When I was a boy, I would often go with my family on a Sunday to walk around the Dean Village. It’s an extraordinary place, a quiet haven by a river in the middle of a busy city.
Dean Village is a collection of houses from different centuries clustered around a river called the Water of Leith in central Edinburgh. It is the middle point of a riverside walk that runs through the centre of Edinburgh and is the site where many mills once worked, powered by the river.
Getting To Dean Village
Getting to the Dean Village is straightforward: walk, cycle, or travel by bus. Car isn’t recommended but if you have to there is on-street parking available.
By Foot
From Princes Street in the centre of Edinburgh, make your way to the West End and take a right along Queensferry Street until you get to the great bridge over the Water of Leith. Before crossing the bridge, take a left down the steep Bells Brae to the Dean Village.
By Bike
Pick up a JustEat cycle from anywhere and cycle to Dean Bridge and follow the walking route above (just be aware that Bells Brae is very steep). Or alternatively, from Princes Street head north on Frederick Street / Howe Street. At the bottom of the Howe Street hill, take the left fork along Circus Place to the bridge across the Water of Leith river. Take a left along Saunders Street and from there it’s an easy and very pleasant cycle along the waterside to the Dean Village.
By Bus
As with getting anywhere in Edinburgh, it’s easy to get there by bus. The direct services are numbers 19, 36, 37, 41, 43 and 47. Alight from the bus on either side of the Dean Bridge but we’d recommend taking the bus across the bridge and walking back over the bridge to Bells Brae. The view from the bridge is magnificent.
By Car
You can drive down Bells Brae into Dean Village but parking is /very/limited to a few on-street bays.
Dean Village, Edinburgh
The village is smack bang in the middle of Edinburgh city centre, yet when you get there it is perfectly peaceful and a lovely place to start a walk along the river. The little bridge across the river at the bottom of Bells Brae was once the only bridge across the river on the north-western exit from the town centre.
Before the bridge was built there was a weir across the river, which is still there and which you can still see (we wouldn’t recommend that you try it though!).
Traffic, pedestrians and horse-drawn carts, were forced to take the steep hill into the gorge and back up the other side, which led eventually to the building of the Dean Bridge across the gorge in 1832.
The village itself clusters around the bottom of Bells Brae just under the Dean Bridge and was once the centre of milling in Edinburgh. Near the little bridge that crosses the river, which is called the Water of Leith, are the remains of Lindsay’s Mill with the old mill wheels preserved as a little monument to the mills that once made Edinburgh’s flour.
The houses in the village date from mid-seventeenth century. The yellow building on the left as you walk down the Brae dates from 1645 and the carvings in the wall are well worth examining.
Across the little bridge is West Mill, built in 1805 and now converted in flats. The sign on the wall records that the earliest mills in Dean Village date from 1463.
The collection of houses just across the bridge on the left side is Well Court, built as houses for workers by John Findlay. Findlay was the publisher and owner of the Scotsman newspaper and a philanthropist, much taken with the ideals of workers’ housing. In 1889 he built Well Court. He also built Hawthorn Buildings and Dean Path Buildings in the same area in 1895.
Walking through the courtyard of Well Court will take you again to the river and the path turns west where the water thunders over a weir. Before turning onto the path look at the river and you will see the remains of the original ford that people and cattle used to cross the river before the bridges were built.
The River And The Mills
The river runs for 24 miles from its source in the Pentland Hills south of Edinburgh through the city until it empties into the Firth of Forth at Leith in the north of Edinburgh. As its mouth is at Leith, the river is called called the Water of Leith, or Leith Water, as you might see on old maps.
Although nowadays the river runs through the city, it was not always so. Edinburgh was once very small and its beginnings, at the Royal Mile, were around 1.5 miles (2.4km) from the Dean Village. So before the city grew to the north in the 18th and 19th centuries, the river was quite a way outside the city.
Nevertheless, it was the nearest river to Edinburgh and a river meant a power source for flour mills. And a growing town like Edinburgh needed bread.
Historians say there have been flour mills on the Water of Leith since the early 12th century, and at their peak some 70 of them operated on the river, producing not just flour but snuff, spices, paper and fabric. Tanneries also operated on the river where they could count on a flow of water. Now sadly, all the mills have gone and the mill buildings themselves have mostly been demolished with a few converted to housing.
At the bottom of Bells Brae near the little bridge that crosses the Water of Leith, is the site of Lindsay’s Mill. Lindsay’s was one of 11 mills that clustered around Dean Village and this is where you’ll see its old millstones that have been formed into a triangular monument. The millstones are not local or even Scottish stone. It’s likely the incredibly hard stone was imported from Caen in France.
The Water Of Leith Walkway
The Water of Leith walkway is a beautiful 2.5 mile (20km) walk along the side of the Water of Leith river as it makes its way from the village of Balerno in the west to Edinburgh’s Port of Leith in the east.
In Dean Village, you are already 2/3 of the walk to the river’s mouth in Leith. When you’re standing at the remains of Lindsay’s Mill you can choose to walk east to the mouth or west, to the river’s source.
Walking east will take you along the river to the city village of Stockbridge, a place of independent shops, pubs and cafes as well as Inverleith park and pond and eventually to Leith Docks, where the river empties into the Firth of Forth.
Walking west from Dean Village along the river is like walking along a country path and is quite the most delightful stroll. If you like, you can walk all 10 miles to the village of Balerno, where the Water of Leith rises in the nearby Pentland Hills.
The Water of Leith Walkway: From Dean Village To Leith
Starting at the Dean Village take the path east, marked Millers Row. This direction, if you follow the river for the whole way, will eventually take to the port of Leith where the river empties into the Firth of Forth. The distance is approximately 3.5 miles (5.6km).
