“Idyllic. But not in this climate”: the thread about the Braidburn Valley open-air theatre

A public request for background information on the history of the Braidburn Valley Open-air Theatre inevitably saw me take a diversion down this particular rabbit hole. The city acquired 28 acres of ground in this area along the Braid Burn in 1933 for £2,000 from the Mortonhall estate. At this time this land was part of the farmland of Greenbank which was then being feued into plots to contribute yet more bungalow sprawl to inter-war suburban Edinburgh. The valley was unsuitable for development due to its steep sides and the fact some of Edinburgh’s principal drinking water pipes ran beneath it from the Comiston and Swanston springs. A condition of the sale was that the land must be kept as an open park in perpetuity.

Braidburn Valley, overlay comparing 1890s 1-to-25 inch OS mapping with 1944 OS Town Survey. Use the slider to compare. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

The City Architect and Superintendent of Parks were authorised to visit Scarborough to inspect the Valley Park Gardens there and to report back with ideas as to how this could be replicated in Edinburgh. Coincidentally the year before, in 1932 Scarborough had also built an open-air theatre which is now Europe’s largest. When the proposal for the Braidburn Valley came in front of the Corporation’s General Purposes Committee in 1935 (coincidentally the same year that the Ross Bandstand was approved for Princes Street Gardens), it included an open-air theatre.

Scarborough Valley Park, 1906 colour postcard.

The Edinburgh’s Playgoers’ Circle, an amateur theatre company, had put on some shows at the new Ross Bandstand that year and found that the city centre background noise of trams and trains and traffic was too disruptive to the performance. They were loathe to move to electrical amplification and J. R. Copland of the Playgoers‘ was therefore supportive of the idea of an open-air theatre where their productions could be enjoyed in relative peace. The plans were approved that year and £2,000 was set aside by the city for the initial layout. In November, 5,000 local Girl Guides gifted and planted some 400 cherry blossom trees to mark the Silver Jubilee of King George V.

Edinburgh Evening News headline, 4th November 1935. “Gift of Guides. Edinburgh Avenue of Cherry Trees. Silver Jubilee Tribute”

At this time, the gate piers of nearby Comiston House, about ½ mile to the south, were relocated to the park to serve as an ornamental entrance. By September 1936 initial park layout including paths, a bridge over the burn, shrubberies, grass, planting and fences were completed.

The old Comiston House entrance pillars at Braidburn Valley Park, CC-by-SA 2.0 © Copyright Leslie Barrie. The right hand pillar was demolished by a council lorry a number of years ago and so the top had to be replace.

The theatre opened with a “mass display of dancing” on June 26th 1937 as part of wider celebrations for the Coronation of King George VI that summer in the city. One thousand children from the city’s schools gave a display of Scottish, Scandinavian and English folk dance in national costume to a crowd of 3,500. The children were drawn from the city’s 17 secondary and intermediate schools and the musical accompaniment came from the Edinburgh Postal Band. The display opened with March of the Peers from Iolanthe followed by a drill of physical exercise and the country dance Princess Royal by 168 girls. A special feature was the “Rose Dance“, first performed for Queen Mary on a visit to Holyroodhouse in 1934. Most of the dances and dancers were girls, but 126 boys performed two Morris Dances (Helston Fury and Blue-Eyed Stranger) followed by a gymnastic display. The concert used a 150-foot wide wooden stage, which could be broken down into sections and stored for when it was not needed. The Braid Burn itself runs between the amphitheatre and the stage area, a feature possibly inspired by the layout of the Scarborough example.

Newsprint photo, Evening News 28th June 1937, showing the opening concert of the Braidburn Valley Theatre, taken looking down from the amphitheatre towards the distant stage where children are dancing.

Curiously it was not theatre but sheep-dog trials which was one of the early draws at the theatre. This was the idea of Lord Provost Louis Gumley in aid of the Lord Provost’s Benevolent Fund. These were held in 1938, with local owners encouraged to bring their dogs and the Edinburgh Police Pipe Band providing entertainment. Theatrical use was relatively scant however, in 1942 the main use was reported to be open air church services by the Edinburgh United Churches Committee with services preached to by serving Army chaplains and hymns accompanied by Army bands. In 1944 local Girl Guides and Boys Brigade companies were using the theatre for demonstration concerts that included physical drill, country dancing, human pyramids, “Indian club swinging” and choreographed semaphore. Proceeds went to the Church of Scotland scheme for welfare huts and canteens for service personnel.

Church of Scotland huts canteen lorry. August 1941. Matson Photo Service, Library of Congress 2019712145

The Phillip Barrett Company put on a Shakespearean Festival Week in June 1945 as part of the Corporation’s “Holidays At Home” scheme to provide summer public entertainments. The programme included A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It and The Taming of the Shrew. The success encouraged a repeat for 1946 and the Southern Light Opera Company were engaged to perform Merrie England, the Parks Department even dammed the Braidburn sufficiently to allow Queen Elizabeth (Mrs G. Lowson) to arrive by barge! Coincidentally this was the very play that had opened the Scarborough open-air theatre back in 1932…

Queen Elizabeth arrives by barge in the production of Merrie England at Braidburn Valley Park, 1946. Photo credit the family of the late Mrs G. Lowson, from “South Edinburgh : Liberton, Swanston, Fairmilehead, Greenbank, Blackford, Braid” by Malcolm Cant, 2007

The weather forced repeat stagings to be cancelled and when they returned in June 1947 to perform The Vagabond King the Edinburgh weather again intervened and there were very low audiences before the wind blew away and destroyed the scenery. The theatre was “Idyllic. But not in this climate!” reported the Evening News.

Evening News, Tuesday June 17th 1947. “William Grant, who plays the title role in “The Vagabond King” at the Braidburn open-air theatre this week, parades with his company of Scottish Archers”.

Throughout the 1950s the theatre continued to be used by both Festival and Fringe productions, frequently Shakespeare but also Ancient Greek comedies and tragedies, including in 1958 a debut production of The Puddocks, a new Scots translation of Aristophanes. The 1959 re-run of the latter show was sensibly held indoors. The theatre seems to have been largely unused in the 1960s although the Dog Aid Society of Scotland did hold a dog show in 1962: sadly but somewhat predictably it was rained out! The last theatrical performance I can find advertised was The Shepherd Beguiled in 1982 by Theatre Alba, featuring a real horse. A night-time production held in August, the cold and windy weather saw an audience of just 20 attend. Sensibly the rest of the run had been scheduled indoors at the Traverse Theatre. The last advertised use was a touring programme of children’s puppet shows in the summer holidays organised by Edinburgh District Council in 1988. You can still clearly see the theatre though, regular terracing in the hillside from the seating and the flat stage area below ringed by Hornbeam trees.

The open-air Theatre in Braidburn Valley Park. The stage is surrounded on three sides by hornbeam trees, and the terraced seating is on the other side of the Braidburn. CC-by-SA 2.0, © M. J. Richardson

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