the courtyard is quiet enough to sleep in the middle of the Old Town.
The other small notes worth having: the television has failed for two separate guests, and one arrival in October 2025 found housekeeping had taken the linen and towels at around ten in the morning, an hour before check-out. Both are worth a message to the operator if they happen to you.
Why book The Portsburgh Square Residence?
One small ground-floor flat in a courtyard below the Castle. Here is what the position gets you, and the three things that catch people out.
A hundred metres from the Grassmarket
Step out of the courtyard onto West Port and the Grassmarket opens up in front of you, a market square that has traded since 1477, ringed by some of the oldest pubs in Britain with the Castle rock filling the sky above it. Guests score the location higher than anything else here, and it is not close.
The Vennel steps start beside the door
Two minutes away, seventy stone steps climb between old walls to the view everyone photographs: the Castle framed dead centre. Camera Obscura is seven minutes up the hill, the Royal Mile nine minutes across, and the National Museum of Scotland ten.
Ground floor, and you let yourself in
The flat is on the ground floor off a quiet courtyard, which in an Old Town of tenement stairs is worth a great deal. Check-in is a key safe with a code sent before you travel, available at any hour, so a late train or a delayed flight does not matter.
The bathroom needs airing
The one complaint that keeps recurring, into recent winters, is a musty smell and poor ventilation in the bathroom. Guests otherwise praise the kitchen and the bed. Open the window when you arrive, and know there is no parking here whatever the listing tags claim.
Check Availability at The Portsburgh Square Residence
Interesting Points About The Portsburgh Square Residence
- The flat holds Scottish short-term let licence EH-71190-R, published openly on the operator's own website
- Maximum occupancy is two. Several listing sites still advertise it as sleeping four, which has not been true since extra beds were discontinued
- The listing carries a free-parking tag. There is no parking at the property at all, on-street or otherwise
- West Port was once called Wester Portsburgh, which is where the square gets its name
- The building is Grade C listed and stands within the Edinburgh Old Town UNESCO World Heritage site
- A refundable damage deposit of £200 is taken by card before arrival and returned within seven days of check-out
- The lead guest must be at least 25 years old, and hen, stag and party groups are not accepted
- This is not Portsburgh Court on Lady Lawson Street, which is a 229-room student residence a few minutes away
- The Castle is quoted at three hundred yards on some listings. The walkable route is about half a mile and climbs steeply
Rooms & Accommodation at The Portsburgh Square Residence
Apartment
About 39 m², ground floor, sleeps two
The whole flat, about thirty-nine square metres on the ground floor, let to a maximum of two people. Best for a couple on a city break who want the Grassmarket at the end of the street and a kitchen rather than a hotel breakfast. Two honest notes: the sofa bed carries a fee and does not increase the occupancy, and the bathroom needs its window opened.
Check PricesIs The Portsburgh Square Residence right for you?
Best Suited For
- Couples who want the Grassmarket and the Old Town a minute from the door
- Anyone who would rather not carry luggage up an Edinburgh tenement stair
- Travellers arriving late, since the key safe works at any hour
- City-breakers who want a kitchen and a washing machine rather than room service
Worth Considering Alternatives If
- Groups of more than two, because two is the hard maximum here
- Anyone bringing a car, given there is no parking and Old Town parking is expensive
- Guests under 25 booking as the lead name, which the operator does not accept
- Travellers who are particularly sensitive to a musty smell in a bathroom
Amenities and policies
In the Flat
- Full kitchen
- Bathroom with a bath and a shower over it, towels, toilet paper and a hairdryer
- Flat-screen TV and a traditional fireplace as a feature
- Heating, linen, iron and ironing board
- Ground floor, with a private entrance off the courtyard
- Garden and city views
- Free Wi-Fi
- Non-smoking
- Not available: Cot or extra bed
The Building
- Grade C listed, within the Edinburgh Old Town World Heritage site
- Shared garden and courtyard, quiet and off the street
- Not available: Reception
- Lift
- Not available: Pool, gym or spa
Food and Drink
- Not available: Breakfast, restaurant or bar
- Cold Town House on the Grassmarket, a rooftop brewpub with Castle views, is a 2-minute walk
- Oink on Victoria Street, for hog-roast rolls, is a 4-minute walk
Parking and Transport
- Not available: On-site or free parking
- Nearest car park
- The nearest bus stop is West Port, about 400 m away
- Edinburgh Waverley is about 0.7 miles, a 15-minute walk; Haymarket about 1.3 miles
- From the airport
Policies
- Damage deposit
- Minimum age
- Not available: Pets
- Non-smoking throughout
- Children of any age are welcome within the two-guest maximum, but there are no cots
- Not available: Hen, stag and party groups
- Not available: Cash
- Scottish short-term let licence EH-71190-R
Location and getting around
Portsburgh Square sits off West Port at the western end of the Grassmarket, in the hollow directly beneath Castle Rock, inside Edinburgh's UNESCO World Heritage Old Town. West Port was once Wester Portsburgh, which is where the square gets its name and why the address sounds older than the buildings around it.
