Saturday 7 June 2008

Stones - George Square

As promised, another photo of lovely stonework on one of Edinburgh's older buildings. As you can see, the walls were recently repointed. The little stones inbetween the larger ones give the walls a pretty but peculiar effect, and I've never seen this anywhere else. These buildings are on George Square and were originally built as fashionable town houses in the 18th century, the most famous former inhabitant of the square being author and historian Sir Walter Scott. Unfortunately, most of the square was demolished in the sixties to make way for modern university buildings.

In the middle of the square is a lovely park (see tomorrow's post) which is used mainly by students but comes into its own each August, when it is totally transformed to the fabulous Spiegel Garden.


3 comments:

M.Benaut said...

Again, the pointing and the attention to restoration has shown that preservation is so important to a city's heritage.
What could they have been thinking of in the 60's ?
These old town houses appear to have a basement too.
Are they also used by the university ?

Ineke said...

Looks fantastic.

Dido said...

Yep they are M. Benaut! I used to be in a similar building as a student some years ago, and although they are cute they're not very practical...