Saughton Park is a public park in Edinburgh, Scotland. [1] It includes formal gardens, specimen trees, exotic plant greenhouses, a cafe, [2] a bandstand, [3] playing fields, an athletics track, a skateboard park and a creative play area. The skatepark was constructed in 2010 and is the largest in Scotland. [4] [5]
The park benefitted from an £8m restoration [6] with funding from the National Lottery, and cycling lobby group Sustrans amongst others. [7] [8] The park was awarded Green Flag in 2020. [9] The redevelopment work was developed to include the restoration of key historic features, enhance accessibility [10] and provide visitor facilities. Conservation, sustainability and biodiversity formed an integral part of the masterplan. [11] Garden and building restoration work was done to give an understanding of the heritage, context, place quality and future use the Park. Local community groups were involved in consultation and co-design. [12] [13] The park is well known for its rose gardens [14] and provision of new facilities including community teaching areas, a café and toilets. The new facilities are of a modern design. The restoration of heritge assets included repairs to the walled garden, reinstatement of the wrought iron bandstand and the renovation of the winter gardens glasshouse. [15] The bandstand which had been removed in 1987 due to its condition was made in the Lion Foundry in Kirkintilloch in 1909. The glasshouse features a bust of Gandhi, tropical plants and a statue of the Goddess Sakthi. The replanting of the restored gardens required more than 5,000 hedging plants, 8,000 herbaceous plants, roses worth more than £40,000 for the rose garden. 5,000 plants were added around the bandstand. The herbaceous border has 6,000 plants, including 350 purple allium. [16]
In addition, several species of bird nest in the park and otters have been seen in the river and the skatepark. [17]
The park has been managed by City Of Edinburgh Council since 1900 when it was purchased from Sir William Baird and it opened to the public in 1910. [1] It previously included a nine-hole golf course, nursery and playing fields.
Saughton park was formerly the Saughton Hall Estate, bought in the 1660s by Robert Baird of Saughtonhall, an Edinburgh merchant, from Janet Mudie or Moodie. The park was the site of the 1908 great Scottish National Exhibition [18] and the grounds were specially adapted for the purpose. [19] Large buildings were constructed, a railway station was built to transport thousands of visitors from Waverley Station, and a new bridge was built for the Water of Leith. The exhibition included industrial and machinery exhibits along with halls featuring Canadian, Russian and Irish showcases. [20] It also featured a Senegalese village "where the inhabitants may be seen carrying on their daily life much as they would do under their own tropical skies". [19] [21] The exhibition followed a previous similar one in the Meadows and was open for six months, attracting nearly 3.5 million visitors. [22]
The National Botanic Gardens is a botanical garden in Glasnevin, 5 km north-west of Dublin city centre, Ireland. The 19.5 hectares are situated between Glasnevin Cemetery and the River Tolka where it forms part of the river's floodplain.
The Birmingham Botanical Gardens are a 15-acre (6-hectare) botanical garden situated in Edgbaston, Birmingham, England. The gardens are located 1+1⁄2 miles (2.4 km) south-west of Birmingham city centre at grid reference SP049854. Designed in 1829, the gardens are Grade II* listed in Historic Englands's Register of Parks and Gardens, and retain many original features and layout, which was designed by the landscape gardener and horticulturalist John Claudius Loudon. The site is notable for its range of glasshouses and gardens, which display a wide variety of plants and birds. Birmingham Botanical Gardens is managed by Birmingham Botanical and Horticultural Society, a registered charity. The gardens are open daily to the public with paid admission.
A bandstand is a circular, semicircular or polygonal structure set in a park, garden, pier, or indoor space, designed to accommodate musical bands performing concerts. A simple construction, it both creates an ornamental focal point and also serves acoustic requirements while providing shelter for the changeable weather, if outdoors. In form bandstands resemble ornamental European garden gazebos modeled on outdoor open-sided pavilions found in Asian countries from early times.
Kelvingrove Park is a public park located on the River Kelvin in the West End of the city of Glasgow, Scotland, containing the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum.
