Ross Fountain in the sunshine, but using the slo-mo mode

.

#Edinburgh #Edimbourg #SloMo #Photography #photographie #RossFountain #PrincesStreetGardens

#Edinburgh by the Ross Fountain in Princes Street Gardens, and the Castle, looking stunning on this spring day. Half an hour's walk from my flat, little wonder I love living here...

.

#Edimbourg #photography #photographie #architecture #castle #chateau #EdinburghCastle #ChateauDedimbourg #PrincesStreetGardens #RossFountain

Mr McHattie and Mr Ritchie’s Mechanical Triumph: the thread about the Princes Street Gardens Floral Clock

The Princes Street Gardens floral clock is a fine Edinburgh institution. At the time of writing (June 2023) it was being replanted to celebrate the centenary of the Flying Scotsman steam locomotive (not “the train” of the same name as the tweet below would suggest). But this year is also an anniversary for the clock itself and it will be 120 years old, having first been revealed to the public on this very day (June 11th) in 1903. It was the first floral clock not just in Scotland but also in the UK, and possibly the 3rd in the world (there being earlier examples in Paris and Detroit). The Edinburgh clock was the work of the City Superintendent of Parks & Gardens, John W. McHattie, who enlisted the help of James Ritchie & Son., the famous Edinburgh clockmaker on Leith Street who built and wound the city’s public clocks. It so happened that Ritchies had in their workshop at this time the mechanism from one of the turret clocks from Elie Parish Church in Fife, which was surplus to requirements. This was installed in the base of the Allan Ramsay Monument next to the clock, and a drive shaft was run from the clock mechanism to the time hand in a small passageway under the flowerbeds.

This first clock had a single time hand – an hour hand – which was a large metal planting tray 4 feet 2 inches (127cm) long and was “delicately balanced” on account of the slope but kept time perfectly. It was described as a “beautiful study in carpet bedding, in which American aloes, echevarias, sedums and other plants” were “set out with great taste in a bold geometric pattern.” The clock face was was 12 feet in diameter, the hours delineated by two concentric circles planted of sedums and the numbers picked out in “fresh green pyrethrum“. The centre of the face was split into quarters, each denoting and planted to represent one of the seasons of the year.

The Dundee Evening Telegraph hailed it as “a mechanical triumph“. The Devon Valley Tribune called it “the great wonder of the Gardens“, the Dundee Courier was a bit less generous and went with “the quaintest of horticultural freaks“. The Town Council was so pleased with Mchattie that they voted him a raise of £100 per year (almost £10,000 in 2023 terms. His picture below can be found on the website of the Friends of Saughton Gardens as he was also the man we have to thank for the first planting of that public park, which opened in 1910. The Friends have a good write-up of McHattie and his work at Saughton on their website, here. He died in 1923 when he was still the city’s Head Gardener, after 22 years service.

The clock has, appropriately, changed with the times. By the time the below picture was taken in 1914 it had acquired a minute hand, which was 10 feet long, and accompanied a new 6 foot long hour hand.

The mechanism was modernised in 1936 but still required daily winding, something which took place until its platinum anniversary, when it was electrified in 1973. It was during the 1936 modernisation that a “cuckoo” sound was added to it, the sound being generated by two tuned organ pipes in the base of the Ramsay monument.

In 1943, the clock’s 40th year, it was given a wartime makeover by the Superintendent of Parks John T. Jeffrey. This featured a large Royal Navy warship decorated with anchors and other naval insignia and a profile picture of Winston Churchill smoking a cigar and surrounded by the legend The Hour, The Man. The planting incorporated beetroots and carrots so as to make an edible contribution to the Dig for Victory campaign.

In 1947, for the first Edinburgh International Festival, the names of famous composers were added in to the planting, which was repeated in 1948.

In 1949 it was planted to mark the Scottish Industries Exhibition in Glasgow that year. For 1953, the clock’s 50th birthday, the Parks Superintendent, Mr A. T. Harrison, hit upon the idea of adding a “real” cuckoo to the clock. Thus a wooden bird house was added to accommodate the bird, which popped out when it chimed. The organ pipes were replaced at this time by an electric system of tuning valves connected to a loudspeaker.

Ritchies would go on to provide the mechanisms for many floral clocks throughout the world (“practically all” of them, claimed the Evening News in 1956), including ones in Salisbury, South Rhodesia (modern day Harare, Zimbabwe) and Sydney Zoo.

Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.

If you have found this site useful, informative or amusing then you can help contribute towards its running costs by supporting me on ko-fi. This includes my commitment to keeping it 100% advert and AI free for all time coming, and in helping to find further unusual stories to bring you by acquiring books and paying for research.
Or please do just share this post on social media or amongst friends and like-minded people, sites like this thrive on being shared.

Explore Threadinburgh by map:

These threads © 2017-2026, Andy Arthur.

