View of garden in Dunbar's Close, 137 Canongate, Edinburgh, from NW.
DP 188664
Description View of garden in Dunbar's Close, 137 Canongate, Edinburgh, from NW.
Date 24/4/2014
Collection Records of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS), Edinbu
Catalogue Number DP 188664
Category On-line Digital Images
Scope and Content This shows the garden in Dunbar's Close, to the rear of 137 Canongate. The garden was created when local charity, The Mushroom Trust, bought the land in the mid-1970s. The Trust commissioned landscape architect Seamus Filor to design a garden with the intention of opening it up to the public. Filor took inspiration from the formal gardens portrayed on the 1647 Gordon of Rothiemay map of the High Street and Canongate. He also used varieties of plants which would have been grown in the 17th century, including herbs and fruit trees. The garden consists of three parterres stepping down the slope from Canongate to Calton Road. There are low box hedges surrounding individual beds within the parterres, a common feature in gardens of this style. Dunbar's Close appears to take its name from David Dunbar, writer, who owned two tenements here in 1773. In common with many of the closes in the High Street and Canongate, and indeed in other burghs across Scotland, tenements were built along the burghage plot as the population grew. These tenements were demolished during the 1970s, shortly before the garden was recreated here. The garden was gifted to the City of Edinburgh in 1978 on completion, and the Parks Department currently maintains it (2014).
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File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap
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