Craighouse

A view of Craighouse on the slopes of Easter Craiglockhart Hill.

The Craighouse has quite a bit of history. The old craighouse dates back to 1565. The more modern part was build by Edinburgh Asylum when it took over the site in the 1880's. The hospital played its part in the treatment of soldiers for shell-shock in the first World War. The Poets of the Great War, Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen met here. In the 1990s, the site was bought by Napier University when emphasis on treatment for mental illnesses moved to a care in the community model, and restored with a Historic Building grant. Napier university sold the site, with a view for residential development, in 2011

There are plans to bug a six storey block of flats and a housing development. This is not as bad as it could have been. The original development would have seen most of the trees on this side of the hill felled with a larger number of flats and housing. This was vigorously opposed by the Friends of Craighouse.

As you can see from my photo above, the site stands out quite a lot. Controversial not only for the scale of development on a site that can be seen from miles around, but also for the site's historical importance.