Skulferatu #12 – Lochend Park, Edinburgh

I lived in the Abbeyhill area of Edinburgh years ago and remember the first time I stumbled across Lochend Park with it’s strange, little loch in the middle.  It was a hot, humid summers day and the loch looked almost like something from a bayou in the southern United States with the trees growing out from the water.

Lochend Loch or Restalrig Loch is really just a large puddle that sits in a natural hollow in the ground and its depth varies with the rainfall.  It used to serve as one of the main water supplies for Leith, but the water was of poor quality and often stagnant.  The locals therefore preferred to get their water from the local wells instead.

Lochend Loch with Arthur's Seat in background and Lochend House on left of photo

 

The loch was also used for the hunting of wildfowl and King James IV of Scotland hunted there occasionally.

A drawing of Lochend Loch from Cassells Old & New Edinburgh Vol. 3 (1883)

 

Sometime in the 1570s the loch was the site of the ghostly apparition of a fairy army.  Bessie Dunlop, a midwife, and folk healer from Ayrshire was on the way to Leith and had stopped and tethered her horse by Restalrig Loch.  As she was resting, she heard ‘a tremendous sound of a body of riders rushing past her with a noise as if heaven and earth would come together…the sound swept past her and seemed to rush into the lake with a hideous rumbling noise.  All this while she saw nothing…’  (Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft, by Walter Scott).  It would seem that a ghost she regularly spoke to informed her that this was the fairies on one of their earthly processions.  Alas for poor Bessie, she was later tried and found guilty of witchcraft and in 1576 was executed on Castle Hill in Edinburgh.

Above Lochend Loch sits Lochend House, which is also known as Restalrig Castle.  The house used to belong to the Logan family, however it was confiscated from them by the Scottish Parliament in 1609, due to Robert Logan having been involved in a plot to abduct King James VI of Scotland.  From 1704 it was owned by the 6^th Duke of Balmerino, Arthur Elphinstone.  He was beheaded on 18 August 1746 at Tower Hill in London for his part in the Jacobite rising if 1745.  In 1816 most of the house was pulled down and a new house was built on the site.  The property was recently renovated and is now privately owned.

Lochend House, as seen from Lochend Park

 

There is a Doocot in the park which stands north from the house and next to a small, brightly coloured playground.  It provided a nesting site for several hundred pairs of pigeons, which were used for eggs and meat.  The Doocot is still popular with the local pigeons.

 

In 1645 the plague hit and devastated Leith, killing off around half the population (and we think we’ve got it bad with the Covid!).  There is evidence of a chimney in the Doocot and it is thought it was used as an incinerator to burn the clothing and other items of those who fell victim to the plague.  In old maps of the area, it is referred to as the ‘plague kiln’.

Doocot in Lochend Park

Pigeon sheltering inside Doocot

 

I left a Skulferatu by the loch as a present for the fairies, just in case they come by again.  I hope they like it.

Skulferatu #12

Skulferatu #12 resting on some leaves by the bank of the loch

 

Google Map showing location of Skulferatu

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are:

Latitude 55.960842

Longitude -3.159896

Article and photographs are copyright of © Kevin Nosferatu, unless otherwise specified.

Skulferatu #11 - Hangman's Crag, Holyrood Park, Edinburgh

I was out for a walk around Holyrood Park, and while there wandered past a spot known as Hangman's Crag.  Leaving the main path, I crossed over a small fence and took a narrow path up to the top of this rocky outcrop. I have walked up here a few times before, but always in the summer when it has been dry.  Though it was steep, it was a relatively easy walk.  Not so in winter.  Everything was slippery and wet and a worked up into a mass of mud from all the thousands of people who have been walking up this path in these Covid ridden times.  Thankfully, on the most treacherous part of the path, there were lots of tree branches to hold onto.  If there hadn’t been, I’d have ended up flat on my arse in the mud.

Hangman's Crag, with Duddingston Kirk in the background

Hangman’s Crag sounds like the name came from the place being a site of execution, but actually it comes rather from the sad tale of one of Edinburgh's much hated and loathed executioners.

