Water of Leith

Willie Bell

27 June 2024

Sue, Moira, Denise, Pamela, Marion, Neil, John, Crawford, Neil and Willie met at Balerno High School on a brightish summer morning. A low carbon footprint prevailed as all the Edinburgh contingent arrived via the no. 44 bus.

The walkway passes many areas of interest including: Colinton Village, Craiglockhart Dell, the Union Canal, Saughton Gardens, Murrayfield Stadium, the Scottish Gallery of Modern Art, Dean Village, Stockbridge, the Royal Botanic Garden and Leith. 

We headed off on the recently refurbished walkway towards the historic Currie Kirk – team photo below with the Kirk in the background.

Most of the walk in summer is surrounded by trees and shrubs in full bloom, and the sound of song birds is constant.

Our next point of interest was Colinton Village, site of the magnificent house build by James Gillespie (18th C snuff baron, and benefactor of the school named after him).

The walk then passed through the Colinton rail tunnel, which is covered in beautiful murals by local artists. Robert Louis Stevenson travelled on the train to Currie and one of his poems plus portrait is on a giant mural.

We then had a slight detour across the Lanark Road and continued on the Union Canal for 1 km across the viaduct at Longstone and descended down to the Water of Leith Trust café. Coffee and a few snacks were consumed, albeit John fancied a cheese scone on display only to be told they were reserved – note to self, next time I’ll have to book scones for the team. 

Refreshed, we headed towards the stunning gardens at Saughton Park, originally laid out for the 1908 Exhibition of North Britain.

Lunch was taking in the midst of the manicured rose garden.

Next main feature we passed was Murrayfield the home of Scottish Rugby (no mention of Football Euros’24 at this stage). Neil left us at this point, some excuse of going to Glasgow at night.

The walk then turned east at Roseburn and we head towards the New Town – we saw the first of six Anthony Gormley statues in the river – warning explicit imagery below 😳.

The walk got busier at this point with numerous tourists, as we approached the historic Dean Village with superb examples of Georgian and Victorian buildings.

Affluent Stockbridge was next, passing the Grange Cricket Club then back into the woods at Rocheid park taking us to Cannon Mills.

Although the walk becomes a bit more industrial it’s interesting seeing the old railway stations and remnants of the factories that lined the river at Bonnington and into Leith. The river was remarkably free of litter or rubbish, credit to the Trust volunteers.

So some 12 miles completed we arrived at The Shore, having had fine weather with only the occasional light shower of rain.

The Turkish café was ruled out (“coffee may be too strong”) so we headed to Toast Café. Superb cakes (coffee and walnut 😋), ice cream and barista coffee – and very Edinburgh Sur Mer prices! Albeit the quality of cakes and service was great, plus life’s too short not to have treats.

Bus app consulted and we all headed off on various trams or buses home or back to get cars at Balerno. A very enjoyable way to see this fine city that’s Edinburgh.

See you in July,

Willie