Edinburgh, June 2005

Tuesday 28 June 2005. Edinburgh was a regular calling place when I was working in the Higher and Further Education sectors. My job was to help and support managers of colleges and universities to successfully identify needs for business change and bring it about successfully and positively.

I taught strategy, process review techniques, risk management, project management and change management. The project management was about introducing new ways of doing things based on an understanding of reviews of an organisation's business processes. The change management was about supporting staff through the change, ensuring they understood the needs, supported it as much as possible, and were trained in good time to be ready to change from one way of working to a new way.

Other topics I covered were managing programmes of multiple projects, business and community engagement and records management. With Edinburgh being a major hub for Scotland as well as having three universities and several colleges, it meant that I was a regular visitor.

I had my favourite restaurants to visit depending on which part of the city I found myself in. Often I would arrive in the early evening the day before a training session and the photo here shows that it was taken at 6:30pm from the clock tower, which is part of St Cuthbert's Parish Church. The church on the left is St John's Scottish Episcopal Church. St Cuthberts possibly dates right back to the lifetime of the saint, though the building has been destroyed and rebuilt several times over the centuries.

The current church dates from 1892-1894 and replaced a Georgian church of 1775 which itself replaced one of two centuries before. This one saw Jacobite supporters troops stationed there in 1745 at which time David Williamson was minister. His manners were so impeccable that he was known as Dainty Dave. In the early 1800s at the height of Edwardian grave robbing, a watchtower was built in the churchyard which still stands.

In 1773 when the Georgian church's predecessor was being demolished, workmen discovered an urn containing an embalmed heart. It was thought to be that of a Crusader that died and his heart was returned to his family.

Seen in this and the previous photograph is Edinburgh Castle atop of Castle Rock. This latter is the remains of a volcanic plug of a very hard type of basalt. Standing proud above the city, its strategic and defensive position is obvious, but basalt does not hold water very well and a 28 metre (92 ft) well had to be constructed to supply the castle which even so would often run dry during a long siege or drought.

At the foot of Castle Rock are the Princes Street Gardens. The same movement of ice during the Ice Age that was diverted by the hardness of Castle Rock, created a hollow on the north side of what is now the Royal Mile slope up to the castle. A marsh was formed there and King James III of Scotland ordered the hollow to be flooded to create a better defence to the castle in 1460. Named Nor Loch, in the ensuing centuries it became a favourite spot for suicides, a cess pit as sewage drained or was thrown down the hillside and a place where criminals were executed by drowning. This latter practice was outlawed in 1685.

Nor Loch was drained in the 19th century and Princes Street Gardens were created from 1820. During the creation of Edinburgh Waverley Railway Station and the railway tracks leading through the gardens towards it, several bones were found of drowned victims.

Princes Street itself is found on the north side of Princes Street Gardens and dates from the latter half of the 1700s, laid out along a line formerly occupied by a country lane, Lang Dykes, dating back to medieval times. Originally planned to be named after Edinburgh's patron saint, St Giles, the name was objected to by King George III, as it reminded him of the slums of St Giles in London. It was instead called Prince's Street in honour of the King's son, later King George IV but by 1840 it had lost its apostrophe which had tended to move about variously as "Prince's" to "Princes'" and back again, causing confusion.

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