 

In the late Seventeenth Century in Edinburgh, one of the city's hangmen was a young man who had come from a wealthy and well-to-do family from Melrose in the Scottish Borders.  On his father's death, he had inherited the estate and a great deal of money.  However, the young man had extravagant tastes and wasted the whole fortune on living the high life.  When not drinking, entertaining and visiting one of the city’s many whorehouses he was gambling away vast amounts of money.  Soon he was broke.  There was no money left.  To survive he had to move to lowly lodgings and sell off his belongings, though he did keep one set of fine clothes.  The young man then had to do what no gentleman should ever have to do, he had to work for a living. So, he took the job as the city hangman.  This was a particularly odious and unpopular job at that time, as many of those sentenced to die were innocent men fallen foul of higher powers or those whose religion was not in keeping with the main orthodoxy.  Even in normal times the city hangman was seen as someone on the fringes of society, on the same level as common criminals and prostitutes.

 

The young man took up this office and performed his duties of execution, flogging and all the other rather unpleasant sentences ordered by the courts.  Now, a man has to be of a certain mentality to carry out these sorts of duties and not be affected or destroyed by the torment he is inflicting.   This young man found escape from the guilt of his actions and from the lowly office he now occupied in life, by donning the one set of fine clothes he had kept and mixing with the gentlefolk of Edinburgh.   He would dress up and mingle with the groups of Edinburgh society who played golf in the evenings at Bruntsfield Links, and for a few hours he could feel he was back in his place in society.  He could switch off from the haunting screams of those whose lives he was paid to end.  Those he was paid to maim or torture or humiliate.

 

One day while out at Bruntsfield Links, the young man was recognised by a group playing golf.  One of their friends had recently been sentenced to death for some minor offence, and they realised that the young man playing golf alongside them was none other than the man who had hanged him.  They shouted at him and pointed out to the others there who he was.  They insulted him, spat at him, threw stones at him and chased him away.  They told him never to come back, that he was a disgrace and lower than even the most common and base criminal who had dangled from his rope.    The young man ran off humiliated and ashamed.  He made his way to the quiet solitude of one of the crags overlooking Duddingston Loch.  There he contemplated his life and what he had become.  Falling into a state of great despair he threw himself off the crag to his death.  His body was then found there the next day.  After this the crag he had thrown himself from was always referred to as the Hangman’s Crag.

View up path to top of Hangman's Crag - with Crow Hill in the background

View from Hangman's Crag over Duddingston Loch

 

Near the top of the crag, I found a hollow in a group of rocks near the cliff edge and there I left the Skulferatu that had accompanied me on my walk.

Skulferatu #11

Skulferatu #11 in a hollow between rocks at the crags edge

Google map showing location of Skulferatu #11

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are:

Latitude 55.941027

Longitude -3.154901

Skulferatu #10 - Scott Tower, Corstorphine Hill, Edinburgh

 

If you drive out of Edinburgh on Queensferry Road and head towards South Queensferry, the Forth Bridges and Fife, you pass Corstorphine Hill.  From the road it looks like nothing much, as all you can see is a scruffy area behind an old stone wall, with bushes and some towering trees.  There is no real sense of what lies behind this.  However, if you park up your car somewhere convenient and walk to the muddy path just off Queensferry Road, you enter a peaceful woodland haven.  Within a few yards it is hard to believe that just behind you is a noisy, polluted highway.

One of the old quarry sites on Corstorphine Hill

View from Corstorphine Hill of Forth Bridges and hills of Fife

When walking into the woodland from Queensferry Road, one of the first things you pass is Barnton Quarry.  The area is now fenced off.  It is a disused, stone quarry that was later used as a military command centre and nuclear bunker.  The bunker was built in 1952 and in the early 1960s was redesigned as a Regional Seat of Government.  This meant that in the event of a nuclear war up to 400 politicians and civil servants could shelter there, while the rest of us fried in the nuclear explosion or died in the nuclear fallout.  The site remained operational up until the early 1980s.  At the time of writing it is being renovated and converted into a museum and education centre.

 

So anyway, I slipped and slid in my inadequate footwear up through slimy paths of mud and dead leaves.  Around me birds sang in the woodland canopy up above.  Then after a bit further walking, I could see an old, stone tower emerging through the trees. 

