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This article is part of FT Globetrotter’s guide to Edinburgh
There is something about Edinburgh that was made for spies. It’s almost too perfect: the bleak towering mountains that frame the city; the long empty streets and misty cobblestones; its castles blackened by smoke and time; the narrow back lanes for furtive conversations. It’s as if the whole city was designed on a Hollywood backlot — a brilliant backdrop to a plot of secrecy and skulduggery.
Fiction writers have long been aware that Scotland in general — and Edinburgh in particular — is an ideal setting for tales of espionage and mystery. From Arthur Conan Doyle to Ian Rankin, many have explored the city’s darker regions for good locations to hide bodies. When I was researching my new spy thriller, The Trap, I wandered the city and was inspired by the locations that real spies — and their fictional alter egos — have made famous in Edinburgh.
Spies love the anonymity of big hotels. They can blend in with the tourists and business travellers. In fact, it was at one of Edinburgh’s most iconic hotels, The Balmoral, that the city’s involvement with international espionage began — and it didn’t all go according to plan.
Carl Hans Lody was a German spy sent to Edinburgh on the eve of the first world war to gather intelligence on the naval dockyards around the Firth of Forth. Posing as an American tourist, he based himself at the elegant North British Station Hotel, now The Balmoral. The operation could have had devastating consequences, if Lody hadn’t been a terrible spy. Less James Bond, more Johnny English.
MI5 soon got wind of Lody’s activities and picked him up after he used an Edinburgh post office to send unencrypted telegrams to a German contact in Stockholm. Within months of his arrest, Lody won the ignoble distinction of being the first man in 167 years to be executed at the Tower of London.
Material on this intriguing case is among the wealth of historical records that can be viewed at the National Records of Scotland Search Rooms, which are housed in Edinburgh’s imposing neoclassical General Register House on Princes Street.
During the second world war, Edinburgh played a pivotal role in training Britain’s female secret operatives, whose work would prove crucial in the fight against fascism. The wireless operators for the Women’s Auxiliary Airforce included Noor Inayat Khan, one of the great unsung heroes of the British secret service.
Khan volunteered as a spy in order to escape the “boredom” of bomber training school. She became the first female wireless operator parachuted into occupied France, where she worked under the codename Madeleine. She was, for a while, the only Allied wireless operator in Paris. Her work was essential, but she was betrayed by a colleague, and captured and murdered by the Nazis at the age of 30. You can find out about Scotland’s unique role in the second world war and the role that spies played at the National War Museum, inside the walls of Edinburgh Castle.
But not all great spies are real. This year, August 12 marked the 60th anniversary of the death of Ian Fleming, who created the most popular fictional spy of all time: James Bond. Fleming had Scottish roots of his own but, contrary to popular opinion, he actually gave his famous character Scottish heritage in tribute to Sean Connery, who played the part in seven films, starting with Dr No in 1962.
Bond has visited Scotland several times in the film adaptations, dropping into some of the country’s most breathtakingly beautiful locations: Loch Craignish (From Russia with Love), Eilean Donan Castle (The World Is Not Enough), the Cairngorms National Park (No Time to Die), and Glen Coe (Skyfall). Absolute Escapes runs a brilliant self-drive James Bond Tour, which starts in Edinburgh and finishes in Speyside, visiting each of the film locations.
To get your Sean Connery fix in the city, head to the National Galleries Scotland: Portrait to see Scottish artist John Bellany’s painting of the actor, in which he is rendered more like a beach ball than a superspy. It’s as divisive as it is witty, but you can’t say it isn’t bold. You can also take a trip to his Edinburgh birthplace, Fountainbridge, where the Filmhouse shows independent cinema and the King’s Theatre, the oldest continuously operational theatre in Scotland, is a good spot to catch some stand up comedy. In 1991, Connery reopened The Balmoral, where the Prince Bar wouldn’t look out of place in a Bond film.
Bond trivia fans will also know that he went to school at Fettes College. You can peep through its gates to admire its beautiful neo-Gothic architecture, then head along to the Royal Botanical Garden or stroll down the hill to trendy Stockbridge, with its plethora of up and coming brunch spots and independent boutiques. On Sundays, Stockbridge Market is a hotspot of artisan food and vintage threads.
For more James Bond fun, kids and petrolheads alike will love Scotland’s largest collection of James Bond memorabilia at the Bo’ness Motor Museum on the outskirts of Edinburgh. It’s packed full of original cars from the Bond films, and you can also enjoy a cocktail at its 007 Bar. No prizes for guessing how a martini is served.
Edinburgh also appears in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 adaptation of John Buchan’s classic spy novel, The 39 Steps. The story centres around the dashing Richard Hannay, who is mistakenly accused of killing a spy. In one of the film’s most famous sequences, Hannay flees from London on the Flying Scotsman, jumping from the train on Edinburgh’s Forth Bridge (a scene repeated in the 1959 remake). While the original Flying Scotsman is now a museum piece at the National Railway Museum in York, the Forth Bridge, which was once the world’s longest bridge, is now a Unesco World Heritage site. For the best view, take a train over to North Queensferry, where you can visit the Forth Bridge Heritage Centre, which is housed inside a Victorian railway station. Afterwards, walk back across the Forth Road Bridge to take in one of the most the impressive views in Scotland.
“The Trap” by Ava Glass is published by Penguin Books (£9.99)
What’s your favourite Edinburgh-based spy saga — fictional or real? Tell us in the comments below. And follow FT Globetrotter on Instagram at @FTGlobetrotter
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