On what turned out to be nice crisp winter’s day, with a fresh wind to encourage us all to keep moving, 31 Strollers met in Stockbridge at Saunders Street for a guided walk with our Blue Badge Guides Karen and Helen. The things you learn on these walks are very interesting even for those that came from that area.
We started
off by peering down into the Water of Leith to look at one of the Antony
Gormley statues. There are 6 in total from the Dean Village down to Leith. From
here we crossed back to Dean Bank Lane to pass the site of the first fire
station in Edinburgh in Hamilton Place, it is now the toilets. The fire station
then moved from there to Saunders Street. The building next door, probably
better known as Lancers Restaurant, was the police station. The Dean Bank
Institute was set up in 1832 to help delinquent girls after their release from
prison. It changed its approach after a sister centre was set up at the
Boroughmuir in 1848 and moved to trying to help the girls before they got into
trouble. It was taken over by Edinburgh Council in 1913 and is now part of the
school next door. The building opposite the toilets was at one time a museum
and you can still see some of the lettering on the wall between the windows.
We then
passed through the arch to where a meat and fish market used to be. The sign
for it is on the arch in St Stephens Place. From here we went round into Circus
Lane which housed the quarters for the staff and horses or cars for the bigger
houses in Royal Circus. Times have changed as these houses now sell for upwards
of £1 million.
We stopped to look at St Stephens Church, designed and built by the architect Playfair to hide Edinburgh Academy from the view of the citizens! His backers were Royal High supporters. The tower is 160 feet high and houses the longest clock pendulum in Europe. From here we wandered into Royal Circus to pass the home of Sir Henry Littlejohn, first medical officer of Edinburgh from 1862. Working our way back to India Place we passed Stuarts Land, a house built in the late 1700s which used old stone from houses in the High Street. It was home to artist David Roberts. Going along India Place, we passed the allotments left as part of the demolition of the tenements that used to be there. The doors to the coal houses and outside toilets are still in place in the retaining walls. Moving onto the famous (or infamous) Danube Street, where at one time Dora Noyce ran a brothel. It would now cost you £1.5 million for the house.
We then finished
up in the streets designed by the artist Sir Henry Raeburn and where his house
once stood, St Bernard’s Crescent. It was designed in such a way to preserve
the elm trees that grew there.
Our many
thanks to Karen and Helen for the information overload (I’ve missed quite a bit
of the information they passed on) and not taking too long on a cold day.
Hopefully
February will be warmer for our walk round Morningside.