The Grassmarket itself is about a hundred metres away, a market square trading since 1477 with a Saturday market and a ring of very old pubs. The Vennel steps and their framed Castle view start beside the property. Camera Obscura is about 450 yards up Castlehill, the Royal Mile about 400 metres, the National Museum of Scotland about 800 yards, and the Real Mary King's Close about 850.
Edinburgh Castle is roughly half a mile by the route you can actually walk, up Castle Wynd or Johnston Terrace, and it climbs. Ignore the three hundred yards some listings quote: that is a straight line up a cliff. Waverley station is about 0.7 miles and fifteen minutes on foot, and the airport bus and tram both drop you a twelve to fifteen-minute walk away.
- The Vennel viewpoint: Beside the property, a 2-minute walk to the steps
- The Grassmarket: About 100 m, a 2-minute walk
- The Royal Mile: About 400 m, a 9-minute walk
- Camera Obscura and World of Illusions: About 450 yards, a 7-minute walk uphill
- Edinburgh Castle: About half a mile, a 10-minute walk uphill
- National Museum of Scotland: About 800 yards, a 10-minute walk
- The Real Mary King's Close: About 850 yards, a 12-minute walk
- Edinburgh Waverley station: About 0.7 miles, a 15-minute walk
- Arthur's Seat: About 1.5 miles, a 35-minute walk to Holyrood Park
- Edinburgh Airport: About 8 to 9 miles, 30 minutes on the Airlink 100 bus or the tram
Getting to Key Locations
Within a 15-minute walk: all 3 places below.
Photo: Tom Page, CC BY-SA 2.0
The Grassmarket
2 min walk
A 2-minute walk east, the Grassmarket has been a market place since 1477, a wide cobbled hollow ringed by pubs that go back centuries, with the Castle rock rising straight out of the ground behind it. There is a market here on Saturdays and Victoria Street curls up out of the corner.
View on Map
Photo: Daniel (Galashiels, United Kingdom), CC BY 2.0
The Royal Mile
9 min walk
A 9-minute walk north-east, the Royal Mile runs the spine of the Old Town from the Castle down to Holyrood, past St Giles' Cathedral and the closes that drop away on either side. The Real Mary King's Close, where you can walk seventeenth-century streets that were built over, is three minutes further.
View on Map
Edinburgh Castle
10 min walk
A 10-minute walk uphill by Castle Wynd or Johnston Terrace, Edinburgh Castle sits on its volcanic plug above the Grassmarket and took just under two million visits in 2024, making it Scotland's most-visited paid attraction. The straight-line distance on the listing sites is about three hundred yards, but that route is a cliff.
View on MapGetting to The Portsburgh Square Residence
- From Edinburgh Waverley: About fifteen minutes on foot. Come out onto Waverley Bridge, climb to the Royal Mile, cross onto George IV Bridge and drop down Victoria Street into the Grassmarket, then carry on west to Portsburgh Square. It is an initial climb and then mostly downhill, and the cobbles on Victoria Street are hard work with wheeled cases.
- From the airport: The Airlink 100 bus runs around the clock from the terminal to Waverley Bridge in about thirty minutes, £6.00 for an adult single or £8.50 open return. The tram takes about the same to Princes Street. From either, it is a twelve to fifteen-minute walk, or a short onward bus or taxi if you have luggage.
- Letting yourself in: There is no reception. The code for the key safe is sent to you before you travel, check-in is from 16:00 and it works at any hour after that. Check-out is 11:00, and a guaranteed late check-out to 20:00 can sometimes be arranged for half the daily rate if nobody is arriving the same day.
