Community Walk visiting the Pennywell murals in North Edinburgh. Sunday 22nd March, meeting at North Edinburgh Arts (full address below) at 2pm.
On this walk we will visit three vibrant murals by Fraser Gray which transform local buildings. Celebrating local history, they are a great example of the role the arts can play in brightening up urban areas, sparking conversation on climate change, and promoting a sense of belonging in community.
Expect:
fresh air and gentle walking / wheeling exercise
an opportunity to get to know new people
entertaining stories of local history
information about art and murals
the chance to enjoy urban nature
Led by Tamsin Grainger, experienced community walk leader.
Moving slowly through the city landscape allows for quality noticing. Pauses are important so we can discover and really see what is around us. We will embrace the environment, community and conversation.
The walk will be on tarmac, so fine for sticks and wheels, whether wheelchair or buggy. Dogs welcome.
You are encouraged to walk, cycle or use public transport to keep carbon emissions down. Buses 17, 24, 27 and 37 stop outside. There are bike racks outside the building. Strict parking restrictions operate on Pennywell Road. (As of 23 March 2026, the day after the walk, most on-street parking in the area will require a permit or payment.)
This is a Walk Club, Edinburgh walk that is open to everyone. It’s a brand-new Edinburgh walking / wheeling club offering ambulatory meet-ups that focus on local history, art, and urban nature ~ with a twist ~
More information about The Walk Club is here. You can join the new Walk Club by contacting tamsinlgrainger@gmail.com for details.
In October 2016, aged 53, and needing a change, I stepped out of my front door in Edinburgh for an adventure. First visiting relatives by train in the New Forest, England then it was a boat from Portsmouth across the Bay of Biscay to Santander where I started walking.
Coming into Santander. “I craved to go beyond the garden gate, to follow the road that passed it by and to set out for the unknown.” from My Journey to Llasa by Alexandra David-Neel
I exchanged Shiatsu for hospitality, as I still do, meeting some wonderful people in the process. This time, I walked the Camino de Santiago from Pamplona to Santiago de Compostella (400 miles).
Camino de Santiago postcard
After that autumn in Spain, I returned many times. Walking other solo caminos such as the Via de la Plata (1000 kms) from Seville to Santiago, and from Porto in Portugal also to Santiago (it is said that all roads lead there) were amazing experiences. I made pilgrimage in other parts of Spain too, notably in Cataluna. I walked the Via Sacra in Austria, and shorter routes in Estonia, Greece, Norway, Hungary, France, Switzerland, Croatia, in Ireland, Wales and Scotland.
Secular pilgrimages are often long-distance walks that involve walking to places of spiritual significance. Whilst I don’t follow any religion or subscribe to a particular Way, I have studied Taoist philosophy and have attended a Buddhist sangha for many years. If I had to choose a deity, it would be Gaia, goddess of the Earth, because being part of nature and walking the landscape is a vital and necessary part of my life. Walking day-by-day, from place to place, one step at a time, is a meditation. Sometimes, the routes are named and prescribed in advance; at other times, I wander or drift in the spirit of psychogeography, following my intuition or signs around me. These walks are part of my art practice as well as being seen as pilgrimage: walks with an intention, for the chance to muse and remember, to commune with the ground, air and something ‘other’. I walk to see where the path takes me.
The Granton Burn, a stitched textile map; pilgrimage to a lost river. Edinburgh, Scotland
Walking secular pilgrimage is a simple act in many ways. To keep moving, passing through village, town and city, meeting people and saying goodbye, is humbling and an exercise in letting go. Never staying long, paying my respects and being respectful, I am a simple visitor, a traveller.
Images from day 1 of the St Margaret’s Way pilgrimage walking from Edinburgh to South Queensferry
Someone who travels, wanders
Peregrination is related to the Peregrine Falcon. The fastest animal known, with dives measuring upwards of one hundred and eighty-six miles per hour, the Falco peregrinus can be found all around the globe and the peregrinus part refers to a wanderer. Jess Jennison in WordOriginStories.com breaks the etymology of the bird’s name down into per meaning through and agr-land.This is further extrapolated to coming from abroad and travelling or migratory. The word apparently changed over time, from peregrinus to pelegrinus (with an ‘l’) then became to pelerin in French and pilegrim in Old English. Over the years, peregrine (the adjective) came to mean having a tendency to wander, and a pilgrim, someone who travels to a holy place.
The name of the blog ‘Walking Without a Donkey’ references Robert Louis Stevenson’s Walking with a Donkey in the Cevennes and nods to the fact that I carry my own rucksack; I am my own ass.
Community pilgrimage
The Girona mini pilgrimage is an example of a community pilgrimage. Part of the Walking Arts Encounters in Cataluna, 2022. It was followed by two more in other parts of Cataluna: Olot and Vic. I walked solo pilgrimage along parts of the Cami Sant Jaume before the Walking Arts Encounters began, and to Montserrat afterwards.
