Property News · July 8, 2017

Gardens: Edinburgh’s private gardens


Edinburgh’s New Town is full of big, beautiful green spaces that most of us can never visit. Here’s what we’re missing‘This tree has the most amazing bark,” says the eccentric millionaire Robert McDowell, running a palm sensuously along a branch of Tibetan cherry. “Oh,” he purrs in his plummy baritone, “that’s like silk stockings.”McDowell, an economist and owner of the city’s Summerhall arts venue, is 65, with a hawkish profile – and a fag – jutting beneath a green fedora; his tweed jacket, ripped at one shoulder, is worn over a Fair Isle sweater and pink striped shirt; a stone deaf jack russell, Terence, snuffles around his wellies as he strides across the grass. I call McDowell an eccentric millionaire (“The truth is, all millionaires are eccentric”) for a reason: he is showing me around one of the private gardens of Edinburgh’s New Town, a decidedly eccentric spot. “Look at this,” he says, inviting admiration of the so-called Temple of Pluto, a gas pressure reduction station built in 1984 to resemble a small domed folly so as not to disturb the genteel ambience. “It looks like somewhere you’d have a nice cup of tea and a tryst with your lover.” Continue reading…

Source : theguardian.com
Read more…Gardens: Edinburgh’s private gardens

You may also like...