St Bernard's Well

This mineral water well is on the south bank of the Water of Leith, in an estate once known as St Bernard's. Just below a footpath is St Bernard's Well; the well-house was originally built in 1760. The waters of the well were held in high repute for their medicinal virtues, and the nobility and gentry took summer quarters in the valley to drink deep draughts of the water and take the country air. In 1788 Lord Gardenstone, a wealthy Court of Session judge who thought he had benefitted from the mineral spring, commissioned Alexander Nasmyth to design a new pump room. The builder John Wilson began work in 1789. It is in the shape of a circular temple supported by ten tall Doric order columns, with a statue made in 1791 from Coade stone of Hygieia, the Greek goddess of health, in the centre. St Bernard's F.C., a once successful Scottish team but now defunct were named after the famous well and played in Stockbridge.


The superiority of much of the St Bernard's estate was purchased in the 1790s by Sir Henry Raeburn, who almost immediately began selling it off by feu charters, although he remained living at St. Bernard's House until his death in 1823. (The house was demolished in 1826 to make way for the east side of Carlton Street).

In the opening years of the 19th century George Lauder of Inverleith Mains also acquired parts of these lands as evidenced by a charter whereby "Henry Raeburn, as retoured heir to Sir Henry Raeburn, Knight, Portrait Painter, Edinburgh, his father, was seised on the 19 March 1824 in a piece of ground for the purpose of making a communication by a stone bridge across the Water of Leith from the New Street called Atholl Street, now India Place, to the grounds of St Bernards, parish of St Cuthberts, which piece of ground had previously been sold by George Lauder residing at Inverleith Mains, to the said (deceased) Sir Henry Raeburn on 28 June 1823". Doubtless this new bridge (built the following year by James Milne, and today known as St. Bernard's Bridge) was thought would assist in making those so far undeveloped parts of Stockbridge, and the Raeburn lands, attractive to developers. George Lauder, the great-grandfather of Sir Harry Lauder, had also purchased St. Bernard's Well and surrounding land in April 1812 from Francis Garden Campbell of Troup & Glenlyon. His eldest surviving son is described in the Edinburgh Annual Post Office Directories as "William Lauder of St.Bernards Well, farmer" until his death in nearby Saunders Street in 1858. He was buried in Dean Cemetery.

In 1884 St. Bernard's Well was purchased and presented to his fellow Edinburgh townsmen by Mr William Nelson, after it had been restored and redecorated by Thomas Bonnar, with a new statue of Hygieia, carved by D. W. Stevenson. Dean Terrace and Ann Street today overlook the valley and Well.

The well is now maintained by the City of Edinburgh Council and the well is open to the public on Sundays throughout the year