Pilgrimage to Montserrat
Art and Pilgrimage
As I walk, I frequently make Wayside Shrines – a way of showing appreciation to place. I collect things as I walk, dropping them into my pocket, and when a suitable ‘altar’ presents itself, I assemble what seems right in order to make an offering. It may be that ity does not last long. Perhaps it becomes covered with snow or dry leaves, is taken apart by birds or animals, or simply blown away in the wind; it doesn’t matter. The gesture has already been made.
This zine of Wayside Shrines is available for £5 / €5.50. email tamsinlgrainger@gmail.com
Walking with Ants was a 2025 major project involving the creation of a new stitched art work for the Line(s) of Enquiry exhibition at Hardwick Gallery, Cheltenham and a pilgrimage. The Pilgrimage for the Small Things walked from Chepstow on the English-Welsh border, in the Forest of Dean, along the River Severn, and through the Cotswolds, arriving at the associatied symposium at the University of Gloucestershire.
Walking with Ants – artwork, cotyledons, dung flies, my staff
All my pilgrimages and long-distance walking can be found on walkingwithoutadonkey.com. The role of the donkey through literature, historically and in pilgrimage can be found In Praise of the donkey.
This community walking event took place on Sunday 22 February 2026
18 adults plus a baby in a buggy and 2 dogs met at Wardie Bay on the edge of Edinburgh for a Festival of Terminalia walk. We walked along the Lower Granton and West Shore roads to Granton ‘the brick’ Beach. We made a cairn of the stones we had collected at Wardie, to mark the boundary between sea and land. Retracing our footsteps, we returned to the starting point, approaching the same landscape from the opposite direction.
We picked up stones from Wardie Bay and made a cairn of them at Granton Beach
Terminalia is a festival of walking, space, place and psychogeography on and around 23rd Feburary. Terminalia was the festival of Terminus, Roman god of boundaries and landmarks! Events have been run on this day since 2011.
Statues by Art in Architecture, near The Depot music studios, Lower Granton Road, Edinburgh
As the theme of this year’s festival was ‘Rock’ we were searching for rocks, stones and related structures. We talked about the history of the area, social and archeological, and visited the back of the Depot music studios where rock music is recorded. The islands of Inchkeith and Cramond were clear from a distance. Made of volcanic / igneous rock, sandstone, shale, coal and limestone, sufferers of syphilis were banished there to live out their lives after the Grandgore Act was passed in 1497. Inchkeith on wikipedia.
Inchkeith Island through the Granton / Wardie sea wall
We went past the site of the long-gone Granton quarry and found out more about Granton Sea Quarry further along the coast near Granton Point, which supplied the stone for making Granton Harbour. The boulders (for delaying coastal erosion) which line the Silverknowes Path outside The Pitt are beautiful at the moment with their coverings of orange and green lichen.
Granton Beach rocks, General’s Rocks (named after the English Duke of Somerset who led the Rough Wooing), and rocks exposed at low tide Map handout made by, and copyright of, Tamsin Grainger
For upcoming walks and to find out about The Walk Club, Edinburgh, contact tamsinlgrainger@gmail.com
Guidelines for the February 2026 First Friday Walk (FFW) Please note that this is a distal prompt, but you can, of course, arrange to walk in a couple or a group wherever you are.
Choose a place to walk and make work. Find out the W3W/// location for your starting place (you will probably have a few options, so choose the one you like best or are most attracted to.)* Store those 3 words in your mind / notebook / phone. Set your timer and start walking. Stop after 15 minutes. Choose one of the 3 words and use it to make an intervention (it can be a photo(s), conversation, drawing, rubbing, poem, thought, installation … whatever you like). After long enough, walk for a further 15 minutes. Choose a second word and make an intervention as before (or differently).
Repeat a third time.
Either in the open air or back at home, compose your work in whatever way makes sense.
Share with someone or on social media #walkingtheland #firstfridaywalk The title (or subtitle of your work) will be the W3W/// and something of your choice.
What you will need
The W3W/// app or a text of some sort (poem, newspaper article etc)* Materials of your choice for making A timer, watch, or phone
Extra notes
*If you do not already have the W3W/// app on your phone, you can download it before you leave, from the Playstore or Applestore, look it up on the internet or on a laptop. If the whole W3W/// thing is too technology-focused for you, choose the 15th, 30th and 45th words from a text of your choice.
If you want to stay out longer, repeat with a second W3W/// address.
If you are part of another Walking the Land project, you could choose your Deep Encounters place to do this FFW, or walk at a distance with your Walking in Pairs partner (perhaps you decide in advance to swap W3W addresses, or use a mix of them).
Walking without a donkey 