Dean Village & Water of Leith
Ross McDowell / Tartan Compass
A short walk downhill from the New Town reaches another Edinburgh: river, old milling ground, workers' housing and modern art gathered along the Water of Leith.
Dean Village is one of those places people often stop for a photograph and then leave. I think it becomes much more interesting when you follow the water rather than treating the village as the destination. The Water of Leith takes you through milling, industry, architecture, modern art and neighbourhoods such as Stockbridge, Canonmills and the West End. I like how many different versions of Edinburgh sit close together along the same river.
Dean Village grew as a milling community beside the Water of Leith, with a history reaching back to the twelfth century. Flour milling shaped the settlement for centuries, and traces of that working past survive in buildings, carved symbols and the relationship between the village and the river. The area later changed dramatically. Well Court, completed in 1880, was built as workers' housing, while the former John Watson's School on nearby Belford Road became the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in 1984. Within a relatively small area, Edinburgh shifts from water-powered industry and workers' housing to a residential riverside and national collections of modern art. The interest lies in how closely those different versions of the city now sit.
The descent from the New Town changes the level, enclosure and sound of the city very quickly. At Dean Village, the Water of Leith runs through a narrow ravine, creating a sudden sense of enclosure below the surrounding streets. Around Dean Village, the river, older industrial fabric and carved references to bread and milling reveal more than the postcard view alone. At Modern One, the former school building adds another layer of reuse: a substantial nineteenth-century institution adapted for a very different civic purpose.
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