Elvandale, Dunhead, Midlothian, Scotland

Again we slept late! Apart from having enjoyed a good sleep, this does not fit well with a busy travelling schedule, however we still managed a fairly good day in the city. 

Arriving in the city off the #47, our now preferred bus route, we walked down across the North Bridge, turning east along Princes Street toward Carlton Hill, sometimes tagged as the “Athens of the North”, thus named for the rather grandiose buildings and monuments which perch on the top and side of yet another volcanic crag of this geologically challenged city.

Apart from enjoying the stunning views across the city in all directions, we checked out some of these structures, the castellated Governor’s House of the Old Carlton Gaol, the Gaol itself which was mostly demolished to make way for the Art Deco St Andrew’s House, headquarters of the Scottish Government, the City Observatory which is currently shrouded in plastic whilst renovations are underway, and the National Monument, an unfinished Parthenon-like folly designed by William Playfair and G R Cockerell to commemorate the Scottish soldiers who died during the Napoleonic Wars. Here too is the Nelson Monument which is home to a time ball which was set up to alert the captains down in the Firth of Forth of the exact time. Unfortunately they were unable to see this, so the one o’clock gun from the castle is fired to co-ordinate with the daily ball drop. 

The Burns Monument is yet another structure as hideous as the Scott Memorial down in Princes Street, but this fenced up from the public. It is apparently modelled on the ancient Choragic Monument of Lysicrates in Athens, rather ridiculous here in Edinburgh.

We were not alone on the hill, a surprising number of youthful tourists having beaten us to the best spots. Hopefully the tourist operators are currently glorying in the numbers; they surely must match those in London.

The Town Council of Edinburgh purchased Carlton Hill in 1724, making it one of Britain’s first public parks. The monuments and buildings all date from the 1760s to the 1820s and relate to a period known as the “Scottish Enlightenment”, a time of great artistic, literary and scientific advances.

As we descended the Hill, we spotted an open gate into the Old Carlton Burial Ground and could not help but poke our nose into the collection of gravestones and mausoleums. 

Here lie many of the great and good, names we have come across either elsewhere in the city having been memorialised in stone or by portraiture, architect Robert Adam and philosopher David Hume to name just two.

We lunched down in the Princes Street Park, although Chris had suggested we should wait until we arrived at the museum. I suggested that the museum was not likely to have any outdoor park to picnic in and it was hardly appropriate to sit within the galleries eating sandwiches and apples. As it turned out we could have done so; the National Museum offers a number of spaces for just this purpose.

But under the trees on a bird-poo-free bench, we watched the locals and tourists come and go, and a couple of locals who were still suffering the effects of last night’s festivities. In fact their blood level would not have stood up to scrutiny, and nor did their language stand up to my filter; we moved further into the park to finish our lunch.

Refuelled, we walked up to the Royal Mile and then across the George IV  Bridge, another of these land span structures that have nothing to do with water crossings, only of urban ravines. It was not too far on until we reached the National Museum of Scotland, a massive complex spread over two buildings, although to us today, it was not entirely obvious. It was only evident that we were in a collection of structures modelled on the former Crystal Palace, the brain child and baby of Victoria’s Prince Arthur.

Today the museum was full of visitors, mainly Scottish Nationals with their families and all of whom were having a fabulous day. It is entirely suited to such visitors, but for tourists such as ourselves who have seen one museum after another over the past seven years, there was not a lot to surprise and amaze. Maybe it was because I was just weary, but I decided that if I was asked for the top ten or so places to visit in Edinburgh within a limited schedule, I would probably leave this off.

Having said that, I did learn some interesting facts:

During the so called period of “Scottish Enlightenment”, the other half of the population was not enjoying too much of a good time. The landowners had discovered that there was more profit in farming sheep and selling wool than bothering with the stress of tenants, leading to the period of the Land Clearances. Some of the resulting refugees immigrated to the colonies and “made good” but the rest crowded into the cities, resulting in slums worse than anything England could manage. The 19^th century saw a population explosion, despite the infant mortality rate, and the disease caused by overcrowding. 

Between 1801 and 1871 the population grew from 1,625,000 to 3,360,000 with a proportion living in urban centres increasing from 21% to 44%. By 1861 one third of Scotland’s remaining population lived in houses of one room. The old way of organising town life could not cope with so many people; social and environmental ills threatened to undermine society.

Even by 1911, the census showed the number of people living in one-room homes was 13% of the total, and 41% in two roomed homes, while in England only 7% lived in such conditions.

While all this was going on, the industrialisation caught on up here a little later than further south, although much of the innovation and inventions came from those of Scottish birth. It was a time of contradiction; poverty and survival, wealth and wisdom.

 At the end of the 19^th century Clyde shipbuilders dominated the world’s production, launching more than one third of British built ships and nearly one fifth of the total world production.

We left the crowds to learn more than we could be bothered with and headed back to our regular bus stop, and headed home, shopping at the nearby Asda for the last time and filling up with diesel at the same place. 

We have enjoyed fairly decent weather today although are unlikely to do so tomorrow when we move across the Firth of Forth to our next camp.