English: Public shelter, Princes Street Gardens These shelters on the upper-level public footpath through the Gardens go back a long way. I think they date from before the Second World War. They are not pretty, but not obtrusive either. In the 1990s, when out-of-town retail parks were having an increasingly negative impact on the takings of city-centre retailers, a plan was proposed to tunnel through from the basements of the big Princes Street stores to create new shop fronts along the length of the pathway. So, instead of it being a pleasant recreational facility for leisurely strollers, it would become thronged with window-shoppers seeking the latest bargains. Since this hasn't happened, I assume that the Crown Commissioners blocked the proposal. In social conversation with a partner of a well-known Edinburgh solicitors' firm acting on behalf of Princes Street clients, I shook my head on hearing of the plan and commented, "I don't know if that would be such a good idea". This earned the rebuke, "It's people like you who hold up the progress of this town". Good!