NO AI TRAINING: Any use of the contents of this website to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.

Which way did they go?? They went *that* away!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/woolamaloo_gazette/55205456539/in/photostream/lightbox/

A trio of tulips seeming to point out a direction to follow.

#Edinburgh #Edimbourg #photography #photographie #Nature #Flowers #Fleurs #Spring #Printemps #tulips #Ecosse #Scotland #PrincesStreetGardens

Yellow and red

https://www.flickr.com/photos/woolamaloo_gazette/55205208761/in/photostream/lightbox/

Tulips enjoying the spring light in Princes Street Gardens (which is currently a gorgeous riot of different flowers and colours)

#Edinburgh #Edimbourg #photography #photographie #Nature #Flowers #Fleurs #Spring #Printemps #PrincesStreetGardens #Ecosse #Scotland

Strolling Princes Street Gardens this afternoon
https://www.flickr.com/photos/woolamaloo_gazette/55203760920/in/photostream/lightbox/

#Edinburgh #Edimbourg #photography #photographie #BlackAndWhitePhotography #StreetPhotography #PrincesStreetGardens #Ecosse #Scotland

The sunlight was casting some fantastic (and almost creepy) tree shadows today https://www.flickr.com/photos/woolamaloo_gazette/55203760905/in/photostream/lightbox/

Princes Street Gardens, #Edinburgh #Edimbourg
#photography #photographie #shadows #ombres #trees #arbres #PrincesStreetGardens #spring #printemps #BlackAndWhitePhotography

West Princes Street Gardens this afternoon. Sunlight, spring flowers,the Castle, and a recuperation walk shared with a dear chum (plus hugs).

I needed that.

#Edinburgh #Edimbourg #photography #photographie #PrincesStreetGardens #EdinburghCastle #chateau #ChateauDEdimbourg #flowers #fleurs #spring #printemps

Chatting chums
https://www.flickr.com/photos/woolamaloo_gazette/55200646156/in/photostream/lightbox/

Sitting in the spring light and enjoying a natter in Princes Street Gardens.

#Edinburgh #Edimbourg #photography #photographie #StreetPhotography #BlackAndWhitePhotography #PrincesStreetGardens

The Ross Bandstand: the thread about 170 years of squabbling over a public performance space

The much-debated Ross Bandstand found itself being discussed (yet again) today. But what is the Bandstand’s story? How did it come to be there and who was Ross? Let’s find out.

The Ross Bandstand was opened on the evening of Friday 10th May 1935, when an inaugural concert of “music in the parks” was attended by a crowd of at least 10,000 spectators. It was largely financed by a £5,000 (c. £300k in 2023) gift from William H. (Willie) Ross, after whom it is named. Ross was the Chairman of the Distillers Company Limited (usually just known as DCL or the Distillers Company) a company he had worked for since starting as a boy clerk out of school. He had risen through the ranks from the very bottom to the very top, taken over from the founding families and guided it through industrial and economic crises to become a British corporate stalwart.

As early as 1926, the old Victorian Bandstand in West Princes Street Gardens, while still a popular public attraction, was seen as out dated and in disrepair (sound familiar?). Inevitably, letters began appearing in The Scotsman suggesting its replacement. It would take 9 years to come to fruition – nothing concrete had happened for the 8 years until 1934 at which point Ross stepped in with his offer. He approached the Lord Provost Sir William Thomson in 1934 on his own initiative, after the previous attempts had failed due to squabbles over funding, location and a backdrop of economic troubles (sound familiar?!)

The City had only acquired West Princes Street Gardens in 1876 when the lease of the West Princes Street Proprietors expired; before then it had been a gated private garden for those residents and tenants along that section of that street. However they had been trying to acquire it since at least the 1850s. One of the most prominent voices for bringing the West gardens into public control had been the social reformer Rev. Dr James Begg of the Free Church. He spoke out against what the press called the “committee of shopkeeper” who were the proprietors and their champion Henry Cockburn, who felt the public lacked interest in the gardens. Begg countered that “public involvement was dependent on public rights, and shutting them out from public parks and gardens [had] gone far to destroy their public spirit“. Begg and the Scottish Association for the Suppression of Drunkenness managed to gain access to the public for the Gardens on Christmas and New Years Days “with a view to keeping parties out the dram shops“. Occasional public concerts in the gardens had to be stopped in both 1853 and again in 1875 when conditions descended into a near riot on account of “all denominations” of the citizenry trying to force their way into the Gardens to hear military bands, with “skirmishes” ensuing. They were supported in this by the Liberal and Reformist Lord Provost Duncan Mclaren. These arguments of public vs. private rights of access to the Gardens all sound very familiar, don’t they?

The first bandstand was built in 1872. When the West Princes Street Gardens organisation was wound up in 1879 it was found that they had substantial excess funds left and so these were used to construct a new bandstand in 1880 to the designs of Peddie & Kinnear. It quickly acquired an amphitheatre of seating on all sides.

