The Cockburn Association 1875–2049
Cliff Hague and Richard Rodger with D.J. Johnston-Smith and Terry Levinthal. (Foreword by Alexander McCall Smith.)
This attractive book has been published to mark the first 150 years of campaigns by the Cockburn Association.
For anyone who loves Edinburgh, this is a fascinating overview of urbanism and the development of the city since the building of the New Town.
The first two chapters provide context for the origins of the Association: Lord Cockburn himself, and his thinking about the ‘public realm’ and the fundamental responsibility of owners of private property; early battles over development to the detriment of the James Craig New Town (e.g. at the East End of Princes Street where the Balmoral Hotel now stands); the respective roles of the Town Council and the Police Commissioners (of which Cockburn himself was an elected member) in the administration of the city; the mid-19th-century Old Town improvements (the Bridges linking Old and New Towns, Cockburn and Victoria Streets, which bankrupted the Town Council).
Six chronological chapters follow, outlining the campaigns which marked each era and the economic context underlying them.
The chapters dealing with the era of the Abercrombie Plan (1949) and its successors (inner ring road; multiple tiers of traffic along Princes Street, and so on) are particularly fascinating. Ironically, the Cockburn Association had regular stressed over the preceding years the necessity of an organised plan. However, when it came it threatened to destroy much of the historic city.
The Cockburn was amazingly clear-sighted in this era, arguing that ‘public interest does not only consist in the facilitation of the movement of traffic’.
One gets a real sense of the relentlessness of the threats – to Princes Street, to George Square, of 17-storey hotels on George Street – giving barely time to draw breath before another destructive plan, for the old St James Square, was unveiled.
The book traces the evolution of the Association, never purely interested in old stones or in ‘the heights of new builds and their adverse effects on city views’, to incorporate the Edinburgh Civic Trust and to focus, these days, as much on ‘communities’ and the intangible things that make Edinburgh such a special place to live.The roots of today’s concern about overtourism, festivalisation and so on, run deep.
The book’s final chapter looks to the future and tries to envisage what Edinburgh might be like in 2049. In the words of the authors, ‘Much like Lord Cockburn himself, the Association has been passionate about green city spaces, the conservation of historic buildings, and Edinburgh‘s unique vistas and dramatic skylines.
‘Generations of volunteers have given their time and talents to resist intrusive advertising, elevated motorways, the destruction of the Old Town, and over-tourism. Edinburgh's future rests on their legacy.’—Caroline Roussot.
Birlinn, 224 pp., £25, ISBN: 978 0 8576 728 6
