Qualla: Princes Street Gardens

Princes Street Gardens: Introduction

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Brian McNeil, CC BY 3.0. There was a loch here once, and it was infamous. The Nor Loch had been built in the 15th century as a defensive moat on the north side of Edinburgh's Old Town, but by the 18th century it had become an open sewer, fed by waste draining downhill from the tenements above. People drowned in it. People drowned witches and other accused in it on purpose. When the New Town was planned in the 1760s, the loch had to go. Workers drained it slowly, foot by foot. The valley they uncovered became Princes Street Gardens, and what was once Edinburgh's most disgusting feature is now its most photographed park.

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Image: Brian McNeil | CC BY 3.0

Princes Street Gardens: Two Gardens, Divided by Art

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Taras Young, CC BY-SA 4.0. The park is actually two parks, divided by The Mound. East Princes Street Gardens cover 8.5 acres, running from The Mound east to Waverley Bridge. West Princes Street Gardens, the larger half at 29 acres, stretch from The Mound west toward Lothian Road. The dividing line is the a...

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Image: Taras Young | CC BY-SA 4.0

Princes Street Gardens: The Scott Monument

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Martin Abegglen from Bern, Switzerland, CC BY-SA 2.0. Rising 200 feet above the East Gardens is the Scott Monument, a Gothic Revival spire built between 1840 and 1844 to honour Sir Walter Scott, the novelist whose Waverley novels defined the modern image of Scotland. The monument was designed by George Meikle Kemp, a self-taught arc...

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Image: Martin Abegglen from Bern, Switzerland | CC BY-SA 2.0

Princes Street Gardens: Wojtek the Bear

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chen Zhao from Beijing, China, CC BY 2.0. Among the statues in the West Gardens is one of the most unusual war memorials in Britain. It depicts Wojtek, a Syrian brown bear adopted as a cub by Polish soldiers in Iran during the Second World War. Wojtek travelled with the 22nd Artillery Supply Company of the II Polish Corp...

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Image: Chen Zhao from Beijing, China | CC BY 2.0

Princes Street Gardens: The Bandstand and the Fountain

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Monniaux, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Ross Bandstand, a 1935 open-air theatre in the centre of the West Gardens, hosts the Festival Fireworks Concert each summer and the Hogmanay concert each Hogmanay. It is named for William Henry Ross, chairman of the Distillers Company, who gifted the first bandstand on the si...

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Image: David Monniaux | CC BY-SA 3.0

Princes Street Gardens: The First Floral Clock

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stefan Schäfer, Lich, CC BY-SA 4.0. At the eastern entrance to the West Gardens, a working clock is planted in the ground each spring. Its face is a circular flowerbed; its hands are real moving hands driven by a clockwork mechanism. The Floral Clock dates from 1903, when it was designed by John McHattie, the Park ...

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Image: Stefan Schäfer, Lich | CC BY-SA 4.0