ADM Mill. Leith Views. Bonnington District. Water of Leith Walkway.

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This was the second half of a walk I did in October of 2025 on a different bus trip to Edinburgh from the Dean Village day but as it includes The Water of Leith Walkway and this massive grain mill, seen here with Arthur's Seat behind, it makes sense to fit it in here. The east coast gets half the rainfall and far more sunshine than the west coast so better growing conditions this side of Scotland.

This ADM mill in Leith built in the late 1960s replaced the old Chancelot Flour Mill at Bonnington which was built in the 1890s and lasted around 70 years before it was gutted by fire and an explosion then demolished. Flour stored in large quantities can be explosive. Which was a shame as it was an impressive huge building in the French chateau style with a large clock tower in the middle of the complex similar to Clydebank's Singer sewing machine factory clock tower ( also demolished) or Falkirk's Callendar House ( still there, but without a clock tower.) High clock towers adorned many large factories built in the Victorian era so workers without watches couldn't claim they never knew the start time and indeed across Europe watch and clock making developed at pace in the Industrial era mainly to encourage/ indoctrinate the tardy workforce to turn up on time, go to bed on time, and turn up the next day on time - semi sober. To live by the clock in other words.

Modern flour mills this size replaced the older style mills around picturesque Dean Village in the last post. It is also located in an empty area around the Port of Leith without housing surrounding it. Flour in these quantities being more prone to going off than dynamite apparently and the end of many an unsafe Victorian mill. 

Next to the ADM Milling fence lies a mural wall although this is much reduced since I was last here when my friend Anne danced Kiesza's Hideaway between two separate walls and dozens of good murals on show. Now it was just one wall, a few murals, but mostly graffiti. (Same as Glasgow's River Clyde waterfront city centre mural wall these days.)

Ozzy tribute. Didn't know he ate doves as well as bats....

Urban city art.

A short walk later I arrived at Leith. Leith is Edinburgh's traditionally working class port district but the area around the Water of Leith where it meets the sea has been gentrified into a kind of mini Venice or Amsterdam. When I first came here I thought 'Who the hell is Mary of Guise?' Not being a historian or from Edinburgh I was clueless until I looked it up. She was a noblewoman from one of the most connected families in France, Queen of Scotland for several years in the mid 1500s, and the mother of Mary, Queen of Scots. The daughter who had a legitimate claim to the throne of England as well as Scotland, which is why she had such an unhappy life of imprisonment in various castles.

I've always liked Leith from the moment I laid eyes on it. The waterfront... the Port of Leith with its range of interesting ships, the buildings ( clearly influenced by its east coast trading partners in the Low Countries, Holland and Amsterdam...

As seen here in this photo.  Note again 7 floors and five floors high. Most Glasgow tenements are 3, 4, 6, etc usually even numbers of floors in the main even in high rise flats whereas Edinburgh prefers odd numbers including 9, 11 and 13, 15.

A wide range of architecture and styles. Malmaison Hotel here and open plaza. Note 5 floors.

Commercial Street View. Opps!  Nope.    5 floors if you include the attics :o)

Bernard Street View...

And of course the Water of Leith Walkway. Normally in past decades I've walked or cycled down the Water of Leith from the outskirts to the sea but this time I fancied doing it in reverse.

Mural reflecting the current world situation. War instead of peace.

When I was looking in this direction I noticed a swan family approaching.

I have seen up to ten cygnets in a family but 2 or 3 is more common by the time they reach adulthood so this group of six is doing well. Pike, mink, trapped in rubbish, discarded fishing gear, swallowing plastic...it all mounts up.

A peaceful wooded stretch of the Water of Leith. And it was near here I discovered more murals.

Wildlife in pastels this time.

An otter.

More swans.

Antony Gormley sculpture in the Water of Leith. I think there's six statues in total here but I only noticed two. This one on past occasions, because the water here is shallow, has been dressed in various outfits from a fast food helper to a sailor so this is the first time I've spotted it naked of clothes.

The last figure sits on an old disused pier in the Western Harbour and it is a far harder one to get out to dress so it is usually left unadorned but not alone, surrounded by seabirds, including various cormorants, seen here.

I liked these shell and pebble decorations on walkway walls.

And at Bonnington District I also passed this huge warehouse which I think was a sugar refinery to begin with then maybe, perhaps, a bond storing imported alcohol and tobacco. Not too sure about that as Bonnington used to be an industrial district which has other large old buildings close by and one of them might have been the bond. The Chancelot Flour mill mentioned earlier was in this same district. ( you can see photos of that on Google or other search engines. Chancelot Flour Mill. 'The most handsome mill in the world.' 

Now, like many other listed buildings in Edinburgh, unlike Glasgow, it has been converted into upmarket apartments, along with many others in this district. I was intrigued here to notice the bottom two floors left open and unconverted. Air ventilation or an underground car park, storage etc? ..... A mystery.

