Nostalgia: Old Juniper Green still in full bloom

Published on Saturday 6 March 2010 10:18

A MONUMENT celebrating the tri-centenary of Juniper Green is set to be unveiled tomorrow.

The first written evidence of Juniper Green was in the Colinton Kirk Session records of 18 November 1707.

Archaeological discoveries in the mid-19th century, however, date the settlement as far back as the Bronze Age.

Unfortunately, cameras haven't been around long enough to document the whole 4,000 years, but there's been plenty of history in the past century or so captured on celluloid.

One of the earliest identifiable photos is Gillon's Butcher, taken pre-1900. The image is a picture of 19th century village life. Two butchers pose in their stripy pinnies and flat caps, while two young men stand off to the side with wicker baskets perhaps waiting to collect their dinner or make their delivery rounds.

The shop later became Granny Young's sweet shop, and is currently the site of George Byers electrical shop.

The iron hooks on which the meat would have been hung remain visible today.

Most of the photos are sadly undated, but some of the are still recognisable.

A boy pulls a cart down Woodhall Terrace, and there is a leafy picture-postcard scene of Lanark Road centred on a horse and cart, with several street urchins playing nearby.

There's more leafy splendour to be found at the Water of Leith "dooking hole". A man stands on a tree-stump looking out onto the fast-flowing waterfall below.

Other images show Inglis Mill, one of the snuff and corn mills that were at the core of Juniper Green's growth in the 19th century, and Juniper Green station pictured in 1934.

Finally, an aerial photo showing the construction of the Edinburgh city bypass in September 1979 shows Juniper Green approaching the shape of the suburb we know today.

There were many activities throughout 2007 to celebrate the village's long history, but the community wanted a more lasting memorial so the monument project was born, and will come to fruition tomorrow.

In a joint collaboration between Juniper Green 300 and Juniper Green Village Association, and based on a design by a local artist approved by the monument committee, sculptor and stonemason, Ian Newton of Nine Mile Burn, was commissioned to carve a monument out of green stone rock.

It incorporates symbols representing the stages of the village's development from Bronze Age settlement to the plant which gave the village its name and the mills which gave employment to the local people from the Industrial Revolution until the 20th century.