Yesterday I took a stroll along to the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh to see the exhibitions in the John Hope Gateway, and to enjoy the spring flowers.
Normally, I would take the Water of Leith Walkway as far as Canonmills, but the sun was shining, and the walkway was still in shadow, so I walked via Pitt Street and joined the Water of Leith Path at Newhaven Bridge. The sunlight threw crisp shadows of the ivy onto the stone embankment.
At Steadfastgate, I stopped to have a look at the Sinclair Fountain.
Unfortunately, the fountain is never in the best of upkeep - once again there was a defacing splash of paint on it, and there is nothing nearby to explain its illustrious history at the foot of Lothian Road. Still, I suppose if there was a plaque there, it would just be another thing to graffiti.
Continuing down the path, with the birds merrily chirping, the smell of the spring bonfires rose from the allotments. There are allotments on both sides of the Warriston Path here, and I don't know their individual site names. Still, they present a beautiful impression of industry, and you can feel the hard work which goes into their upkeep. If you're interested in keeping an allotment in Edinburgh, FEDAGA are the people to contact, they are the association for allotment holders. Unfortunately, the waiting time for allotments is quite long, due to their popularity. It does strike me as an oversight on behalf of our lords and masters that a council service with an up to 9 year waiting list is not better funded to try and provide this for more people, especially with the nunber of tenement householders there are in the City, but ho-hum!
I love the walk along the Warriston Path, it is calm and at times quite surreal. The bridge above one of the paths of Warriston Cemetery took me by surprise the first time I saw it, a moment of Victorian elegance quite at odds with the rambleshack nature of the rest of the path. It looks more like something from Return to Oz than a bridge carrying a simple path way across a marshy ditch.
Taking the path down to Warriston Crescent, I made my way along to the East Gate of the Botanics, but it was closed, despite being 10am (their stated opening time), so I strolled along to the West Gate, through which I hadn't yet been. The John Hope Gateway is a new(ish) addition to the Gardens, and I have to say a welcome one. It houses several exhibition spaces, the Real Science education centre, and a cafe and shop. The shop sells a variety of plant and nature related goodies, including Scotia Seeds, wildflower seeds and meadow mixes of Scottish flowers, and the plant sales section has specially selected plants for growth in Northern Europe. I, however, opted to buy a box of 100 million year old fossilised sharks teeth, for the bargain price of £2.50 for my tooth obsessed partner. This is now probably the oldest thing in my home :)
The two exhibitions I saw were the Venerable Trees exhibition, a selection of etchings by Ian Westacott, and Conserving Ecologies: Craft and Biodiversity. Upstairs in the John Hope Gateway, the etchings of ancient trees were stunning, as shown by the illustrated programme having sold out. The black and white images reminded me of the work of Edward Gorey, and the gnarly trees looked to my fantasy ridden mind like sleeping Ents. Downstairs, the Conserving Ecologies exhibition felt much more as though it were trying to teach me something, which is not a bad thing (I learned, for example, that Scotland has more than 1700 craft practitioners). My favourite piece was Ben Too, by Georgia Crook, consisting of willow and birch baskets, stuck horizontally onto a board, creating an abstract image of textured circles, and I also enjoyed the ceramics of Fiona Byrne-Sutton which are created using soil and clay from Glasgow and Clackmannanshire.
Outside, I walked past (or through) the elegant terraced cafe.
The John Hope Gateway is an excellent way to enter the Gardens, it has a very peaceful atmosphere which sets the mood nicely for a walk around the Gardens. The snowdrops were out in force on the slope in front of Inverleith House.
And the rhododendrons added more welcome colour to the fresh morning.
The star of the day was, however, the Outside In display of Alpine plants, kept safe from the wet winter inside a small glasshouse. Unfortunately, the mesh in front of the plants precluded me from taking a picture, but I would urge anyone to go down and have a look. The miniature flowers burst with colour and give the impression of tiny floral worlds.
Back past the famous Glasshouses and my first visit to the Garden this year came to a close.
Exiting via the East Gate, I took the road across Canonmills bridge and up towards Broughton. Canonmills Baprist Church, once the school of Robert Louis Stevenson, is on the left.
Turning left onto Broughton Road, I passed the Royal Navy and Royal Marines Club, before rejoining the Warriston Path behind TESCO to walk back to Leith.
You can see a map of the route I walked below.
View Walk 27 Feb 2011 in a larger map
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