Architecture / History

On Saturday, 26 and Sunday, 27 September, The Cockburn Association will host the Edinburgh and East Lothian Doors Open Days weekend. 

Doors Open Days is a free festival offering access to spaces of historic, cultural, architectural and community interest which are normally ticketed or not accessible to the public. 

As Scotland's oldest conservation charity, The Cockburn feels particularly energised by this year’s theme of ‘Heritage at Risk: Revive, Resist, Reimagine’. 

A review of the Cockburn Association’s 150-year-anniversary Campaigning for Edinburgh, promised in Issue 355 to appear online here today, won’t.

Blame it on events, dear boy, events. 

Or the boogie. 

Or unpaid Spurtle volunteerism colliding with a career. 

In any case, we anticipate the review’s appearance shortly.

A LESSON FOR OUR TIMES

Scottish artist and architect Alexander Nasmyth (1758–1840) embarked on a Grand Tour of Europe between 1782 and 1784.

His vividest experiences during that time took place in Rome, where privileged young Scotsmen loved, whored, explored, created, learned, and discussed the then known world.

Living in a World Heritage Site, we tend – rightly – to focus on the preservation and restoration of its finest features.

But sometimes, the weathering and distress of our environs, including its more prosaic elements, has a poignant charm all of its own.

This Corporation lamppost on Calton Road is a case in point.

April 1863

WORKING MEN’S HOUSES AT STOCKBRIDGE.

Last night, the foundation-stone of a range of houses at Stockbridge, intended for working men, was laid by Dr Begg, in presence of a considerable number of spectators.[1]

It will be remembered that about eighteen months ago Dr Begg inaugurated, by the same ceremony, the commencement of the erection of another row of houses for a similar purpose at the west end of Water Lane,[2] leading from Canonmills to Stockbridge.