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The Meadows (park)
Encyclopedia
- This article describes the park in Edinburgh. For other uses, see The Meadows (disambiguation)The Meadows-Towns and locales:* The Meadows , a neighborhood in Key West, Florida.* The Meadows, Florida, a census-designated place in Sarasota County, Florida, United States* The Meadows, Albemarle County, Virginia* The Meadows, Northampton County, Virginia...
.
The Meadows is a large public park
Park
A park is a protected area, in its natural or semi-natural state, or planted, and set aside for human recreation and enjoyment, or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. It may consist of rocks, soil, water, flora and fauna and grass areas. Many parks are legally protected by...
in Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
, Scotland, just to the south of the city
City status in the United Kingdom
City status in the United Kingdom is granted by the British monarch to a select group of communities. The holding of city status gives a settlement no special rights other than that of calling itself a "city". Nonetheless, this appellation carries its own prestige and, consequently, competitions...
centre. Largely consisting of wide open grassland crossed by tree-lined paths, the park also has a children's playground
Playground
A playground or play area is a place with a specific design for children be able to play there. It may be indoors but is typically outdoors...
, a croquet
Croquet
Croquet is a lawn game, played both as a recreational pastime and as a competitive sport. It involves hitting plastic or wooden balls with a mallet through hoops embedded into the grass playing court.-History:...
club, tennis court
Tennis court
A tennis court is where the game of tennis is played. It is a firm rectangular surface with a low net stretched across the center. The same surface can be used to play both doubles and singles.-Dimensions:...
s and cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
pitches. It is bordered by the University of Edinburgh
University of Edinburgh
The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university located in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university...
's George Square campus and the old Edinburgh Royal Infirmary
Edinburgh Royal Infirmary
The Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh or RIE, sometimes mistakenly referred to as Edinburgh Royal Infirmary or ERI, was established in 1729 and is the oldest voluntary hospital in Scotland. The new buildings of 1879 were claimed to be the largest voluntary hospital in the United Kingdom, and later on...
complex to the north; and Marchmont
Marchmont
Marchmont is a mainly residential affluent area of Edinburgh, Scotland. It lies roughly a mile to the south of the Old Town, separated from it by The Meadows and Bruntsfield Links...
to the south. To the south-west it becomes Bruntsfield Links
Bruntsfield Links
Bruntsfield Links is of park in Bruntsfield, Edinburgh, immediately to the south-west of The Meadows, which it adjoins.Unlike The Meadows, which is a former loch, Bruntsfield Links was always dry...
where there is a free, public pitch and putt
Pitch and putt
Pitch and putt is an amateur sport, similar to golf. The maximum hole length for international competitions is with a maximum total course length of . Players may only use three clubs; one of which must be a putter...
golf course. Its location makes it a popular walking route between the city centre and Marchmont, and because of safety concerns, in 2006 the City Council
Politics of Edinburgh
The politics of Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, are evident in the deliberations and decisions of the council of Edinburgh, in elections to the council, the Scottish Parliament, the House of Commons and the European Parliament....
announced plans to improve the lighting and policing
Policing in the United Kingdom
Law enforcement in the United Kingdom is organised separately in each of the legal systems of the United Kingdom: England & Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland ....
at night.
The size and prominence of the park has led to many sporting events being hosted in the summer. Every March, 1,000 runners take part in the annual Meadows Marathon
Meadows Marathon
The Meadows Marathon is a non-profit annual charity Half Marathon and five km fun run. It takes place annually in The Meadows on the first Sunday in March. It is the largest event organised by Edinburgh Students' Charities Appeal.History...
, a charity half marathon and five kilometre fun run. Between 1975 and 2005 the Meadows Festival was held on the first weekend in June, returning from 2008 onwards. The Meadows is one of the host venues for the Edinburgh Festival
Edinburgh Festival
The Edinburgh Festival is a collective term for many arts and cultural festivals that take place in Edinburgh, Scotland each summer, mostly in August...
, such as the annual Fringe Sunday
Edinburgh Fringe
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the world’s largest arts festival. Established in 1947 as an alternative to the Edinburgh International Festival, it takes place annually in Scotland's capital, in the month of August...
. It is also the venue for the start and finish of the Edinburgh MoonWalk, an annual event involving 12,000 walkers raising money for breast cancer research and treatment. Being one of the few flat stretches of open land in the central area of the city, it is occasionally host to public protests and rallies, including the 225,000-strong Make Poverty History
Make Poverty History
Make Poverty History is the name of a campaign that exists in a number of countries, including Australia, Canada, Denmark , Finland, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Romania, the United Arab Emirates, Great Britain and Ireland...
march on 2 July 2005. Circus
Circus
A circus is commonly a travelling company of performers that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other stunt-oriented artists...
es also frequently visit The Meadows around June.
History
The Meadows was originally a lochLoch
Loch is the Irish and Scottish Gaelic word for a lake or a sea inlet. It has been anglicised as lough, although this is pronounced the same way as loch. Some lochs could also be called a firth, fjord, estuary, strait or bay...
: the Burgh Loch (see burgh
Burgh
A burgh was an autonomous corporate entity in Scotland and Northern England, usually a town. This type of administrative division existed from the 12th century, when King David I created the first royal burghs. Burgh status was broadly analogous to borough status, found in the rest of the United...
) or South Loch (cf. Nor Loch
Nor Loch
The Nor Loch, also known as the Nor' Loch and the North Loch, was a loch formerly in Edinburgh, Scotland, in the area now occupied by Princes Street Gardens, which lies between the Royal Mile and Princes Street.- Geological formation :...
