Following a second round of public consultations in late November, we await with interest a new planning application from Ediston and Orion Capital Managers to develop the site bounded by Dundas Street, Eyre Place, King George V Park and Fettes Row/Royal Crescent.
We expect to see latest proposals for the New Town Quarter later this month.
Local resident, playwright, poet and Edinburgh's first makar Stewart Conn has lived alongside the disruptive demolition here since work began in 2022.
Below, he reflects on the circular ironies of history and improvement.
THE GREAT SEA SERPENT
In 1860, thirteen years after Canonmills Loch
was drained, the marshy land of the Haugh
gave way not just to the new Gymnasium
with its giant see-saw for two hundred people
and a bicycle roundabout, but ‘the Great
Sea Serpent, a 60-foot wide circular marvel
to seat 600 rowers, with 8 paddle-wheels,
to get it rotating’, rendering it one of the most
talked-about tourist attractions of the time.
Pending redevelopment the area is currently
a demolition site, all vibration, noise and pollution.
Where the old mill lade flowed, seepage forms
a green pool with an acrid sheen, and on the railings
near where those Victorian health addicts exercised
is a notice, DANGER. DEEP WATER. KEEP OUT!
Stewart Conn
1.) Map above is a detail from John Bartholomew jnr's 'New Plan of Edinburgh and Leith with Suburbs, from Ordnancce and Actual Surveys. Constructed for the Post Office Directory' (1865).
2.) For more on the 'Great Sea Serpent', Royal Gymnasium and recent archaeology at the site, see Canmore here.
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