[5] From 1563 onwards Parliament regularly met in the chamber of the Court of Session, which was situated in the central aisle of St Giles' Cathedral.

It was clear that Parliament required more suitable accommodation, there was a desire to restore St Giles’ solely to its original function as a place of worship, and Charles I requested that the burgh council provide a more commodious building.

In March 1632, the council commissioned the building of a purpose-built parliamentary chamber, designed by James Murray, the King's Master of Works.

The principal entrance was surmounted by a pediment containing the Royal Arms of Scotland, between statues of Justice and Mercy, beneath which was the Latin inscription 'Stant His Felicia Regna' ("Kingdoms stand happy by these virtues").

[13][14][15] The main feature of Parliament Hall is the elaborate oak trussed flat roof supported on carved stone corbels.

The stained glass Great Window, by Wilhelm von Kaulbach and Max Emanuel Ainmiller, was erected in 1868 and commemorates the establishment of the College of Justice by James V in 1532.

[22] From 1707 until 1844 the Lords Ordinary of the Court of Session sat in Parliament Hall, and as their courtroom the hall came to be known as the Outer House, while the judges of the Court of Session hearing appellate cases sat in one of the ground floor chambers in the south-east Treasury wing, which came to be known as the Inner House.

During music festivals held in 1815, 1819, and 1824, the hall hosted performances of George Frideric Handel's Messiah and Joseph Haydn's The Creation.

This Parliament Square façade was strongly influenced by the Adam style, in particular their unexecuted designs for the quadrants of the Old College of the University of Edinburgh.

The façade is a Classical, 3-storey, 31-bay, symmetrical U-plan, with a central advanced 5-bay pedimented hexastyle portico, a cornice and balustraded parapet with decorative panels inset, some surmounted by stone sphinxes.

[4] The Advocates Library was founded in 1682, and is located in the William Henry Playfair-designed building (1830) to the west of the south end of Parliament Hall.

It is a private library, funded by members of the Society of Writers to Her Majesty's Signet, who are generally practising solicitors.

In 1662 the legal registers of Scotland were removed from the 'register house' in Edinburgh Castle to the Laigh Hall, as were parliamentary and other records in 1689.