- A word about the gradients: Map-line distances in the Old Town are misleading. The flat itself is ground floor and level, but everything above the Grassmarket involves a climb, and the Vennel is seventy steps. There is no luggage storage at the property, so if you arrive before four or leave before your train, use one of the paid storage points around the Grassmarket or Waverley.
The Old Town from West Port
The Grassmarket and West Port sit in a hollow under the Castle, and staying here means the Old Town is not a day trip but a doorstep. This was the market place and the place of public execution, it has pubs that have been pouring since the seventeenth century, and Victoria Street curls out of its eastern corner in a run of coloured shopfronts that half of Edinburgh's postcards are of.
Eat close by. Cold Town House at 4 Grassmarket is a brewpub with a rooftop terrace and Neapolitan pizza, two minutes away. Oink on Victoria Street does hog-roast rolls and has done for years, four minutes. Beyond that, the Royal Mile, the National Museum of Scotland and the Real Mary King's Close are all inside a fifteen-minute walk.
Timing matters here more than in most cities. The Fringe runs from 7 to 31 August 2026, with the Tattoo from the 7th to the 29th and the International Festival from the 7th to the 30th, and the Old Town is at capacity throughout. The Christmas market runs from 14 November 2026 to 3 January 2027 and Hogmanay from 29 December to 1 January. Book months out for any of them, or come in May or September instead.
Watch: three days in Edinburgh
A short guide to the city you step out into, most of it within a walk of the Grassmarket.
Who is The Portsburgh Square Residence for?
Book it if you are two people who want the Old Town at the end of the street and a kitchen of your own, and particularly if hauling cases up a tenement stair is not your idea of a holiday. The position is about as good as Edinburgh gets and the flat is well stocked. Do not book it if you need to sleep more than two, if you are bringing a car, or if a musty bathroom would spoil the trip. Open the window.
What guests say about The Portsburgh Square Residence
Scores and review counts are aggregated from verified guest bookings on major travel platforms.
Good
The location score here is as close to perfect as we have seen on any property we have written up, and it carries the whole listing. Guests describe stepping out into the Grassmarket, being under the Castle, and finding the flat well stocked with everything from cookware to a plug adapter when their luggage went missing. What pulls the score down is narrow and consistent: bathroom ventilation and a musty or stale smell, mentioned repeatedly across 2025 and 2026. A television that stopped working comes up twice, and one guest found the linen removed an hour before check-out.
Loved the central setting and how completely the flat was equipped. With her luggage delayed, the plug adapter, the cookware, the tea and coffee and the hairdryer all turned out to be a lifesaver. The downsides were a musty odour and some noise from the neighbours.
Jekaterina
Loved the central setting and how completely the flat was equipped. With her luggage delayed, the plug adapter, the cookware, the tea and coffee and the hairdryer all turned out to be a lifesaver. The downsides were a musty odour and some noise from the neighbours.
2026-07-07Praised the handy position, the facilities and the cleanliness. His only complaint was the television failing after the first night.
2026-06-08Rated the spot as superb, a few steps from the Grassmarket and directly below the Castle. The weak point was the ventilation in the bathroom.
2026-05-22Called it a sweet place with a comfortable bed and a great location. She was unhappy that housekeeping came and removed the linen and towels at around ten in the morning, an hour before the eleven o'clock check-out.
2025-10-21Found it central and easy to locate, with good coffee places nearby and a public car park about five minutes away. She noticed a faint smell of cigar smoke.
2025-10-02Comfortable, with what he called a perfect location metres from the Grassmarket and a short walk to the Royal Mile. There was a little nightlife noise, which he thought a fair trade for the setting.
2025-07-10Good to Know Before You Book
It sleeps two, not four
Several listing sites still carry a title saying four, dating from when a paid extra bed was available. It is not offered any more, and neither are cots. There is a sofa bed in the living room but it carries a fee and does not raise the maximum occupancy above two.
There is no parking
The reservation listing carries a free-parking tag and it is wrong for this address. On-street parking around West Port is pay-and-display at roughly £1.50 to £3.50 an hour, and the nearest car park is NCP Castle Terrace a few minutes away. The Old Town is a place to arrive without a car.
