Author: tamsing

This newly stitched map (November 2025) shows the route of the Granton Burn, rising at the top of Corstorphine Hill and flowing down to ‘The Brick’ Beach in Granton and the Firth of Forth.

Imagine you are buried in the ground up to your armpits! This is no bird’s eye nor drone-view. The map foregrounds the river itself, looping above and below earth level, and features many examples of local wildlife, flora and fauna found in the Granton area, from a curlew and fox to ragwort and flat oyster shells. Together with the people and the soil itself, the Granton Burn and more-than-human lifeforms are who and what are indigenous to Granton and should be respected as such.

The embroidery above shows a moth, fox and traveller on foot

The map shows the Granton Burn rising at Corstorphine Hill near the Scott Tower. There are the ancient rocks of the area, together with the ring-shaped ‘cups’ which are of archaeological significance, Scots Pines, an example of woodland, and grassy hillside. As the land flattens, you can see someone walking, a figure reminiscent of the pilgrim in the VIII Cups tarot card designed by Pamela Colman Smith. I have stitched buildings which relied on water – a mill, Madelvic House (the sphinx from the home of United Wire and the Electric Car Company), Mushet’s iron works, the Northern Lighthouse Board building (1860s), and the iconic Granton gastower. The latter is also part of a suggested Granton coat of arms featuring the Granton Tortoise (story here) and the Latin script, ‘Ambulans ut Testudinis’ (Walking Like a Tortoise) referencing an earlier walking art project.

The map is embroidered in the colours found on the 1835 Bartholomew map and the 1867 Parish Johnston Plan, and the sea is stitched in different colours because, I have been told by many residents, it flowed sometimes pink, sometimes other hues according to which ink was being dumped in there by local company, A. B. Fleming.

The mouth of the Burn is that particular jagged shape as seen on the Edinburghshire map of 1914. It is unclear exactly where it is nowadays, but is likely to be close to the sewage pipe. Certainly the drains beyond the Sea Gate of Caroline Park frequently overflow, meaning that the Burn streams along the road.

Other embellishments come from a variety of sources. The arrows can be found on the weather vane on top of the lighthouse, and the north-point of the compass from the Drainage Plan of the Edinburgh Leith and Suburbs map, 1867. And I measured the route in my human footsteps (the walk from hill to sea was approximately 9000 steps) which, according to the scale of this map, is 1:42.86.

The small boat on the right of the map is similar to Geddes’ on his Valley Section (see below) with two people sitting in it, though I have given one of them a fishing rod (an age-old local industry) and the other a pilgrim’s staff with a gourd on top. The 11th century St Margaret ferry used to take pilgrims across to Fife from South Queensferry so that they could continue to walk to St Andrews. Other sea routes, and the Esparto Grass which covers the harbour, refer to the intercontinental trade which exported coal, bricks and so on, and imported goods and people, including grass for the mills along the River Almond and the Water of Leith.

I have wanted to walk alongside this burn for a long time because it is said that it forms the western definition of Granton itself. Although it was quite clear where the second-to-last section is, as it can be seen clearly flowing above ground in the Caroline Park Grounds, and other nearby parts are also visible in Forthquarter Park, the rest of it is now mostly hidden below buildings and there are no maps showing it as far as I can find. (It is noteable, however, that the ‘new’ Scottish Gas Headquarters flooded and the grass nearby is soggy all year round whatever the weather, so it is most likely that the Burn flows under those places.)

The owner of Caroline Park suggested that it rose at Corstorphine Hill, so, armed with my research from old maps and local anecdotes, I went there to look.

I believe that I found the route of the Granton Burn using my sense of the water I’d previously met, as well as the resources I’d compiled. I knew it’s energy in the same way that I have been practising knowing people’s energy (or chi) through my Shiatsu bodywork for over 30 years. I certainly found a small river, wetland plants, and banks along the line I’d tentatively drawn on my own map. 

As I slid along pavements slippery from the pouring rain, I came across the area named Granton Mill with which I was familiar from earlier forays. Of course! A mill would have needed water, I was on the right route!

This work of tracing the Burn gives it power and I felt it. I recognised its distinctive voice.

If rivers are built over and erased from maps, does their power cease?

This map collapses time. It reinstates the river above ground, and juxtaposes past and present. My walking the Burn in some way also restores the original boundary. For once, it’s not roads or random lines, not politicians making the decision, but the existence of the Burn itself which decides where Granton begins and ends – a gentler, more natural way that harks back to earlier times.

All the time I walked and stitched, I was in dialogue with the Burn. It, in turn, reinforced the original researched route of the Granton Boundary that I had traced when preparing for my first drawn/painted map (above). This was a psychogeographical pilgrimage, a walk that was directed by the river itself, taking me through the landscape on a single journey via a previously unknown path, with clear starting and ending points.

It was as if my footsteps drew the Burn above ground. My stitches made it manifest in fabric, in the tradition of map makers of many sorts from the past. I’m thinking of the Sophia Mason 1802 map of England and Wales that’s in the Library of Congress in the US, the cross-stitched 1940s maps made by children, the Gough Map on vellum, or the circular TO Mapa Mundi. This is a way of stitching time, fixing one person’s view of a place on a specific date.

Where can I see The Granton Burn textile map?

The Granton Burn map was made in response to an invitation to give a lecture for the Scottish Historic Buildings Trust (12 November 2025) as part of their Autumn / Winter series, alongside Dr Jonathan Gardner (an authority on Waste Heritage) at Riddles Court in Edinburgh. The map is currently on show at Riddles Court, alongside the stained glass window of Patrick Geddes’ Valley Section. Thanks to Ed Hollis for the initial invitation and the excuse to make the work and artwork for the event.

Thanks

This project benefitted from the help of many, in particular Scott Macintosh from the Friends of Corstorphine Hill, Catharine Ward Thompson and Suzanne Ewing, both from The University of Edinburgh College of Art, who and shared their time and valuable resources.

I have made this map for, and dedicate it to, the community of Granton in all their variety and form, past and present, amongst whom I live.