Saughton Park Heritage Lottery Fund bid

 

 

 

The City of Edinburgh Council has progressed to a Stage 1 Heritage Lottery Fund application with the intention to make improvements to the Winter Garden and Rose Garden and wider park.

The submission date for this Stage 1 application was February 2013 and we have worked with architects and landscape architects to produce these initial draft plans and drawings, incorporating the initial feedback from earlier public consultations with locals and park user groups. The plans can be viewed by downloading the Saughton Park options and Saughton Park Architect proposals.

We expect to hear the results of this application in June 2013. 

Park information

Saughton Park is one of Edinburgh 's hidden jewels. Not only does have a large tract of well-managed open space with playing fields and athletic track, the biggest skate board park in Scotland and a modern creative play area, but over seven acres it also has a delightful formal garden in classic style, with walls and neatly-clipped yew hedges, flower and heather beds, a sunken Italian garden, specimen trees, a glass Winter Garden with exotic plants, a garden of sweet fragrances for the blind and a rose garden that has won Saughton fame. The Parks and Gardens directory provides further details on the location of the park and the facilities you will find there.

History

 

Saughton park has had an interesting and varied past. The majority of the area came into Council ownership in 1900 when it was purchased from Sir William Baird Tuke. At that time a nine-hole golf course, nursery and playing fields were laid out. The area enclosed by the old garden wall was designed to include a rose garden.

 

In 1908 Saughton became the site of the great Scottish National Exhibition, opened by HRH Prince Arthur of Connaught . During the Second World War the formal gardens were turned into onion beds as Saughton helped dig for victory. The Saughtonhall mansion house, which had earlier been turned into an asylum for the mentally ill, was destroyed in a controlled burning by the fire bigrade has it had become riddled with dry rot. In 1984 the Winter Garden was opened by Lord Provost John McKay. Most recently an award winning skateboard park was constructed in 2010 and a brand new play area was opened in 2012.

 

Now we are developing an application for the Heritage Lottery Fund - Parks for People grant to help restore this much loved garden. The Parks for People offers grants for projects that regenerate public parks of national, regional or local heritage value.