The loch, situated on the north side of the town, was originally an artificial creation forming part of its medieval defences and made expansion northwards difficult.

The gardens run along the south side of Princes Street and are divided by The Mound, on which the National Gallery of Scotland and the Royal Scottish Academy buildings are located.

East Princes Street Gardens run from The Mound to Waverley Bridge, and cover 8.5 acres (3.4 ha).

It began feuing ground on the south side of Princes Street (on the site of the current Balmoral Hotel and Waverley Market) for the building of houses and workshops for a coach-builder and a furniture-maker.

After a failed petition to the council the proprietors raised two actions in the Court of Session to halt the building and to condemn the Corporation for having contravened their feuing terms by which they had presupposed open ground and a vista south of the street.

Within East Princes Street Gardens there are statues of the explorer David Livingstone, the publisher and Lord Provost Adam Black and the essayist Professor John Wilson, who wrote under the pseudonym Christopher North.

There is also a small commemorative stone honouring the volunteers from the Lothians and Fife who fought in the Spanish Civil War.

Dogs, cricket, perambulators and smoking were prohibited under their rules, and people using bath-chairs had to present a doctor's certificate to the Committee of the garden attesting to their ailment not being contagious.

Modernization of the gardens is currently under discussion with the launch of The Quaich Project fundraising campaign from the Ross Development Trust.

Along the south side of Princes Street are statues of the poet Allan Ramsay, the church reformer Thomas Guthrie, and the obstetric pioneer James Young Simpson.

The statuary group on the lower path represents The Genius of Architecture crowning the Theory and Practice of Art and is by William Brodie originally for the garden of Rockville, the home of his maverick architect son-in-law Sir James Gowans.

The large curved monument to the Royal Scots stands slightly hidden just south of the gardener's cottage.

Located by The Genius of Architecture, this is a permanent reminder of the 250 babies and their families affected by the Mortonhall scandal, which was uncovered in 2012.