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The Ashley Terrace Boathouse on the Union Canal, a painted boathouse with an arched veranda, rowing boats below and bunting overhead.
Edinburgh

Ashley Terrace Boathouse

The Edinburgh Union Canal Society's boathouse on the canal at Polwarth, where three traditional rowing boats go out for hire on Sunday afternoons.

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Welcome

On the Union Canal at Polwarth, beside Harrison Park, a painted boathouse with an arched veranda stands right at the water's edge, with rowing boats tied up below it and bunting strung across the towpath in summer.

This is the Ashley Terrace Boathouse, the home of the Edinburgh Union Canal Society, a charity that looks after the canal's interests and gets people out on it.

On Sunday afternoons through the season, from noon until five, the society hires out its three traditional rowing boats. The canal here is long, level and still, an easy place for a first go at the oars. Each spring the season opens with a launch day at the boathouse, with stalls, tea, coffee, cake and a raffle, and the last boats go out at the end of September.

Narrowboats lie moored along the bank on either side, and the towpath runs on in both directions for anyone who would rather walk.

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Before you go

The boats go out from the boathouse on Sunday afternoons in the season, from the spring launch day to the end of September.

The society's own pages carry the dates, the forms and the rules for each year, so look there before setting out.

Where
The Union Canal towpath by Harrison Park, Polwarth.
Rowing boats
Sundays, noon to 5pm, spring to the end of September.
2026
The season opened with a launch day on Sunday 12 April.

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Where it is

On the Union Canal towpath beside Harrison Park, in Polwarth, south-west of the city centre.

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