Edinburgh’s Stockbridge is a turophile’s paradise

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I have to admit to being a turophile.

According to The Collins English Dictionary Turophile : (noun) a person who loves cheese.

Stockbridge is a old village now within the northern centre of the City of Edinburgh that has a somewhat bohemian atmosphere and is a much sought after place to live. Every time I take guided walks here it seems that there are new bars, cafe’s and restaurants springing up adding to the many independent retailers and high-end charity shops which proliferate.

And the one thing that locals can not say they are short of is cheese.

Yes, there are supermarkets serving prepacked products – something my late dad, also an avowed turophile, called plastic cheese! And there are great established independent Deli’s on Stockbridge’s main street Raeburn Place, like Herbie’s and Henri’s who have been serving a fine selection for some time. The Stockbridge Sunday market here has several cheese purveyors and sometimes a stall selling kits from The Big Cheese Maker.

Some years ago Edinburgh then saw the establishment of artisan cheese shops from Ian Mellis, one of which was established in Stockbridge.  I visited Mellis’s not that long ago for lunch

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and it was terrific.

Then in September 2015 Smith & Gertrude, a bar focussing on wine and cheese opened in Hamilton Place, Edinburgh and has been a great success.

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They match wine and cheese – along with some charcuterie & breads, and the atmosphere is very relaxing.

You would think that that was that! Cheese fanatics could sate their appetite.

But now comes along another cheesemonger. George Mewes have set up shop in Edinburgh following great success in Glasgow and they have chosen Stockbridge. So now two stores only hundreds of metres apart dedicated to cheese.

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Paradise!

As part of our Edinburgh guided walks – see www.edinburghwalks.com/walks – we take in Stockbridge and you too can visit cheese paradise……..

 

 

“…but the Romans didn’t come north of Hadrian’s Wall and into Edinburgh”

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I was out recently leading a walk through this beautiful city – see ideas for guided walks at www.edinburghwalks.com/walks – when I was asked why the Romans didn’t enter Scotland, but hid behind Hadrian’s Wall in Northern England fearing attacks from northern barbarians. Well the truth is that the Romans did come into Scotland and in fact made it up to the Moray Coast which is considerably further north of Edinburgh. They also built a structure in earth and wood in the Central Belt between the Rivers Clyde and Forth called the Antonine Wall. The Romans did not stay long – something to do with the weather? – but they were most certainly here and they have left evidence of this.

One of their forts was in Cramond, a village to the North of Edinburgh which sits on the mighty Forth estuary and at the end of the tributary called the River Almond. There is evidence of accommodation here, but it was not until 1997 that a most amazing item was discovered.

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The Cramond Ferryman discovered a sandstone sculpture in the mud of the River Almond and it turned out to be the most important Roman find in Scotland in many years. The sandstone was not from a local quarry and was dated as being about 1,800 years old. It is likely to be a memorial stone to a high ranking Roman officer and is symbolic of death. It is a bit grizzly, but depicts a lioness devouring a bearded naked man, who has his hands tied behind his back and is likely to be of a prisoner  – more than likely a resident of Scotland. There are also two snakes on the base of the stone which probably depicted the survival of the soul.

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Being sandstone, it has been worn down by the river in the last 1,800 years, but the open lioness’s mouth – and sharp teeth – can clearly be seen, as can the depiction of the poor barbarian.

The stone now sits proudly on show within level -1 of the National Museum of  Scotland, which is in central Edinburgh and is well worth a visit. Even better, it is free to enter and is fantastic.

 

 

Beat Boxes

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As I take my guided walks around the city – see www.edinburghwalks.com – I cannot fail to regularly come across cast iron buildings which have been on our streets since before World War II.

It had been proposed to place these Police Beat Boxes around the city to allow Officers to ‘parade and retire’ whilst still on the beat, rather than starting at their home Police Stations and marching or walking to their patch. This of course would have allowed criminals to take advantage of shift changes and go about their nefarious deeds without fear of detection. And in 1933, from a design by the City Architect Ebenezer MacRae, 142 Police Boxes were sited throughout Edinburgh.

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Manufactured at the Carron Foundry in Falkirk in Central Scotland, these boxes were painted blue (what else?). They contained a built-in desk, doo’cots (small shelves) for paperwork, a stool for the Officer to rest his weary feet and a small bench chair for his partner/probationer or, if required, his prisoner whilst he awaited some assistance. There was a light, a sink and running water and a very small and inadequate heater. Why inadequate? Well, the Police Inspector didn’t want the water to freeze for the sink, but similarly he didn’t want it snug enough that the Officer wouldn’t go out in the cold! There was also a phone which could be accessed from outside so that the public could request the Officer in their hour of need.

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The windows were frosted glass and the light could be seen by the public too. Often fitted to the roof was a blue flashing lamp which would alert the patrolling Officer to return to his beat box as there was an urgent message. This was in the days before personal radios were carried. During World War II, air raid sirens were also fitted (the flatbed for the siren can be seen in the top photograph here).

These Police Boxes were used as part of the beat box system until the mid-1980’s even though personal radios were used by Officers from the early 1970’s. But even after the mid-1980’s, the boxes were still utilised for the use of the telephone (remember….no mobile phones!) and to keep out of inclement weather.

Having become mostly redundant the City of Edinburgh Council started a sell off of these historic buildings. Some in prime positions, others in suburban backwaters. One box in the city centre was for sale with an expected price of £3,500-4,000 and sold for over £100,000.

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Most sold for a lot less than this. I’m told one Police Box in the middle of Edinburgh’s Georgian New Town sold for £500 last year.

