Sciennes Place

Sciennes (pronounced sheenz, /ˈʃiːnz/) is an area of Edinburgh, Scotland, just outside the city centre to the south of the Meadows, with Newington to the east. Sciennes shares a Community Council with Marchmont, to the west.

Since it is near many different departments of the University of Edinburgh, Sciennes has a large student population, some living in modern university-owned residences. Most of the housing is Victorian tenements or 19th century stone villas in roads which merge into the neighbouring area of the Grange, extending southward.

Sciennes was once part of the Burgh Muir beyond Edinburgh's town walls. This area was known to attract "vagabonds, vagrants and outlaws" who found shelter from the authorities under its large trees.

Concern for the spiritual welfare of these people led to the establishment in 1511-12 of a chapel dedicated to St John the Baptist by Sir John Craufurd, canon of St Giles. This chapel served its purpose for only four years, however, as, following Scotland's defeat at the battle of Flodden, a number of widows requested and were granted, a Papal Bull to establish the Dominican convent of Catherine of Sienna, which was built in 1517. It was destroyed in 1559 during the Reformation. The site of the convent is marked by a plaque in the gardens of 16 St Catherine's Place. The name Sciennes derived from the convent's name association with Siena (Sienne in French, which was the court language of Scotland for much of the 16th Century).

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