I did have an online look at the apartments inside here a few months ago, once converted, just out of interest, and they were very stylish, well out of my price range... or taste. Between £1000 to 1,500 a month rent. I also thought, maybe unfounded, that the real reason Edinburgh converts so many old buildings into apartments is that folk want to live in this city but, due to inconvenient rocky outcrops, volcanoes etc, getting in the way there's not that much spare empty land left inside Edinburgh's city limits to build new stuff on. New affordable starter home housing on previously un-built ground is appearing... but outside the city boundary... so not part of Edinburgh.

In the last post I featured a song called Riverside. Now I have found members of the Danish National Girls Choir singing it. I've never put a choir on here before so this must be on a different level of excellence. Unusual setting but it works. Beautiful harmonics that elevate this classic song even further. Another thing I never thought about until I looked it up recently is that in the Scandinavian countries , i.e. Norway, Sweden and Denmark, most people can understand each other to a certain extent as all three have the same root language, especially written down on paper. Still learning facts all the time.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_Z0WUZgCwU&list=RDw_Z0WUZgCwU&start_radio=1

 

Edinburgh. St Mary's Episcopal Cathedral. Dean Village. Water of Leith.

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A return to Dean Village by skirting the edge of Edinburgh's New Town district. Getting off the Glasgow to Edinburgh bus just before Haymarket at Coates Gardens for the magnificent Gladstone Memorial. This is just one single level of this multiple level  structure as it is a very impressive sculpture for a Prime Minister/ Politician. I can't think of any I've seen in the UK, certainly in Scotland, that is more impressive. Not just the great man himself up top but a galaxy of surrounding figures sprawling out below his feet.  Margaret Thatcher's sculpture was smaller I'd imagine....as was Winston Churchill's ... though both had a large impact on the UK in modern times.

Info board. The man himself stands on top, with a lower plinth of noble virtues supporting his mighty weight below. 

I then visited St Mary's Episcopal Cathedral in Palmerston Place, which is also worth a visit and not far away. 

Three distinctive spires that can be clearly seen from all over Edinburgh and beyond.... from up in the surrounding hills even.

A real touch of Gothic art. I think so anyway..... and appropriate for what follows. 

The entrance doors.  A cathedral built throughout the 1870s. Triple spires are fairly rare. Can't think of another one. Cathedral info and a very good slideshow gallery of interiors in this link.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Mary%27s_Cathedral,_Edinburgh_(Episcopal)

Part of the gardens and cottages built around the cathedral....

Which led me down to Dean Village. This used to be an industrial mill hub, making flour from grain originally powered by the Water of Leith flowing past down in this steep gorge. When the various mills closed in the 1960s the place fell into a slow decay, then, during the 1970s and 1980s, it received a makeover and gentrification. It's now a major tourist hot spot.

It is unique though. Nothing else in Scotland comes close. It's fascinating history here. 800 years of milling. Additional gallery of photos in here... under gallery.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Village

I've known it through it's many changes over the decades from the semi abandoned 1970s onwards. It used to be fairly quiet. Now it's a social media hotspot for photos for instagram... facebook... etc...  But no wonder. It is scenic perfection. The hard part nowadays is trying to capture images of it without loads of tourists standing in the way :o)

I just about managed it. 

I also thought I would add in my own take on Dean Village. Flowers. I found these elsewhere in Edinburgh, floating half submerged in water. The nicest displays I've seen so I had to capture them before they vanished... forever.... below... as fish food.

Of course it's hard to think of flowers and water without that famous painting by Millais. There is a point to this inclusion. Mill. Danish woman. water's edge.

Edinburgh's West End sculptures.

Dean Village School.

Ornate building. Dean Village.

You can walk from here all the way down the Water of Leith to Leith Docks and the Sea in a few miles but as I've done that walk many times I decided to go another way. Upwards.

But I will save that walk for another time and post... and leave you with this. Edinburgh's elaborate National Portrait Gallery. I loved the building inside and out. Not so much the portraits inside... most of them unknown and quietly forgotten from the unremembered past, only head and shoulder portraits mostly... so not much to get excited about.

But I did like the building.

and it's not far from the bus station.

I've recently discovered the hypnotic yet delicate piano melodies, strings, and voice of Danish singer songwriter Agnes Obel. If you haven't heard this haunting ballad before you should give it a listen. It really grows on you as a modern classic. A cross between fairy tale and gothic lullaby. Both the song and this enigmatic video that goes with it.. A perfect match for this scenic colourful post. I think it is anyway.  I do my best to bring sparkling gems I've found and place them on the table. Up to you to examine them. It is in English, not Danish.

Personally I still love discovering new talent/ artists from every country. In any language. But that's a harder sell. This isn't... or shouldn't be.

 

This is it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjncyiuwwXQ&list=RDvjncyiuwwXQ&start_radio=1

Edinburgh. Corstorphine Hill. Water of Leith. Murrayfield. Balgreen Tunnel Murals.