Scott Tower through the trees

Stairs leading up hill to Scott Tower

This Victorian oddity is the Scott Tower (also known as Corstorphine Tower or Clermiston Tower) and was built in 1871 to commemorate the centenary of the birth of Sir Walter Scott.  A bit greedy you might think, considering that there was already the Scott Monument in central Edinburgh to celebrate his life.  However nowadays it is hard to comprehend the fame of this Edinburgh born novelist, poet, playwright and historian.  The man’s novels were international bestsellers.  In fact, it was said that some of his novels outsold the Bible, which at that time was quite something.  Nowadays his work, to the modern reader, seems very turgid and boring.  I did try to read his novel Waverley once for a university course, but soon gave up and did the work on a novel by Daniel Defoe instead.  Moll Flanders – a much easier read.

Scott Tower, Corstorphine Hill, Edinburgh

Scott Tower through the trees

 

Scott Tower is situated at the top of Corstorphine Hill and is twenty metres tall.  It is usually locked, but pre-Covid was open occasionally to the public.  I’ve never managed to get to it when it has been open, but have been told that the views from it are quite amazing.  One day I will get up there and take a few photos.

 

Today’s Skulferatu was left in a hollow in a tree not far from the entrance to the tower.

Skulferatu #10

Skulferatu #10 left in hollow in tree

Google Map showing location of Skulferatu #10

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are: Latitude 55.951069  Longitude -3.272677.

Skulferatu #9 - Nelson Monument, Calton Hill, Edinburgh

 

Path up to top of Calton Hill from Regent Road

Nelson's Monument, Calton Hill

I have many fond memories of Calton Hill and days of misspent youth there.  On a cold, February morning in 1982 the kid’s TV programme Swap Shop was live on the hill in front of the National Monument.  I have a memory of the main stage being a boxing ring, not metaphorically, but it literally was an actual boxing ring.  We then had the excitement of watching the Revillos mime to their song ‘Bongo Brain.’  There is an extremely lo-fi and wobbly video of this available on YouTube.

 

The Revillos on Swap Shop at Calton Hill, Edinburgh

In the summers of the mid 1980s my friends and I used to go up the hill and sit by the pillars of the National Monument of Scotland (or Edinburgh’s Disgrace, as we knew it).  There we’d smoke fags and drink cheap, nasty lager and think we were cool.  We were not cool, but rather just a bunch of slightly pissed and noisy teenage geeks.

Other than the National Monument, Calton Hill is cluttered with exciting, old buildings such as the Dugald Stewart Monument, the Old Observatory House, the City Observatory, and Nelson’s Monument.  It also has some spectacular views over Edinburgh.

View from Calton Hill over Edinburgh to Leith

 

A brief history of the main buildings is –

 

The National Monument of Scotland was built to commemorate the Scottish soldiers and sailors who died in the Napoleonic Wars.  It is modelled on the Parthenon in Athens and work began on it in 1826.  However, by 1829 the money for its construction had run out and it was left unfinished. 

The National Monument of Scotland or Scotland's Disgrace

 

The Dugald Stewart Monument is a memorial to the Scottish Philosopher and mathematician Dugald Stewart (1753-1828).  Regarded as an important figure in the Scottish Enlightenment he published many philosophical essays.  Here’s a little quote from him – ‘There are very few original thinkers in the world, or ever have been; the greatest part of those who are called philosophers, have adopted the opinions of some who went before them.’

The Dugald Stewart Memorial

 

The Old Observatory House was designed by the architect James Craig and was originally built as a family home.  It was then used by astronomers for a short time.  It is now rented out as holiday accommodation.

 

The City Observatory was built in 1818 and was used until 1896 when due to light pollution from the city centre, it was decided to move to the Royal Observatory at Blackford Hill.

 

Nelson’s Monument was built between 1807 and 1816 to commemorate Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson’s victory over the French and Spanish Fleets at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, and his death during the same battle.  In 1852 a mechanised time ball was added that was synchronised with the one o’clock gun fired daily from Edinburgh Castle.  The time ball dropped daily allowing ships in Leith Harbour to set their chronometers by it.