But what have the owner done with them? Well, some are just storage and some have been left to deteriorate with smashed windows and graffiti. The majority have been looked after and they have become coffee stops – with varying success going by the picture above –  food outlets, art spaces amongst other things. The one that sits in Croall Place in Leith Walk (the old Box 10-D, Leith Police Division) is the Edinburgh Tool Library which lends out power tools.

So, when out and about in the city have a look for these wonderful little buildings.

+++STOP PRESS+++  10 Police Boxes across Edinburgh will open to the public on the 4th and 5th July 2015. Check out www.facebook.com/policeboxes or visit the website on www.edinburghexpoliceboxes.co.uk for more information.

 

Did Mary go to Mr Lamb?

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Sunshine on Leith indeed!

As we are now well and truly into Spring in Scotland’s capital city, I went down to our port recently for a wander. The changes in Leith have been sweeping in the last 30 years. The old Georgian and Victorian dwellings that were in some semblance of disrepair have been getting spruced up and the pubs and restaurants have pulled themselves up by their bootstraps! Michelin Guide eateries and gastropubs abound, not to everyones delight it has to be said, however the old style boozer has nearly had its day.

As part of the “Sunny Leith” walk – see www.edinburghwalks.com – I take visitors down Water Street, formerly known as Rotten Row, where amongst other interesting sights we come across Lamb’s House, which is on the corner with Burgess Street .

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The history of this property is difficult to pin down. This is not the original merchants house on the land as the Earl of Hereford’s English army burnt down much of Leith under Henry VIII’s orders in 1544. Indeed historians are uncertain about the exact age. There are those who attribute it to the mid-sixteenth century, basing their assumption on a contemporary record which claims that Mary Queen of Scots “remainit in Andro Lamb’s hous be the space of an hour” on her arrival from France on the 19th August 1561. In fact she landed only 100 metres away on Leith’s Shore.

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Mary had set out from France for Scotland after a 13 year absence and arrived two weeks earlier than expected in Leith in poor, foggy weather. The Palace of Holyrood House was not ready to receive her so she visited Lamb……or did she.

Whilst the Lamb’s were a well known family in Leith, there is not the evidence to confirm whether this visit to Lamb’s House did take place – or even if the building existed when Mary arrived in Leith. The building we see is one of the finest surviving merchant’s houses in Scotland and dates from around 1610. But it is thought her late mother Mary of Guise had a Palace in Rotten Row nearby and this is where she stopped.

However, Lamb’s House was a dwelling for the Lamb family and a warehouse for his goods. There are religious family connections and a descendent of Lamb, a Dr. Cheyne lived here with his family from 1800-1822.

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By the early 20th century the house was in a state of disrepair and it was only by the intervention of  the Marquis of Bute and then the National Trust for Scotland that the property was saved from demolition. I knew it for a long time as a day centre for the elderly people of Leith.

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By the beginning of the 21st century it was again in danger of falling into disrepair whilst many of the surrounding buildings were coming to life with the renewed interest in Leith properties and businesses. The building then had a dramatic change of use. Over £1 million was spent on restoring and upgrading the building to its former glory. And what a splendid sight it is.

The property is now the offices of an architect and the base for the Icelandic Consul to Scotland. Whilst it is not open to the public, The Pavilion building on site is available to rent as overnight accommodation.

It really is worth a visit to this beautiful building, even if the visit of Mary Queen of Scots to Mr Lamb is in question.

What to do in Edinburgh on the last Saturday of the month.

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There are very few opportunities in the year to visit a little known museum in Edinburgh that contains one of the most famous exhibits the city has.

Only open on the last Saturday of every month and with free entry, The Anatomical Museum of the University of Edinburgh

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is found in Doorway 3 of the Medical School of Edinburgh University. The Medical School was established in 1726 – though medicine had been taught at the University prior to this – and flourished during the “Scottish Enlightenment”. It is still very highly regarded to this day.

As part of one of the Walks available through www.edinburghwalks.com, I was in the vicinity and called in. Through the heavy wooden door and up two floors, you enter the anatomy lecture theatre which has seating for two hundred students and was used to teach medical students from the 19th century onwards.

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I’m sure the dissection of bodies was a messy procedure, but nowadays the ‘slab’ is electronic and – as can be seen in the attached photograph – a lot less gory and a lot more interesting.

Then I made my way upstairs to the Anatomical Museum itself.

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The Museum was part of a block of buildings devoted to medical education which opened in 1880. The lobby still contains elephant skeletons and other exhibits from the original museum, which was reduced in size in 1950 from a three storey hall to a single upper storey, which is how it remains today. The Museum has a fascinating

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collection of both animal and human remains, plaster masks of famous people from the past made by the Edinburgh Phrenology Society and that famous exhibit I mentioned before, the skeleton of the infamous murderer William Burke. Burke – along with his unconvicted accomplice William Hare – murdered (probably) sixteen people in  1820’s Edinburgh and sold the bodies for medical dissection. He was convicted and hanged in 1829. The fate of Burke and all those convicted of murder was to be subject to the Murder Act of 1751, where they also had to be dissected after execution. The Anatomical Museum also houses the skeleton of John Howison, otherwise known as “The Cramond Murderer” who suffered the same fate as Burke. Howison was the last person to be publicly dissected prior to the Anatomy Act of 1832 which ended this practice and allowed medical schools to obtain cadavers by other means.

This museum is a great place to help understand Edinburgh’s historical and medical past and the exhibits are not laid out in a manner meant to frighten or shock the visitor. Next time you are in the area – or as part of a www.edinburghwalks.com Walk – give it a visit. You will not regret it.