#pentlands — Public Fediverse posts

Oh #pentlands you beauty :blobcat_flagScotland: Windy though!

On a cycle and again the gates are 'locked' by obfuscation on the Bavelaw estate. This happened a lot before. The bolt has been tightened so much the lock is immovable. On the second pedestrian gate they have added 2 hidden bolts to the hinge so it can't be opened! #landaccess #scotland #pentlands

Nice ride yesterday. Some proper sunshine! Crazy clouds and light later on. Brake problem that was easily fixed while sitting in the sun. #biking #cycling #edinburgh #pentlands

Today was pretty miserable in #Edinburgh, but Friday’s walk in the #Pentlands was glorious. Just enough snow to cover the ground completely, but not enough to make walking difficult, although I was glad I took my Pogu spikes, as it was a bit icy in places.

#snow #hillwalking #sunshine #BlueSky #silentSunday

The Pentlands looking pretty from Craiglockhart Hill yesterday.

#Pentlands #Edinburgh

Good ride on Saturday. Surprisingly warm. A lot of climbing. Making most of the short days. Tested out a new light once it got dark on way home. Several grumpy dog walkers near the car parks, not wanting to share the paths. No idea why, it's usually not an issue. #biking #pentlands

Great to stumble upon the Carnethy 5 race taking place again after a couple of years off despite the ongoing landowner issues in the Pentland hills. #edinburgh #pentlands

It’s exactly a year since I did this walk, and it was a pretty good day today despite some low cloud. I kept up the tradition by falling over in exactly the same place I did last year. Washing machine is now trying to get the mud out!
#pentlands #edinburgh #hiking #hillwalking #hills

#Pentlands this morning - sadly melting fast. #Fatbike #snow

Tried to follow the River Almond from the mouth. Don't do it! Horrendous "paths". Hacking through bushes, river crossing, fences blocking the way. Ride back through the hills was great though. #pentlands #mountainbiking

Interesting and depressing read. Chimes with the issues I had getting permissions for the Scottish Mountain Bike Orienteering events in the #pentlands. http://carnethy.com/pentland-skyline-race-2023-why-we-have-cancelled/

Always enjoy it when the fungi starts to appear. Nice local ride, although the climbs were tough as I've just got over a cold. #mountainbiking #pentlands

Out in the Pentlands on the mountainbike again and really enjoying the extensive views!

#mountainbike #Pentlands #cycling

The Pentlands were nice today. Dressed appropriately for drizzle, but never really came down.

Shocking route to get out there, and lost count at the number of vehicles parked on double yellows in the occasional bike lane.

Still a good 52km today. Really in need of some stretching though. As fun as this bike is, I’m really looking forward to a new build soon.

#Edinburgh #Pentlands #GravelCycling #Cycling #GetOutside

Walked 20km over the Pentland Hills to the Scottish Borders only to find the Allan Ramsay had closed down ☹
Still, the trek through the regional park is very much it's own reward.

#walking #scotland #lothian #pentlands

The thread about the Seventh Day of Christmas; Sven Swans a Swanstoning

This thread was originally written and published in December 2019. It has been edited and corrected as applicable for this post.

This post in the Edinburgh and Leith themed Twelve Days of Christmas is preceded by a thread about the Guse Dub.

On the seventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me; Sven Swans a Swanstoning. I refer of course to Swanston, in the far south of the modern limits of the city, beyond even the Bypass. A veritably ancient name, one which is probably as old as Edinburgh itself, and even today distinctly rural in character.

The name is first recorded in 1214 and unfortunately doesn’t actually have anything to do with swans. It is of Norse origin, from the given name Sveinn (modern, Sven). Sveinnstun meaning a farmstead belonging to a man called Sven. This puts the probable origin 1 or 2 centuries before the written record in the 10th or 11th centuries. It is recorded as part of the medieval barony of Redhall, which occupied much of the land between the northern slopes of the Pentland Hills and the back of the rising ground south of Edinburgh.

As a farm, Swanston was part of the feu of Templelands; ground granted by the Knights Templar in the 12th or 13th century to Thomas, Lord Binning, a nobleman based in East Lothian. In the 15th century the farm was sub-fued (the feu, or primary plot of land held for the Crown by the laird, was split and granted to two subordinate (or vassal) lairds. These became the separate holdings of Easter and Wester Swanston, with the Swanston Burn forming the boundary, before being reunited in the late 17th century under the Trotters of Mortonhall. And so it was for the next 4 centuries, with not a lot changing; the road beyond Swanston leads nowhere but to the hills and the city was hardly visible 4 miles away beyond the rising ground of the Braid Hills to the north, with its southern boundary a full 2½ miles away in the middle of the 19th century.

The settlement was dominated by the principal farmhouse, formerly Wester Swanston, with the collection of thatched cottages that housed most of the population being on the locus of Easter Swanston.

While Swanston for most of its existence has been fundamentally detached from the metropolis within whose boundary it sits, in the middle of the 18th century it became linked to it when the City gained an Act of Parliament that allowed it to extract drinking water from the springs in its vicinity. A cistern house and three filter beds – gravel and sand filled reservoirs to settle any sediment and silt out of the water – were built south of the village and it was connected to the city by wooden pipes.

A house was added by the City in 1761 for the use of the water engineer and officials, and in 1830 this would be modernised and expanded into the villa of Swanston Cottage. Gargoyles and tracery added to an extension at this time are reputed to have been removed from St. Giles Cathedral by the architect William Burn when he “modernised” the ancient church in a manner befitting the style of the time. The cottage garnered a reputation as being something of a “municipal pleasure house“, where City officials would come to make merry. From 1867-1880, the family of Robert Louis Stevenson rented the cottage in the summer as a holiday house. The teenage Robert spent much time here, including walking to and from the city, and refereed to the place as “a stilly hamlet that vies with any earthly paradise“. Robert’s nurse, Alison Cummingham (“Cummy”), was the sister of the resident waterman, and lived with him in his cottage from 1880 to 1893. Her initials are on the lintel above the door of that house.

On his walks from the family home in Edinburgh’s New Town or from the University to Swanston, the young Robert would pass the water house of the Comiston Springs, which also provided the city with clean drinking water, and where the four springs were named after animals. Coincidentally, one of these was a swan, the Swan Spring emerges in the water house through a pipe crowned with a cast lead swan.

The name of Swanston has been applied to housing built between the 1930s and 1970s to the north of the City Bypass in the district of Fairmilehead. By the middle of the 20th century, these ancient farmhouses of the village were verging on unfit for habitation. They still had floors of compressed earth; their roofs were still thatched with reeds from the Tay (the only such lowland houses in Scotland); running water had only arrived in 1934 and they were without electricity until 1949. The City bought the cottages in 1956 and restored them, for which they earned a Scottish Civic Trust award in 1964. They were leased them out as council housing. Most were purchased under “Right to Buy” legislation, but one survives under municipal ownership and is probably Scotland’s only thatched council house.

In 1927, a woman by the name of Margaret Carswell took a lease of land from Swanston Farm to create a 9-hole ladies’ golf course, having found it impossible to gain access to any of the city’s many other golf courses. Men were later admitted (by popular consent of the membership) and it was expanded to a full 18 holes. It is the only visitor attraction of the “village”, which boasts no public facilities, having lost its school in the 1930s.

The Edinburgh and Leith-themed Twelve Days of Christmas continues with a post about The Maiden Castle.

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