Edinburgh

The Gardener's Lodge

A red sandstone cottage of 1886 in West Princes Street Gardens, built for the head gardener when the gardens became a public park.

Welcome

Halfway along West Princes Street Gardens, below the castle, sits a cottage that looks as if it belongs in a storybook: red sandstone, steep gables trimmed in green, a tall chimney and a mossy slate roof, all behind a neat hedge and a bed of spring flowers.

It is at its prettiest in spring, when the cherry trees around it come into blossom and pink branches hang over the roof, with the castle rising on the skyline behind. People stop to photograph it, to sketch it, or to sit on the grass nearby with a picnic. It is only open now and then, but that hardly matters: walk round it, look at the stonework and the little windows, and then carry on along the path through the gardens.

Before you go

The lodge is not usually open, but the outside and its garden can be seen from the paths of West Princes Street Gardens at any time the gardens are open.

Where: West Princes Street Gardens, across from the Royal Scots memorial.

Did you know

A person walks past a red sandstone cottage framed by a blossoming tree and clipped hedges.

Did you know

Built for a public park.

The lodge went up in 1886, when the town council turned West Princes Street Gardens into a public park, and the city architect Robert Morham built it along with the rest of the scheme.

A blossoming tree stands beside a red sandstone cottage with a green-trimmed roof behind an iron gate and hedge.

Did you know

Once private gardens.

Before then the gardens were private, kept for the wealthy people of the New Town.

Pink blossom drapes a mossy roof and chimney with Edinburgh Castle visible on the skyline behind.

Did you know

Where the loch was.

The valley the lodge stands in once held the Nor Loch, dammed in the 15th century as a moat for the city and drained from the 1750s, ahead of the New Town.

A red sandstone cottage with green-trimmed gables sits behind a hedge and spring flowerbeds, a statue visible beyond.

Did you know

On children's television.

From 2014 to 2016 the lodge starred in a children's television series. Only the outside was filmed here; the inside was shot elsewhere.

A red sandstone cottage with a tall chimney stands before blossoming trees and a stone building on the skyline.

Did you know

Furnished, and rarely open.

In 2017 the inside was restored with period furniture and antiques. It opens only now and then, for Doors Open Days.

Ben Lerwill

From our guide to Edinburgh

The pretty red-brick cottage in Princes Street Gardens was originally home to the head gardener. Today it remains a unlikely sight in the heart of the city, a bucolic little house ringed by rosebushes. It also featured in CBeebies series Teacup Travels, as the cottage of Great Aunt Lizzie.