The Botanic Cottage at the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh (RBGE) has reopened 250 years after it was first completed – but in a different location and thanks to funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) and others!
HLF reports:
Rescued in 2008 from demolition where it used to stand on Leith Walk, the 18th-century cottage has undergone a wholesale move and a traditional rebuild thanks to players of the National Lottery. It is now set to blossom as a new centre for community and education work in the Botanic Gardens.
Simon Milne, Regius Keeper at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, said: ‘The completion of the Botanic Cottage is such an achievement for everyone involved. It’s taken a lot of grit, determination, skill and commitment to get the building from Leith to Inverleith.’
The cottage was the idea of John Hope, the Regius Keeper of the time and leading figure of the Enlightenment. It originally served as the head gardener’s home, the main entrance to the Garden, and as a teaching facility for Edinburgh’s medical students learning about botany and horticulture. It was used in this way until RBGE moved to its present site in the 1820s. It then became a private dwelling, and more recently, business premises, until in 2008 it was threatened with demolition to make way for new development. It was then that local community campaigners stepped in with a plan to dismantle the cottage brick by brick and rebuild it over a mile away.
