Twenty-six strollers met up at the National Art Gallery to walk through the West Princes Street Gardens and finish at the Caley Hotel. With a subtitle of “Histories, Mysteries and the Gap between the Old and the New” Karen and Helen had lots of interesting information to pass on.
They reminded us
that the ‘Old’ and ‘New’ Towns are Unesco World Heritage sites and why this
side of Princes Street only has the art galleries on it. Into the
gardens we went over the history of the Nor Loch, including the testing of
witches, and when it was drained and made into gardens. We timed it to see the
engineer from Ritchies, who installed the clock in 1903, and are still maintaining
today. It is the oldest floral clock and takes 35,000 flowers to make it.
What was the
gardener’s cottage has been used in various television programmes over the
years. We also saw the The Royal Scots Monument and the nearby stone to
commemorate the liberation of Belsen, the Genius of Architecture Statue, the
Elephant Statue to remember the babies involved in the Mortonhall Scandal
appropriately covered in ‘Forget Me Nots’. From here we passed the Ross
bandstand and then the stone from Norway with its thank you message to Scotland
for support during WWII. Onto the Ross fountain, not the same Ross, and then
out via St Cuthbert’s churchyard we passed the statue of ‘Bum’ the dog which was
a present from San Diego.
We went round via
the Usher Hall to see the place where McCrae’s Battalion was raised in the
First World War. It was made up of many sporting volunteers including sixteen
from Hearts as well as Hibs, Dunfermline, Falkirk and Raith Rovers players and
fans. There were also athletes and rugby players, golfers, and swimmers.
Unfortunately, very few of them returned.
From here we crossed over past the Sheraton and over the footbridge into Rutland Square
and then finished at the Caley Hotel.
I’ve just given
a potted version of what we saw and heard on the walk, it’s best to attend if
you want to hear more.
Next walk is a
historic walk round Portobello.
Our thanks to
Karen and Helen.
