Nostalgia: Edinburgh’s parks

THEY are the green lungs of the city. Edinburgh’s parks and green spaces have been put to a variety of uses over the years – from sheep grazing in Holyrood in the 1970s to bicycle speedway in Pilrig in 1955.

This week, there was news that 30 acres of land will be gifted into public ownership as part of the controversial £90 million plans to redevelop the former Napier University campus at Craighouse, which prompted our search of the Evening News picture files.

Our main image is not of a park at all, but rather what happened to the streets surrounding Roseburn Park in 1948 after floods caused by heavy rain.

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A popular theme as it turns out because Hailes Quarry – now the site of Hailes Quarry Park – was also pictured under water in a gloomy photograph the following year.

That probably wouldn’t have been a good day to take a stroll along the Water of Leith, but the weather was thankfully a bit better for workmen widening the bridge at 
Slateford in 1967.