Nelson's Monument

 

I left the Skulferatu, that came on my walk in a gap in a tree, just on the hill leading up to Nelson’s Monument.

 

Skulferatu #9

Skulferatu #9 in split in tree

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are: Latitude 55.954352 Longitude -3.182646.

Google Map showing location of Skulferatu

 

Skulferatu #8 - Warriston Cemetery, Edinburgh

 

I do like a good wander round an old graveyard, and not just because I’m an ageing Goth.  They are great places for quiet contemplation and for getting one’s life into perspective.  As you walk round tomb after tomb of the great and the good, the self-important and the lowly it really does show you that life is just so fleeting.  That death not only comes to us all, but is also a great leveller.  Yes, some will have monuments towering up above them, but beneath they are just bones, clay or dust.  One day that is all any of us will be.  So, on that happy note, my latest walk was to and around Warriston Cemetery in Edinburgh.  This is one of my favourite of Edinburgh’s old cemeteries, as it is quiet and relatively peaceful, or was until Covid came along and everyone was looking for new places to discover and walk around.

Bridge leading into part of Warriston Cemetery

Gravestones covered in ivy

 

The cemetery is full of the graves of many of Edinburgh’s Victorian elite.  There are artists, poets, mathematicians and scientists lying in their damp graves alongside the merchants and lawyers of the city.  With the wonders of Google, you can look up lots of them and find out bits and pieces about their lives.

Gravestones in Warriston Cemetery

 

On this visit I came across the grave of the Nichol family.  I was intrigued by the few lines written about John Walter Nichol – ‘Assistant Astronomer in the Government “Venus” Expedition to Honolulu in 1874.  So, I had to look this up to see what it was all about.

Gravestone for Nichol Family

Inscription for John Walter Nichol

 

In 1874 a group of British scientists travelled to Hawaii to observe the transit of Venus.  This is when the planet Venus passes directly between the sun and a ‘superior planet.’   When this happens Venus can be seen from Earth as a small, black dot moving across the sun.  The purpose of the expedition to Hawaii was to obtain an accurate estimate of the distance from the Earth to the sun.  

It would seem that the tropical climate and the insects of Hawaii did not agree with the British scientists and Nichol is mentioned in a letter by  one of his colleagues who writes that – ‘…When it became necessary to commence the computing we found the mosquitos so troublesome it was almost impossible to do anything.  Nichol presented a mass of sores over his face and hands and Ramsden couldn’t sit at the table five minutes.’  (Michael E Chauvin - The Hawaiian Journal of History – Page 199).  The scientists were also disturbed from their work on numerous occasions by King Kalakaua of Hawaii and the locals, who all took a keen interest in what they were doing.  However, despite all of this the scientists carried out their observations and detailed and noted their calculations.

 

A collection of the documents, photographs and sketches from this expedition were digitised and are available from the Cambridge Digital Library.  Many of the sketches depict Nichol and other members of the team, as do the photographs. These can be accessed at -

https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/tov/1

 

By coincidence, while Googling for info on John Walter Nichol I found that there was a talk by Dr Rebekah Higgitt that evening about him and the expedition to Hawaii.  For anyone interested in details of the expedition and Nichol’s life and career, this talk is now available on the Astronomical Society of Edinburgh’s website.  From this I learnt that Nichol was known as Walter, rather than John and seemed to be a popular member of the group who went out to Hawaii.  That before joining this expedition he had been a shipping clerk at Leith, before going on to work as the second Assistant at the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh.  After the expedition to Hawaii he returned to Britain with the other members of the team and they all wrote up their findings at Greenwich.  He then went to Leipzig where he studied under Professor Karl Bruhns.

 

On his return to Britain he died suddenly of a pulmonary infection on 4 November 1878.

 

I left Nichol and his family a Skulferatu.

Skulferatu #8

Skulferatu #8 by the Nichol's gravestone

 

As I then walked around the graveyard, I found that on another old grave someone had left a small, handmade ceramic cat. Maybe someone else leaving little mementos?

Google Map showing location of Skulferatu

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are: Latitude 55.968509 Longitude -3.196384.