Well I'm glad to say that yet again Wednesday Walk has made me get out of the house on a wednesday evening to go for a nice healthy walk ! This time I took in the sights down at the Dean Village area of Edinburgh. Its a conservation area, with some of the buildings dating back a good 300+ years.
This is the main view of the village above. The building on the left is a group of communal houses (apartments) built in the 19th century, and its a complete work of art. Immediately on the right the buildings are a lot newer, but were designed to atleast maintain the character of the area.
I started the walk at the top of the village close to the cemetery, which was shut for the evening.
The sign on the gates say no parking ! I guess unless you are this punter - then its ok ! Really !
From the cemetery I went down the hill and picked up this side path that takes you directly down to the river (The Water of Leith).
The path is quite step and winds down the bank to the rivers edge, which is really nice.
The river bank had caved in at this part before lock down, and this is the first time that I've seen it all fixed up - what a great job they've done !
There is a weir a little further along the path - there were a number of mills in the area so this would have been put in place to help manage the water flow.
A few hundred yards further and you get to the bottom of the village. This building (same as in the first pic) is just stunning. Its so pretty, and gets photographed by everyone all day long. Its still fully inhabited and it must be a little annoying for the inhabitants as it attracts a lot of visitors.
The building has a courtyard, and above is a view inside. Its stunning - with its own clock tower ! And you can also see everyone's washing lines out in the courtyard !
Just across the street, there is a small play park, and I love all of the bushes that have flowered along the back wall !
Then the view above is taken from the larger road bridge looking back towards the village. You can see how steep the side is here, with the other buildings built above towering above the village - it is one of the lower points in the city.
And at the end of the bridge is this wonderful old building (above). Many of our buildings would have been originally painted in this colour when first built. I'm not quite sure of the age of this one, but I'm guessing around 300 years old.
Above is a close up of the carving in the wall.
This is the view on the other side of the bridge, I'm sure the building on the left used to be a mill, and you can see the water intake on the left. And again, you can see how low it is here as further up a church on higher ground towers over this position.
The buildings on the climb back up from the village are called Deanpath Buildings. We call them tenements, and they contain flats (apartments). Everyone shares the central stairway, which we would call 'the close' or 'the stair'.
The pic above is the view of that same building from the back, and you can see how they have incorporated that communal stairway in to the part jutting out from the back wall - its quite beautiful.
Further back up the hill away from the village is the building above. Its another apartment building (tenement) and this is the side view. I just love how one and only one of the windows has a really nice feature surround ! Why that one ???
And then back at the top is this church where I started the walk - the red brick is just lovely. Well thats my wednesday walk for this week - I really enjoyed getting out as usual !!! I hope you are all having a great wednesday too. I've been looking through everyone's posts as I love taking a glimpse at everyone's wednesday from around the world.
All the best from Scotland @hoosie