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Another solo bus trip through to Edinburgh in October 2025. Three full weeks of glorious sunshine to look back on in wonder after a mild but gloomy and frequently wet winter thus far. I got off at Edinburgh Zoo as I wanted to go up Corstorphine Hill again, the largest area of public woodland within the city. It's also the only summit not to have a panoramic view, unless you climb the stone tower on a Sunday to rise above the trees, an early tribute to best selling writer Sir Walter Scott and his famous period books. This is a view of Corstorphine Hill, above. 

The info board at the start of the walk. A single km past The Holiday Inn and the Spire Murrayfield Hospital entrance you come to an obvious gap in the wall, still on Corstorphine Road with deep mature woodland immediately encountered. Follow the path or paths uphill through this wood and you eventually arrive at an open meadow section with views above the trees. A better maintained foot path is also available slightly further along Corstorphine Road if you don't fancy the look of the deep woods path. This leads to the same place.

The meadow area on Corstorphine Hill with views over the city to The Pentland Hills. It was fairly murky for distance views so I'd deliberately picked this heavily wooded hillside as I knew it had limited views in certain places. The summit itself covered in high trees with zero views. Having been up it several times in the past, most memorably with Anne on our hedonistic crawl across the seven city summits spread over two laughter filled days I was not too bothered. As nothing could match that trip. ( Good hill runners can do all seven hills in a few hours but we indulged ourselves to include an overnight outdoor stop halfway round, savouring every single step upwards.) A best ever Edinburgh trip from august 2018 on this blog.  

The sun came out briefly for this view over the golf course towards the city centre. Edinburgh Castle and the three black spires of St Mary's Episcopal Cathedral being obvious landmarks in this photo. I've been inside both buildings during previous visits to the city.  

Calton Hill in this one.

Another viewpoint higher up looking across to Muirhouse/ Granton Districts. That last time with Anne we had walked over the summit on the John Muir Way, down past Davidsons Mains to the seaside. This time I skipped that long descent route as I wanted to retrace my steps back to Murrayfield, The Water of Leith Walkway, and a mural tunnel I had just heard about.

Murrayfield Stadium. Home of Scottish and International Rugby.

And right beside it a section of the Water of Leith walkway which I followed down to the Balgreen Tunnel on Balgreen Road where it passes under a railway line.

Although bone dry weather for weeks all through a sun drenched October of 2025 these slabs reminded me of flash flood channels I've seen in Australia and the USA so maybe they do get heavy rain here on occasion.

The Balgreen Tunnel art project. An unavoidable dark tunnel, especially in the winter months for school children, the elderly, and lone females, with schools and jobs either side, this has been transformed into a cheerful place. Well, As much as any underpass tunnel can be when it's dark by 4:00pm in the drab winter months.   

I was impressed. Think how long this section took just drawing in all the prickles.

Butterfly, Swifts and blue flowers.

A different style of painting to the previous murals featured as a different artist involved.

Bee and bluebells.

Inspired....I even had a go myself........ with a passing pedestrian makeover :o)

Bee and frog.

Grey Heron.

Magpie. Our 'parrot of the cold north' with its long tail.

I then retraced my route, this time up Balgreen Road, where I spotted this decorated Post Box.

And then ended at a statue I've flashed past dozens of times on the city to city bus, back on Corstorphine Road. Always wanted to see it properly.

This info explains it. In Robert Louis Stevenson's famous book 'Kidnapped' the two lead charters part company here, on the outskirts of Edinburgh. ( I think it was actually on Corstorphine Hill itself with a view over the city where they parted but a statue like this one stuck up there, unsupervised, would not last long un-vandalized and unmolested.) 

The journey did not end there for them....

or for me either. No 26 bus on Corstorphine Road. A very handy local bus indeed.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaL90sMAzbY

Emily. A 2022 film. Unlike the much hyped Wuthering Heights current film adaptation, still to be released, which I've no intention of seeing having already watched several different versions including a classic black and white one. Emily was different. No hype at all so when I watched it on TV recently it came as an unexpected surprise. I really enjoyed it. Not much is known about Emily Bronte and her private life so the director/writer had to fill in the gaps with imaginative speculation. This results in a very different film that really captures the spirit of being young and outdoors in any time period. A nature lover. Quiet and sensitive yet filled with a youthful restless energy I well remember. Great acting and filming of the moors both dark, unpredictable and brooding at times yet sun filled, lush and majestic in summer. This film captures all the various moods including a wayward friendship with black sheep brother Branwell, which gives it spice, a hidden love affair, and a joyful intensity. I read Wuthering Heights as a teenager, was impressed by its obsessional destructive love story, very different from many other female works of the period, especially her two sister's books, so I was smitten with this film after such a long gap of exploration into that world. It even rekindled long half forgotten memories of my own youthful outdoor escapades at that age, early voyages in the fields and woods of 'Demeter'. A burst of unexpected remembering like a fizzy drink pouring into my mind in a stream of tasty happiness. Not something I get very often watching any film... if ever. So I recommend it if its on TV or on a paid subscription channel. Some traditionalists may not like it though. It's not a film for them.

And a good meal to go with it. Chicken Balti, rice and seedless grapes. For the zing! A few tinned peach slices work well also if grapes are unavailable.