). The loch covered the area from approximately, to the east, Hope Park Terrace, to the west, where Melville Drive becomes Brougham Street, to the south, Melville Drive, and to the north the site of the Old Royal Infirmary, a total of 63 acres (254,952.2 m²). The loch drained from east to west, where the burn
Burn (stream)
In Scotland, North East England and some parts of Ireland and New Zealand, burn is a name for watercourses from large streams to small rivers. The term is also used in lands settled by the Scots and Northern English in other countries, notably in Otago, New Zealand, where much of the naming was...
known as the Loch-rin was sluiced to prevent the water from draining out. It is from this burn that the Lochrin street names in Tollcross
Tollcross, Edinburgh
Tollcross is a crossroads in the South-West of the City Centre of Edinburgh, Scotland, and also the surrounding area which derives its name from the junction.-Physical description:...
derive. Until Edinburgh's first piped water supply from Comiston arrived in 1621, the loch provided much of the town's drinking water.
It was partially drained in the mid-17th century and for a time named Straiton's Loch or Straiton's Park after the burgess who tried to improve the area. From 1722 century Sir Thomas Hope (c. 1681–1771), an agricultural improver and politician, ordered more drainage work, making the marshy land into a park with a path round the edge, hedges, avenues of lime trees, drainage canals and a summer house. The central tree-lined path known as Middle Meadow Walk followed, and for several decades maps labelled this area as "The Meadows or Hope Park". It is the traditional practice ground of the Royal Company of Archers
Royal Company of Archers
The Royal Company of Archers is a ceremonial unit that serves as the Sovereign's Bodyguard in Scotland, a role it has performed since 1822 and the reign of King George IV, when the company provided a personal bodyguard to the King on his visit to Scotland. It is currently known as the Queen's...
whose meeting-place is nearby. In 1827 an act of Parliament protected the meadows from being built on.
Though animals were grazed there and notable Edinburgh citizens are known to have walked there, there was no full right of public access until the middle of the 19th century when new paths were gradually added criss-crossing the park. An exception to city council
City council
A city council or town council is the legislative body that governs a city, town, municipality or local government area.-Australia & NZ:Because of the differences in legislation between the States, the exact definition of a City Council varies...
rules against building on the land was allowed for the large glass pavilion
Pavilion (structure)
In architecture a pavilion has two main meanings.-Free-standing structure:Pavilion may refer to a free-standing structure sited a short distance from a main residence, whose architecture makes it an object of pleasure. Large or small, there is usually a connection with relaxation and pleasure in...
of the 1886 International Exhibition of Industry, Science and Art. The whale
Whale
Whale is the common name for various marine mammals of the order Cetacea. The term whale sometimes refers to all cetaceans, but more often it excludes dolphins and porpoises, which belong to suborder Odontoceti . This suborder also includes the sperm whale, killer whale, pilot whale, and beluga...
jaw
Jaw
The jaw is any opposable articulated structure at the entrance of the mouth, typically used for grasping and manipulating food. The term jaws is also broadly applied to the whole of the structures constituting the vault of the mouth and serving to open and close it and is part of the body plan of...
bones now forming an arch over the Meadows path called Jawbone Walk had originally decorated one of the exhibition's displays.
Heart of Midlothian F.C.
Heart of Midlothian Football Club are a Scottish professional football club based in Gorgie, in the west of Edinburgh. They currently play in the Scottish Premier League and are one of the two principal clubs in the city, the other being Hibernian...
and Hibernian F.C.
Hibernian F.C.
Hibernian Football Club are a Scottish professional football club based in Leith, in the north of Edinburgh. They are one of two Scottish Premier League clubs in the city, the other being their Edinburgh derby rivals, Hearts...
, later to prove the city's preeminent sides, and the first derby
Edinburgh derby
The Edinburgh derby is an informal title given to any football match played between Scottish clubs Heart of Midlothian and Hibernian , the two professional clubs based in Edinburgh, Scotland. The two clubs have a fierce rivalry that dates back to the clubs being founded in the mid-1870s, which...
match between them was staged there on 25 December 1875. Although a modern plaque has been placed near the whalebone arch to commemorate the event, the main pitch was on the eastern fringe of the park, running from east to west, parallel with the Boroughloch Brewery.
The Second World War brought more than 500 allotment
Allotment (gardening)
An allotment garden, often called simply an allotment, is a plot of land made available for individual, non-professional gardening. Such plots are formed by subdividing a piece of land into a few or up to several hundreds of land parcels that are assigned to individuals or families...
s to the east end of the Meadows as part of the effort
Victory garden
Victory gardens, also called war gardens or food gardens for defense, were vegetable, fruit and herb gardens planted at private residences and public parks in United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Germany during World War I and World War II to reduce the pressure on the public food supply...
to make the nation more self-sufficient in food. By 1950 many local residents wanted the area re-turfed, but it was 1966 before the last signs of vegetable cultivation were removed.
In the late 1960s, plans to complete a "flyover" over the Meadows for a trunk road were defeated.
External links
- Meadows Marathon - Annual charity Half Marathon and 5 km fun run.
- Friends of The Meadows and Bruntsfield Links (contains JavaJava (programming language)Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...
applet) - Meadows Croquet Club
- ECA Football Club
- Active Travel to Sciennes - local Primary School which uses The Meadows for some activities.
- The Pavilion Cafe