The Professor's Room

A series of happy coincidences, a great deal of background research and generous offers, begun by community action preventing the demolition of an old, derelict cottage, resulted in this building being removed, stone by stone, and reconstructed in the grounds of the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh.

For this was the cottage that stood at the entrance to the botanic garden when moved to Leith Walk in 1763, (replacing previous Physic Gardens which had outgrown  their space) and in which all the official activities of the garden took place; the head gardener and family lived downstairs when upstairs this room was the classroom where  medical students, in their first two lectures, were taught to sharpen their senses of sight, touch and smell by using different plants.  

In due course, as the physic plants were joined by specimens from around the world, more space was needed, the present garden at Inverleith created and the land sold off, leaving the cottage as a residence and offices, until it fell vacant and deteriorated.

Now completed, using the original plans, drawings and images, the cottage has reopened and we joined a second group as it opened to the public this morning. Our guide, Sutherland Forsyth, brimming with enthusiasm, told us the amazing story and showed us the building as it now stands, equipped to provide a venue for many different activities, complementing the courses run by the garden in horticulture and also in cooking the resulting crops.

My blip is of the Professor's room, where the lectures took place 250 years ago this month, with extras of the cottage before relocation (the road being at a higher level than when built), a drawing of the garden when at that location, all from images on display, and a photo as it is now (a cheat as it was taken in March, before the shutters were added).

A short book with a brief history of the project is due for publication at the end of this month, a fuller edition will be published at a later date, when all the information - which is still emerging - is collated. Meantime , more details here and a timeline of the evolution of the gardens is found here.