Tag: community walking

Community Walking Projects

The Walk Club, Edinburgh

A brand-new Edinburgh walking / wheeling club offering ambulatory meet-ups that focus on local history, art, and urban nature ~ with a twist ~

Our next walk – full information and booking link here. Walking the Pennywell Labyrinth in solidarity with the people who live along the Lebanon Mountain Trail as part of the global initiative which is Mountains of Hope.

Each walk will have a theme and celebrate events such as the Festival of Terminalia, the Urban Tree Festival, May Day, and the Autumn Equinox. The events aim to be stimulating and the company friendly. Fresh air and gentle exercise are promised, whether you are on wheels or feet, and the Walk Club is open to everyone. Children and dogs are welcome (no membership fee for them!) The aim is to be accessible, inclusive, and flexible.

Moving slowly through the urban landscape allows for higher quality noticing and time to pay attention. Pauses are important so we can look, smell, and discover. We will embrace community, as well as silence and conversation.

Member benefits

  • Advance booking for all walks
  • All events free
  • Simple to join
  • Personalised communication
  • Membership badge
  • Welcome postcard
  • Walk Club Membership Card
Hand-made map for the Rock On! walk ©Tamsin Grainger

Detail

Monthly walks around Edinburgh, often in less well-known areas
Location: Each walk will be different
Time: Sundays, 2-4pm, once a month
Duration: Approximately two hours
The walks will go ahead whatever the weather
You are welcome to attend all or some of the walks as you wish

What will we do?

Meet-ups will involve:

  • Walking / wheeling
  • The opportunity to get to know one another
  • Local history, games, quiet meditative walking

Each one will be different in topic / theme.
Just turn up. There is no need to tell me if you’re coming unless you would like to be certain that the walk will be possible for you.

Cost

For an annual membership fee of £10 (£5 concessions) you will receive a membership pack through the post (including a badge, welcome postcard, and the Walk Club membership card).
You can make a donation per walk if you want – something like £5/£3 – no pressure.

Download a membership form

Please note that at this time, you have various options in order to join The Walk Club:

  1. Download the form by clicking the button above and print it out in order to fill it in. Then upload it and return it to me
  2. If you have a programme on your phone / computer that will allow you to fill in a pdf on screen, then you can miss out the print-out part and simply click on the button above, fill it in and email it to me
  3. You can email me now and I will send you the membership form.

My email is tamsinlgrainger@gmail.com and once I have your form and annual membership fee, I will send out your membership pack.

First Walk Club event

The first walk was on the Saturday 21st February celebrating the Festival of Terminalia: Rock On!

We collected stones at Wardie Bay and walked them past rock music studios to Granton ‘the Brick’ Beach and made a cairn

Upcoming Walk Club events

The next walk is on Sunday 22nd March marking the Spring Equinox and visiting the Pennywell Arts and Heritage Trail murals in North Edinburgh. The artwork is by Fraser Gray and the walk led by me, Tamsin Grainger, with local history, stories, art chat and discussion. All ages welcome. Foot, wheel and paw friendly. Dress brightly for all weathers! Information and booking here.

Mural by Fraser Gray, part of the Pennywell Arts and Heritage Trail

Walking the labyrinth The April meet-up will be on 19th April at 2pm meeting at North Edinburgh Arts and we will be walking the labyrinth at Pennywell Kirk. 2pm – 4pm. This is a there-and-back walk, and the labyrinth was designed by Natalie Taylor. Meet outside North Edinburgh Arts. Booking and more information here.

Labyrinth by Natalie Taylor, Old Kirk, North Edinburgh. ©Natalie Taylor

More information on the North Edinburgh Arts Trail

The March and April walks are featured on my blog here

Community Walking Projects

Rock On!

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

I am grateful to the wonderful Threadinburgh for posts such as Oxsters, Oxcares, and Oxcars, the thread about the names of the islands of the Forth.

Community Walking Projects

February First Friday Walk Prompt

Walk/What3Words///, a walk in 3 parts

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).

Happy Walking!

Community Walking Projects

Walking Like A Tortoise 

Slow and Steady On October 7th 2025 at 7pm UK time, I’m pleased to be sharing an online event with Marie-Anne Lerjen at the Walk Listen Create Café where we will be talking about the Marsato Award we received for our work. The recording can be found here on the walklistencreate youtube channel.

One of the portraits of members of the local community I met while walking the Granton Boundary
Free postcard for residents, designed by Tamsin Grainger
Detail, Personal Mapping. Textile work re. ‘My Body is My Map’
Hand drawn / painted map of Granton showing other-than-human inhabitants we live with
One of the Walking Like a Tortoise events
Showing members of the local youth club around the History Hub
Walk Map, Granton, Edinburgh

Walking the Granton Boundary on Vimeo

Old and new maps of Granton on the edge of Edinburgh

Walking Like a Tortoise in Living Maps Journal

Community Walking Projects

Wheatley Elm Wellbeing Walk

Wheatley Elm Wellbeing Walk, May 10th 2025 (2-3.30pm).

Wheatley Elm (detail)

A free community event beginning at Granton Crescent Park with some walking, art activities and gentle exercises. Part of the country-wide Urban Tree Festival, it focuses on our local trees, ones we go past everyday, and celebrates how brilliant they are.  

Booking Link: https://urbantreefestival.org/wheatley-elm-well-being-walk

Meet here: There is a bench just inside the gate at the top of the path which runs between Granton Crescent and the bottom of Granton View and we will gather there. What3Words: ///skips.bets.aspect

Meet at Granton Crescent Park

We will visit some of the resilient and versatile Wheatley Elms in Edinburgh, find out more about this unusual species which is only found in 2 places in Britain, Edinburgh being one of them, and identify how we can benefit our sense of wellbeing besides.

A Granton Wheatley Elm

Walking, well-being ‘exercises’, art, talking and learning about the Wheatley Elm trees in the city.

All welcome – adults, children and dogs, prams and wheelchairs. Bring water and wear sensible footwear. Chocolate provided.

Contact me if you have questions. tamsinlgrainger@gmail.com

Connected links:

‘Hi, Wheatley Elm, nice to meet you…’