St Bernard's Well

I came across this on my lunchtime stroll today.

'Situated only minutes from the busy city centre of Edinburgh, a building has been on this spot for a period of more than two hundred years. It houses a pump that delivers health bringing spa water, though current Health and Safety regulations advise visitors not to actually drink it. The health benefits of the spring on this spot were supposedly discovered by St Bernard of Clairvaux in the twelfth century.

The current building was constructed in 1789 by Francis Garden of Troup (Lord Gardenstone), a Senator of the College of Justice, when "taking the waters" during a visit to a spa was a national fad. At one time, apparently, this well was such a summer attraction that the local accommodation became popular enough to be at a premium price. The amazing vaulted ceiling is part of a lavish restoration carried out nearly one hundred years later in 1885, to allow Victorians to imbibe the water under a celestial blue sky, with reflective, gold coloured stars twinkling above. The building seems to have been closed at the outbreak of The Second World War in 1940, although the water still flows from the well when the pump handle is easily operated.'