In 1897/98, in another one of Edinburgh’s interminable squabbles about the location and funding of concert halls, West Princes Street Gardens was mooted as a site for the potential Usher Hall. It was eventually built on Lothian Road, completed 16 years later.

The new bandstand was designed by the City Architect, Ebenezer James Macrae, “the man who shaped modern Edinburgh“. It has a performance stage for bands of up to fifty members. A 40 feet wide concrete canopy projects 11 feet ahead of this, not just to keep the weather off the performers beneath but also to help direct the sound downwards and forwards to the audience. For the same purpose, the rear of the stage was constructed in the manner of a “sound mirror” and the stage was hollow, to act as a passive amplifier. A paved dance floor area was laid out between the stage and the seating. The opening programme for 1935 was a very martial affair – the schedule dominated by the bands of the Scots Guards, Irish Guards, Border Regiment, Royal Scots Greys and Gordon Highlanders (amongst others). However, in a break from military music, Councillor Stevenson of the Parks Committee made it known that they were investigating the potential for staging Shakespeare on the stage.

On Sunday 13th May, 1945, Winston Churchill’s VE Day Broadcast over the BBC was relayed to the Ross Bandstand, followed by a concert and Victory Dance performed by the band of the King’s Own Scottish Borderers. What would become the Edinburgh Military Tattoo started out at the Ross Bandstand in 1949, when 15,000 people attended a display of military drill and music from the band of the Highland Light Infantry under the direction of Colonel George Malcolm. The Royal Scots Greys provided a trumpet fanfare, the Royal Scots the pipes and drums, there was sword dancing, rifle drill, PT displays, a “Sixteen-some Reel” danced by the men of the Royal Scots and women of the Women’s Royal Army Corps and a general parade of service personnel.

In the 1950s, the Council organised a programme of entertainments at the bandstand throughout the season. In 1954 you could see dancing, displays of fly fishing, ballet, a parade of animals from Edinburgh Zoo and of course military bands (the Cameronians were in residence). From 1946, as part of a postwar “Holidays At Home” scheme, on Saturdays throughout the summer there was a “Children’s Hour” performed each Saturday at 1030AM. Music, sing-alongs, Punch & Judy, competitions, team quizzes and dancing all took place. These ran until 1961

The bandstand began to fall out of favour in the 1960s, attendances dropped as public expectations changed. There were repeated letters to The Scotsman demanding the seating have a roof put over it “as a matter of desperation”. £10,000 was earmarked for this, but never spent. A temporary roof was eventually procured by Edinburgh District Council for the Bandstand’s seating area in 1986 at a cost of £180,000 for festival events. The 14 ton crane hired to erect it promptly cracked the concrete of the seating area and got stuck. When it came to re-erect the roof in 1987, the Conservative group on the council attempted to stop it at the Policy & Resources Committee. They wanted the whole bandstand gone on account of “the noise and cost to ratepayers”. It was “a scar on the landscape” said Cllr David Guestv

The SNP precipitated local controversy in 1971 when they tried to book the Bandstand to host a public debate on party policy on the European Common Market. The very conservative Finance Committee came down hard on the line that it was strictly to be used only for “entertainment purposes”.

Alongside use as a semi-covered Festival venue, the institution that was the end-of-festival Fireworks concert helped to save the bandstand, as each year the Royal Scottish National Orchestra would play a concert choreographed to fireworks launched from the castle. However, because there is never anything new under the sun in Edinburgh local politics even in 1989 the District Council was accused of “fervour” for “low art” by trying to make it more accessible the public by staging popular events and the letters pages of The Scotsman once again overflowed with debates on the pros and cons of the festivals.

The most recent attempt at redevelopment started way back in 2016 when the City of Edinburgh Council consulted on the future of the bandstand, with US architects appointed in 2017 to design new proposals which came to be dubbed “The Hobbit House” on account of the curving, grassed canopy. This was part of an overall public / private “partnership” scheme called (for reasons opaque ) The Quaich Project. It eventually foundered in 2021 due to a combination of political squabbling, disagreements over the design, substantial dissatisfaction over the potential restriction of access to what is seen as a public space and the main funder pulling out. The interminable debates around the Ross Bandstand continues to go on to this day, as it has done for the last 170 years.

Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.

If you have found this site useful, informative or amusing then you can help contribute towards its running costs by supporting me on ko-fi. This includes my commitment to keeping it 100% advert and AI free for all time coming, and in helping to find further unusual stories to bring you by acquiring books and paying for research.
Or please do just share this post on social media or amongst friends and like-minded people, sites like this thrive on being shared.

Explore Threadinburgh by map:

These threads © 2017-2026, Andy Arthur.

NO AI TRAINING: Any use of the contents of this website to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.