For most of the distance you’ll be walking alongside the river although you’ll find at certain points you need to leave the river and walk by road before rejoining the river path. The walkway is very well signposted however and you will only leave the walkway for very short distances.
If you take the east path, very quickly you’ll come to the village of Stockbridge and it’s worth leaving the walkway to explore the shops, cafes and – depending on the time of day! – the pubs of Raeburn Place and the rather quirky St Stephen Street.
Before you get to Stockbridge (which takes its name from the old wooden stock bridge across the Water of Leith) you’ll pass two amazing landmarks on the river path.
The first is St Bernard’s Well. The ornate temple-like building houses a mineral spring that, legend has it, was discovered in 1760 by schoolboys fishing the river.
The famous painter, Alexander Nasmyth (see his wonderful paintings at the National Gallery on The Mound) was commissioned to build a housing for the spring and what a housing Nasymth designed. It is in the Roman Doric style and based on the Temple of Vesta at Tivoli in Italy. At its centre is a marble statue of Hygieia, the Goddess of Health.
Underneath the structure is the fabulously decorated pump room (look up at the ceiling if you’re lucky enough to get in) where water from the spring was pumped up by an ornate hand pump. There is also a sink and a fireplace that was once used to heat the water.
The Well is usually open at least once a year as part of Edinburgh Council’s ‘Doors Open’ day, where many public and private buildings and structures normally closed to the public are opened for a weekend in the summer. Also, the Dean Village Association, which maintains the building on behalf of the council, usually makes access available on the first Sunday of the month from April to August.
Don’t drink the water though! It contains arsenic and heavy metals (not that you can anyway – the pump has been disabled).
A few yards past St Bernard’s Well is a bridge over the river, but it’s not just any ordinary bridge. The St Bernard Bridge, (sometimes the Mackenzie Bridge) was built in 1824 to enable a second sturdy access across the Water of Leith to the new streets of the Raeburn Estate.
It was originally a single arch bridge across the river, but if you visit it you will see a smaller arch, now blocked off. This once carried the great mill lade, the channel that carried the water taken from the river to power the mills along this stretch of the river.
Added around 60 years later were the steps and the arches that go under and around the bridge and the steps, making the whole structure resemble a magical roundabout of a bridge like something out of a Harry Potter scene.
St Bernard, by the way, was a medieval monk who was supposed to have visited Scotland at some time in his life (1090-1153). Apparently he was rebuffed by the Scottish court and went to live for a while in a cave in the cliffs that overlooked the Water of Leith (the cave was walled up during the building of Edinburgh’s new town). However, the story of St Bernard and his cave is a myth – there’s no evidence that Bernard of Clairvaux ever visited Scotland.
A little further on you’ll come to Stockbridge. Stockbridge (the village) takes it name from the wooden (stock) bridge that originally crossed the Water of Leith at this point. The bridge is now a 19th century stone bridge. As you walk across the western pavement of the bridge, take a look over the parapet and you will see a statue of a man standing in the river.
The statue is one of six from sculptor Antony Gormley’s Six Times, a series of six statues he created in 2010. Sometimes, when the Water of Leith is in spate (flood) the water can completely cover the man’s head!
Rejoin the walkway at Stockbridge after you’ve explored the village. The path to the east is more industrial than the path to the west and the path is much more built up with factories and industrial buildings as the river steadily widens as it reaches its mouth at Leith Docks.
Once in Leith there are plenty of cafes and pubs to rest your legs and restore you for more sightseeing. Or simply catching the bus back to the city centre.
The Water of Leith Walkway: From Dean Village To Balerno
Starting at the Dean Village take the little bridge across the river. This direction, if you follow the river for the whole way, will eventually take to the village of Balerno, near to the source of the Water of Leith. The distance is approximately 10 miles (16km) so it’s a good day’s hike if you go all the way.
Fortunately, there are many stopping off points on the west walkway and the closest stopping off point to Dean Village is only a few hundred yards away: the brilliant Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.
The gallery, which is free, is housed in two rather wonderful buildings that face each other in beautiful grounds that are also open to the public. The galleries are called Modern One and Modern Two. At the entrance to Modern One, sunk up to his chest, is another of Antony Gormley’s Six Times statues.
Modern One is a neo-classical building originally built by William Burn as John Watson’s School in 1825, an institute for fatherless children (as many old schools in Edinburgh were). Adapted by the Gallery in 1984, its sculpted garden grounds are huge and amazing.
Modern Two was originally built as the Dean Orphan Hospital in 1833 by Thomas Hamilton (the same architect who designed the former Royal High School on Calton Hill). In 1999 it was converted into Modern Two to display the Gallery’s collection of Dada and Surrealist art and sculptures of Eduardo Paolozzi.
Continuing west along the river, the walkway will take you through pretty city countryside, underneath a huge disused railway viaduct, past Murrayfield Stadium, the home of Scottish Rugby, until, after walking under another huge Victorian railway viaduct and the soaring Union Canal aqueduct, you’ll arrive at the Water of Leith Conservation Trust and Visitor Centre.
At the visitor centre, you’ll find maps, information and friendly guides that will answer your questions about the Water of Leith and advise you of the features of the next stage of the walk.
The next stages of the Water of Leith walkway west of the visitor centre are some of the most lovely parts of the entire route: the Slateford and Colinton Dells, beautiful walks through woodland, where you can see many species of bird and animal and with lots of sunny and open spots where you can stop for a picnic.
Although quiet and peaceful, being a walkway through the city means that you’re never far from main streets and bus routes. So anytime you feel tired or you think you’ve had enough for the day, just make for the nearest road and catch a bus back into town.
If you do make it to Balerno, head for refreshments and some tasty food to the Grey Horse Inn on the High Street. It used to be known as Mrs Brow’s when I lived there and I believe that the beer is still as good as it was then.