Transformation of the Botanic Cottage will be complete later this month when members of the public are finally able to walk inside and look around at a special Garden Gala event.
Today, Spurtle enjoyed a sneak preview of the newly repositioned, reconstructed and refurbished building, first completed 250 years ago on Leith Walk in May 1766.
Save for some modern improvements and conveniences (e.g. lights, heating, insulation), the project has mostly re-used original components and employed traditional building methods.
The building is now intended as a place for visitors to rest, play and learn. Management are also keen that it should become a welcoming and familiar resource for community groups wishing to establish their own activities here.
A wee wander
You enter first from the Demonstration Garden side and find yourself at once in the spacious stone-flagged kitchen, where meals comprising hyperlocally grown produce can be prepared.
To one side of the kitchen, in a new section which would originally have been outdoor potting sheds and lean-tos, is a practical area equipped for the green-fingered to get muddy.
On the other side is a ‘clean room’, set out with additional sinks and access to a patio picnic area outside.
Up a winding stone staircase (there’s wheelchair access as well) is the wonderfully calm and well-lit ‘great room’. Here, Regius Keeper John Hope delivered demonstrations of botanical principles before the flit to Inverleith in the 1820s.
At either end are iron grates, newly fashioned to original Carron designs of exactly the right period.
In the middle of the room, facing south is a restored sash window. This was where the building’s front door had been at street level during the Cottage’s twilight years on Leith Walk.
Now, as sunlight streams into the building, there is a palpable sense of optimism and excitement about the place, an ongoing conversation between past, present and future which is a pleasure to experience.
To celebrate its completion, a public Garden Gala will be held on Monday 30 May (noon-6pm), allowing members of the public to look inside the rebuilt Cottage for the first time. Here they can learn about its history, and enjoy live music, creative activities, cooking demonstrations, 18th-century dancing, storytelling and more.
[The image immediately above accompanied an RBGE press release, and features children from Broughton High School with Douglas Bayne, a former resident of the Cottage.]
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Janice Johnson 2 questions please . Why is it not stone faced as it was in Leith Walk, now? and why opening on a Monday
Broughton Spurtle (1) They have restored the original lime-wash to the rubble, which stops it from letting in the damp. A great many more Edinburgh buildings looked like this 200+ years ago. (2) Monday 30th is a bank holiday.
Lorraine Moore It looks stunning! I want to live there!
David Tant I still think it looks like a Barrats Executive Home. Yet more of the Botanics turned into a park for Stockbridge yummy mummies with more cash than taste.