IT HAS a strong claim as one of Edinburgh’s most intriguing buildings, with a chequered history as a merchant’s home, a slum, a church house and a brothel. Now one of the oldest buildings in the Royal Mile has thrown up another treat for historians – a cannonball thought to have been fired in one of the city’s bloodiest battles.

Archaeologists carrying out the dig behind Acheson House in the Canongate believe it was likely to have been used during one of the ferocious assaults on the Royal Mile and Edinburgh Castle during the 16th century. The cannonball, the only one from that period to be recovered in the city, is thought to have battered one of the buildings in the area, none of which have survived, as it has been flattened on one side.