Architecture Notes

Event ID 873295

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Architecture Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/873295

Simple two storey, three bay house of c. 1764-5.

The cottage was the garden house for the Royal Botanic Garden when sited on what is now Haddington Place/Leith Walk. When the cottage was built the land surrounding the garden was open ground on the undulating route that then linked the City of Edinburgh with the Port of Leith.

Research carried out on behalf of the Botanic Cottage Trust by Dr Joe Rock has provided evidence that the design of the cottage involved a number of people, including John Adam, son of William and elder brother of James and Robert Adam; James Craig who drew the plans for Edinburgh's New Town and the Regius Keeper of the Botanic Garden himself, Dr John Hope.

The building was originally thought to have had living accommodation for the gardener of two bedrooms and a kitchen on the ground floor and a large lecture room with small closet or office, presumably for Hope on the first floor. This large room seems to have been painted yellow with its decoration carried out by Alexander Runciman. The internal stair was removed and external stair added to the rear in 1802.

Hope died in 1786, having been a noted botanist and medical man. He had been a friend of Carl Linnaeus (1707-78), the Swedish botanist, known as the Prince of Botany and father of modern taxonomy (the Linneaus Monument designed by Robert Adam is now in the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh in Inverleith, see RCAHMS (NT27NW 36.01). Hope had also taught a large number of students in the lecture theatre, probably including William Roxburgh, later the Keeper of the Botanic Garden of India, Calcutta.

In 1820-22 the garden moved to its current home in the Inverleith area of Edinburgh. The cottage became a residence and the lecture room subdivided. The area around the cottage was full of market gardens and in the C19 a succession of gardeners and their families resided in the cottage.

In the early C20, a tenement built next to the cottage by the St Cuthbert’s Co-operative Association caused the demolition of the SW gable and thus the shortening of the cottage.

With the higher levelling of Leith Walk in the C19, the cottage viewed from the street appeared to be only a single storey; though access remained through the front door accessed by steps until the late C20 when the central window of the first floor was converted into a door and a bridge added.

A number of businesses were based in the cottage in the late C20, but the cottage was empty except for squatters and awaiting demolition when there was a fire on the ground floor. After action by the Botanic Cottage Working Group, the Heritage Lottery Fund gave money for an archaeological survey of the cottage in 2008 and with the help of the developer for the site, the cottage was taken down and the site cleared.

It is intended that the cottage will be rebuilt within the current Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh.

RCAHMS (CAJS) 2009.