The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) is a scientific centre for the study of plants, their diversity and conservation, as well as a popular tourist attraction. Founded in 1670 as a physic garden to grow medicinal plants, today it occupies four sites across Scotland—Edinburgh, Dawyck, Logan and Benmore—each with its own specialist collection. The RBGE's living collection consists of more than 13,302 plant species, whilst the herbarium contains in excess of 3 million preserved specimens.
The University of Oxford Botanic Garden is the oldest botanic garden in Great Britain and one of the oldest scientific gardens in the world. The garden was founded in 1621 as a physic garden growing plants for medicinal research. Today it contains over 5,000 different plant species on 1.8 ha. It is one of the most diverse yet compact collections of plants in the world and includes representatives from over 90% of the higher plant families.
The People's Palace and Winter Gardens in Glasgow, Scotland, is a museum and glasshouse situated in Glasgow Green, and was opened on 22 January 1898 by The 5th Earl of Rosebery.
RHS Garden Wisley is a garden run by the Royal Horticultural Society in Wisley, Surrey, south of London. It is one of five gardens run by the society, the others being Harlow Carr, Hyde Hall, Rosemoor, and Bridgewater. Wisley is the second most visited paid entry garden in the United Kingdom after the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, with 1,232,772 visitors in 2019.
Glasgow Botanic Gardens is a botanical garden located in the West End of Glasgow, Scotland. It features several glasshouses, the most notable of which is the Kibble Palace.
The 1908–09 season was the 36th season of competitive football in Scotland and the 19th season of the Scottish Football League.
Longstone is a suburb of Edinburgh in Scotland. The area is primarily residential in nature, although the area includes several small shops, eateries and supermarkets, as well as one of the main bus depots for the city's buses. The population of Longstone was 4,678 in 2019.
Hippolyte Jean Blanc was a Scottish architect. Best known for his church buildings in the Gothic revival style, Blanc was also a keen antiquarian who oversaw meticulously researched restoration projects.
The Meadows is a large public park in Edinburgh, Scotland, to the south of the city centre.
Inverleith House is a historic house, now within the Royal Botanic Garden, in the suburb of Inverleith, in Edinburgh, Scotland.
The Marine Gardens was an entertainment complex located in the Portobello area of Edinburgh, Scotland. Opened in 1909 as a pleasure garden and amusement park on the shores of the Firth of Forth, most of its original attractions apart from the ballroom were removed following military use of the site during the First World War. The complex also included a stadium which was used during the interwar period for football, greyhound racing and speedway. It was the home venue of Scottish Football League teams Leith Athletic (1928–1936) and Edinburgh City. The Marine Gardens closed down permanently in 1939 after again being taken over by the military, with the area being redeveloped after the Second World War.
Wandle Park is an 8.5-hectare (21-acre) park located in the Broad Green Ward of Croydon, south London, England. It was opened in 1890 by the Mayor of Croydon. The site is protected by Fields in Trust through a legal "Deed of Dedication" safeguarding the future of the space as public recreation land for future generations to enjoy.
James Calder Macphail was a Scottish Free Church minister and Gaelic tutor. He is best remembered as a pioneer photographer and one of the first to photograph the Holy Land.
Bellevue is a district of Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. It lies to the south east of Canonmills, west of Leith Walk and south of Leith, incorporating the easternmost extent of Edinburgh's New Town UNESCO heritage site. The area was formerly open fields which became the second and penultimate location of the Royal Botanic Garden in 1763 .
The Edinburgh Exhibition Cup was an invitational football tournament held at the Exhibition Sports Grounds, Saughton, Edinburgh in August 1908, as part of the Scottish National Exhibition event being held there during that summer.
The Springburn Winter Gardens is a large winter garden located at Springburn Park in the Scottish city of Glasgow, constructed in 1900. The building was damaged in a storm and fell out of use in 1983 but was saved from planned demolition on 22 March 1985, when the Scottish Office included the structure on the Statutory List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest, at category A.
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