Latest news

A Life In Conservation - Remembering Andrew Kerr

Friday, 20 December, 2024 - 17:48
Sadly Andrew Kerr passed away on 19 September 2024 aged 84. He was a founding trustee of Dean Valley Regeneration Ltd. (2014-2020) for which this website was created. This charity was tasked to improve and restore the Designed Landscape of the Water of Leith along the Dean Valley, within Edinburgh’s World Heritage Site. Born and brought up in Edinburgh, to a family of lawyers, he attended the Edinburgh Academy, followed by Cambridge University and Edinburgh University. He marvelled at the transformation to Classical Edinburgh, and its designed gardens within, following the ‘clean air act’ of the 1960s, and subsequently the...
Read more

Let Us Stop Pollution Of The Water Of Leith

Thursday, 24 October, 2024 - 17:34
Campaigners have recently reported continual pollution of the WOL by Scottish Water. A recent article in the Times (22 October 2024) confirms that raw sewage, including lavatory solids like wet wipes and sanitary products, are regularly removed from the water by volunteers. An article on this website from 30 September 2020 quotes SEPA, the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency, after being shown a recent photograph of continuing presence of sewage algae/weed in the Dean Valley water. In this email from 5 years earlier, 2015, SEPA confirmed that they had tested the water: There were no signs of sewage fungus or recent...
Read more

Adam Bruce Thomson at City Arts Centre

Saturday, 11 May, 2024 - 18:16
This glorious painting of the weir and old Dean Bridge features in a major retrospective exhibition of the works of Adam Bruce Thomson, renowned Edinburgh teacher and painter, at the City Arts Centre 2 Market Street from 11 May to 6 Oct 2024. Entitled ‘The Quiet Path’ this exhibition dedicated to his life’s work, describes both his subjects and gentle manner as teacher, mentor and friend to other artists. For forty years he taught at the Edinburgh Art College influencing and encouraging a generation of Scottish artists. Drawings from WWI and enchanting portraits of his children through to his final...
Read more

Transformation at Mackenzie Bridge, Dean Valley

Thursday, 7 March, 2024 - 23:32
Rampant ivy has recently been removed from the railings next to Mackenzie Bridge in the Dean Valley by the Natural Heritage rangers. Excellent. Leaves clogging the adjacent pavement, making it impossible to walk along, have been cleared away. Combined with branches being pruned from overhanging lime trees pedestrians are now able to walk along and view down to the river below. Years of unrestricted ivy growth has curled around the historic railings choking them and causing damage to the cast iron uprights. Ivy has also grown into the stone embankment wall below anchoring into the lime mortar. When ivy becomes...
Read more

Pages