Open the bathroom window
The one complaint that keeps recurring across 2025 and 2026 is a musty smell and poor ventilation in the bathroom, and one guest reported a faint cigar-smoke smell in the flat. Guests who mention it still rate the stay highly, but it is the reason the overall score sits below what the location alone would earn.
No breakfast, and a kitchen instead
Nothing is served here and there is no restaurant or bar: it is a self-catering flat with a recently renovated kitchen, a coffee machine, an oven and an induction hob. Guests rate that kitchen second only to the location. If you would rather someone else cooked, Cold Town House on the Grassmarket is a two-minute walk and Oink on Victoria Street is four.
The lead guest must be 25 or over
The operator sets a minimum age of twenty-five for the person whose name the booking is in, and hen, stag and party groups are not accepted. Payment is by card only, with no cash taken, and a £200 refundable damage deposit is charged before arrival and returned within seven days of check-out.
Self check-in, but plan the gap
The key-safe code arrives before you travel and check-in works at any hour from 16:00, which suits a late flight. Check-out is 11:00 and there is no luggage storage at the property, so if your train is in the evening use one of the paid storage points around the Grassmarket or Waverley. A guaranteed late check-out to 20:00 is sometimes available for half the daily rate.
Cancellation terms depend on your rate
Prepayment and cancellation conditions vary by the rate plan you choose and show before you confirm. The deposit is separate from the rate and is handled directly by the operator.
Call The Portsburgh Square Residence
There is no line at the flat itself. The number reaches Reserve Apartments, the Edinburgh operator, who send the key-safe code, take the deposit and answer anything that comes up during the stay.
+44 131 510 0201Photos of The Portsburgh Square Residence
Frequently asked questions
No. The reservation listing carries a free-parking tag which is wrong for this address: there is no parking at the property, on-street or off. Parking around West Port is pay-and-display at roughly £1.50 to £3.50 an hour and the nearest car park is NCP Castle Terrace, EH1 2EW, a few minutes' walk. Given the position, arriving without a car is the better plan.
On a key safe. There is no reception and nobody to meet: the code is sent to you before you travel, check-in is from 16:00 and it works at any hour after that, which suits a late train or a delayed flight. Check-out is 11:00, and a guaranteed late check-out to 20:00 can sometimes be arranged for half the daily rate if nobody is arriving the same day.
The Grassmarket is about a hundred metres away, a two-minute walk, and the Vennel steps with their framed Castle view start beside the property. The Castle itself is roughly half a mile by the route you can walk, about ten minutes uphill via Castle Wynd or Johnston Terrace. Some listings quote three hundred yards, which is a straight line up a cliff face rather than a walk.
Yes, £200, refundable. It is taken by credit card before you arrive through a link sent by the operator, and returned within seven days of check-out subject to inspection. The operator states seven days before arrival; the reservation fine print is vaguer, so treat it as some days ahead and make sure the card has headroom.
Yes. The lead guest must be at least twenty-five years old. Hen, stag and similar party groups are not accepted, and parties are not allowed. Payment is by card only, with American Express, Visa and Mastercard taken and no cash.
Not at the property. It is an unstaffed flat with no reception, so there is nowhere to leave bags after the 11:00 check-out or before the 16:00 arrival. There are paid luggage storage points around the Grassmarket and at Waverley station, which is a fifteen-minute walk.
Yes, free throughout the flat. No speed figure is published anywhere, and it is the lowest-rated facility on the listing, so treat it as adequate for browsing rather than something to plan a working week around.
Pets are not allowed and the flat is non-smoking throughout. Children of any age are welcome within the two-guest maximum, but there are no cots and no extra beds, so two is the absolute ceiling regardless of ages.
It is on the ground floor with a private entrance off the courtyard, and both the operator and the listing tag it as wheelchair accessible. What is not documented anywhere is the bathroom specification, the doorway widths or the threshold, so we cannot confirm those. What we can say is that the Old Town immediately outside is cobbled and steep in places.
No. Portsburgh Court at 56 Lady Lawson Street is a 229-room student residence a few minutes away under completely different ownership. This is The Portsburgh Square Residence, a single one-bedroom holiday flat at Portsburgh Square off West Port, managed by Reserve Apartments under licence EH-71190-R.
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Ground floor, and the Grassmarket at the end of the street
A one-bedroom flat of your own below the Castle, with a key safe that works at any hour and a kitchen you will actually use. Check your dates.
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