Date: Thursday 23rd April 2015
Start Time: 11:00
Distance: 6 miles
Duration: 2.5 hours
Start at: Haymarket Station, Edinburgh
What happened to those April showers? With
temperatures of 19C forty strollers met for a walk along the Union Canal
then circling back to Haymarket via the Water of Leith footpath.
Making
our way from Haymarket Station up Morrison Street and along Gardner’s Crescent
with its newly renovated gardens and passing Rosemount Cottages, an example of
the 2 up 2 down houses in Edinburgh. On to Edinburgh Quay which is now the end
of the canal in Edinburgh.
There used to be link to Lochrin
Basin and the brewery
there, as well as the main dock where the Odeon Cinema is now. Then passing the
‘hole-in-the-ground’ that was meant to be the Bank of Scotland Headquarters and
wondering if it will lie like that for as long as the site of the old Pooles
Cinema in Castle Terrace did. We passed the Leamington
Lift Bridge
which needs to be raised for canal boats to go by, while on our right was the
building site for the new Boroughmuir
Secondary School next to
the new student accommodation built in the wonderful mix of colours as required
by the town planning. Continuing on past Harrison Park and Polwarth
Parish Church
with its fine pulpit carved by William Beveridge in 1903 and on to the
Edinburgh Canal Society Boathouse recently restored with Heritage funding. Next
was Meggetland which in 1890 was home to a major exhibition of Science Art in
Industry with stations being built specially to bring visitors to it. The area
is now home to Boroughmuir Rugby Club and playing fields as well as to the St
Andrews Rowing Club which is the oldest rowing club in Scotland dating from 1846. It was then on to the Water of Leith Centre and a stop for some refreshments
taking the lady in charge by surprise but she coped well with the sudden rush.
Heading down river along the Water of Leith path, under the railway and canal we had
just walked along. As we continued along the path we saw allotmenteers beavering away in an
extensive area of allotments while on the other side of the river was Saughton
Prison, which working with Stirling
University, has developed
an International reputation for fish breeding.
Braving
the road crossings of the A71, we came to Ford Road and into Saughton Park.
It was originally laid out in the 17th century on the estate of Saughton House,
which was then used as an asylum for wealthy patients, innovatively using the
gardens as an early form of horticultural therapy. The council acquired it in the
early 1900’s. The rose garden is always a very popular attraction at the park
later in the year. In 1908 the Scottish National Exhibition was held here,
which was a massively successful undertaking attracting 3.5 million paying visitors
who were entertained and educated by an array of exhibitions, attractions,
recreations and amusements. The Exhibition left a significant legacy in terms
of form, features and recreational demand, financing new park entrances, a
footpath network, sporting facilities, a bandstand and a winter garden and botanical
garden. There is now a project in place to try and restore some of these
elements to the park to renew and re-capture it for a modern park-going
population.
Crossing Balgreen Road,
we continued along the riverside path passing Murrayfield rugby stadium. The
stadium takes its name from Archibald Murray who was the landowner here in the
18th century. It was a polo ground before the stadium in 1925 had
been built. In the inaugural match, Scotland
beat England
14-11. Those were the days! We then passed Murrayfield Ice Rink which was
constructed on the site of Dalry Mill, the first paper mill built on the Water
of Leith.
Going on into Roseburn
Park which came into the
ownership of the old Edinburgh Corporation in two parts: the first acquisition
of 10.33 acres, part of the lands of Roseburn, was in 1898 from Edward Balfour,
Esq., of Balbirnie and others, on the basis that it would be used for all time
as a public park. The later purchase of 5.86 acres was from part of the estate
of Damhead from Sir Archibald Campbell of Succoth in 1906. During World War
Two, air raid shelters were located in the park and part of it was allocated to
allotments. Sighting a Heron in the water it was time for a photostop. At the
end of the park we crossed the road and continued along the riverside path and
passed under the Coltbridge Viaduct which formed part of the Granton Branch of
the Caledonian Railway and is now part of the cycle and walking paths round
Edinburgh.
Continuing along to the weir at the exit for Modern Gallery of Art, where we
saw another Heron looking for its lunch, we left the path by a steepish slope that
somehow had not been mentioned in the puff factor for the walk, and made our
way back to Haymarket.
Thanks very much to Ronnie for arranging what was a very interesting walk on a
beautiful day. No pressure for the next walk then!
