The television documentaries, unfortunately, did not really stimulate or inspire me in the way which I had hoped. I felt that they were very much created to rake in viewers rather than inform me accurately of the New Town’s history and architectural structure, including change between the First and Second New Town’s styles through narration. The images produced on the documentaries were marginally useful in the way that they could be used as evidence to show the difference in road layouts. I felt sorry that the programmes were so uncomplimentary of the First New Town, and that they seemed biased towards mentioning how grand the Second New Town was. Obviously, this meant that the information that I struggled to collect was mostly about the Second New Town. I do feel however, that one should be very wary of using such sources simply because television documentaries are edited to attract the viewers, thus benefiting the television companies, and so it is almost inevitable that the information on the more technical aspects of the New Town may be lost.
The field work which I used as a source for my studies was extremely effective, in my opinion, and stimulated real understanding, due to the fact that I was present at the place I was studying. The reason that I think this is because it is surely essential to obtain some kind of solid primary source on which we can base our own individual opinions and be able to discuss them with real understanding of the area. This was probably my favourite source because I was a great fan of being able to argue my opinion while actually pointing at the structure which I was arguing about!
The slides, however few we were shown, showed very interesting images of the New Town which I found very solid as bases for discussion due to the fact that they were still images and easy to study effectively while arguing my opinion with a fellow historian. I believed them to be accurate, and even in this age of photo-altering technology, I found them convincing evidence of the New Town’s changes. Very similar to the maps, I thought, was the photo’s value of being able to overlook them continuously until I noticed something new that may have turned out to be important evidence. I was very anxious as to the number of slides we were shown, maybe not letting me obtain as much comparatives between each, but I would say in conclusion that the number we were shown I found useful.
The source of part of Lord Cockburn’s memoirs was one which I found myself tearing my hair out in frustration, trying to convince myself of whether he was using his surely sizeable intellect to trick us into adoring the Second New Town, or whether he was being admirably sincere in his judgements, which is what I would hope to hear from someone who is in charge of matters of lawful justice! I found this source difficult to study, and I was not entirely convinced by its observations. However, I chose to take the route of trusting Lord Cockburn, and so I found some of his observations, such as the fact that people gawped at the curved streets of the Second New Town, very interesting and informative.
Finally, I would like to mention the last source that I used to study the area, The book titled, ”Edinburgh’s Golden Age.” This book contained some valuable background evidence such as the fact that many people were not satisfied with the First New Town, and I thought that however taxing studying the book was, it was definitely worth a good, hard look. I would say that this was also one of my favourite sources, again due to the fact that it was very easy to study text over and over again until I felt that I had obtained sufficient evidence on my subject.
In conclusion to this essay, I think that it is important to mention that I found it hard to obtain convincing evidence of the First New Town, which, I believe, was due to the fact that because, I must even admit myself, the Second New Town was a more attractive and intriguing part of the city. This I found a very frustrating part of my studies, because I was very much in favour of informing myself of the base of learning, through mistakes, from which the Second New Town was created.
My favourite source was easily the Field Work because it gave me my own time, to study in my own way, the architecture of the First and Second New Towns. Again, I think it is priceless that one can stand in front of the structure of which his discussion is created from.