Walk no. 202: Historic Guided Walk - Stockbridge to Botanic Gardens
Date: Thursday 25th February 2016
Distance: 2 miles approximately
Duration: 2 hours approximately
Start Time: 10:45
Meet at: Stockbridge at corner of St Bernards Row
Finish at: Botanic Gardens, East Gate (on Inverleith Row)
On a rather dull morning in Edinburgh, 58 Strollers met in Stockbridge
for a walk to Inverleith and the Botanic Gardens, guided by our Blue Badge
Guides Karen and Helen. There should have been 59 of us, but it helps if the
organiser remembers to let everyone know about a change of starting point! Many
apologies to Bill M.
We started off in St Bernard’s Row, where if you need to ask the price of a house
you can’t afford it. We heard the history of Malta House - a Church of Scotland
support centre. Malta Terrace itself used to be used as a drying green. We then
stopped across the river from the Glenogle Colonies for a brief history of how
and why these houses were built. In 1861, a group of builders found themselves
locked out of their building sites due to a dispute about working hours. Their
three-month ban led to the formation of The Edinburgh Co-operative Building
Company Ltd (ECBC). This group comprised many different trades - stonemasons,
plasterers, plumbers and others sympathetic to their aims. Central to its
mission was a co-operative spirit that was reflected in its adoption of the
beehive motif, visible on the gable-ends of the houses and depicting the motifs
of the different trades. We then passed a large red-sandstone house that used
to be used as a hostel for SL Actuarial Students. Passing the Ferranti Bowling
club we learned how the first rules of the game of bowls as we know it know
were put together in Scotland
in 1864, though the association had been started in 1848, with the Glasgow firm of Taylor’s
still being a main manufacturer of the bowls.
As we approached the west entrance to the Botanic Gardens, we paused to look at
a new planting of a yew hedge behind the perimeter fence. We then entered via
the new John Hope building to warm up a little and see all the changes being
made. We set off through the gardens and saw the tree of Friendship with the USA, before heading
through the Beech Hedge to admire the small gardens made by the students and to
pass by the Botanics Cottage. This building originally stood in Leith Walk at
the entrance to the Botanic Gardens in the late 18th and early 19th centuries
(before the Gardens were relocated to Inverleith). By the early 2000s it had
been abandoned and was set to be demolished, but a plan was hatched to
dismantle it and rebuild it here at Inverleith. It is now nearing completion
and will become a centre for community and education activities exactly 250
years after it was first constructed, but it was too busy with construction
workers for us to pause here to learn more. We moved on to see the Queen
Mother's gardens with its amazing little house decorated with shells and pine
cones.
Finishing up, as it began to feel a lot colder and a bowl of soup beckoned, we
headed for the east gate exit and heard the story that the Wee Tea Company of Scotland now exports tea to China. How
things change.
Our thanks again to our guides Karen and Helen for all their efforts in
preparing for the walks and we’ll see them again next year.
