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).
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
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.
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
I’m inviting you to walk with me to Knock on Wood, making a collective sound walk to celebrate the Urban Tree Festival in Granton, Edinburgh on 18th May 1.30 – 3.30 pm. This event is free of charge. Save the date!
Hammers made from the insides of pianos for knocking on trees gently
Starting and ending at the Pianodrome, Granton. Refreshments will be available at 3.30pm (by donation). Accessibility: For everyone – mostly pavement walking, so wheels will be as welcome as feet – human, dog or other.
As well as being a song by Amii Stewart, the title for this walk Knock on Wood comes from a description of what people do when they’re looking for suitable trees to make pianos with. They knock on them and listen to the tone to see if they’re suitable.
We will walk together, to and around trees in Granton, knock on them and record the sounds, making a collective sound walk.
If you have a sound recorder or a recorder app on your phone, please bring it with you. Remember to charge it first! I will compile the recordings after the walk and hope we will have some material to make something of it. If walkers wish to be involved afterwards, that would be great. You will also be welcome to bring sketch books, draw, paint or respond in other ways to the trees we visit in the urban setting.
Hopefully we can visit some of the types of trees (using the Edinburgh Tree Map – link below) that are sometimes used to make pianos – spruce (Norway and Sitka), beech, rock maple, Douglas fir, walnut, cherry, alder, ash, holly, hornbeam, oak and Pippy (cat’s paw) oak. If you know the location of these trees in the vicinity of the Pianodrome, please let me know and I will divert the walk to include them if I can.
Wood used in piano making
The type of wood used for the acoustic part of Pianos is called Tonewood. This is the Wood that can be tested through knocking. It comes from the ‘European’ spruce tree, but it must be grown under very special circumstances. There must be sufficient altitude and I’m told that there’s nowhere in the UK high enough. Oak is an excellent tonewood, though it is rare to find it in commercially-available instruments. It has a warm, mellow resonance and is particularly suitable for an heirloom quality English piano.
The density of wood is based on how quickly the tree grows. When a tree grows slowly, the rings within are packed tighter together and when a tree grows quickly, the rings are further apart. Because trees grow at different rates based on the weather, temperature, soil and no end of other external factors that might affect them, the common, everyday tree has a variation in the size of rings within it meaning that it will ‘sound’ inconsistent.
As some of you know, I have made walks before about Absent Trees of Granton – trees taken down to make way for the extensive new housing, so the Knock on Wood sound lyrics seem appropriate:
“I don’t want to lose you, this good thing That I got ’cause if I do I will surely Surely lose a lot
You better knock, knock on wood, baby You better knock, knock on wood, baby You better knock, knock knock, knock, knock”
Amii Stewart, Knock on Wood song lyrics
Would this wood sound inconsistent?
Knocking on wood (also phrased touching wood or touch wood) is an apotropaic(a type of magic intended to turn away harm or evil influences, as in deflecting misfortune or averting the evil eye) tradition of literally touching, tapping, or knocking on wood, or merely stating that one is doing or intending to do so, in order to avoid ‘tempting fate’ after making a favourable prediction or boast, or a declaration concerning one’s own death or another unfavourable situation.
Wikipedia
Pianodrome address: Pianodrome Warehouse Granton, The Red Bus Depot, 28 West Harbour Road, Edinburgh EH5 1PN.
Sweet Chestnut Tree
Find the Pianodrome near the crossroads of Chestnut St (Granton Middle Harbour), Waterfront Avenue and West Harbour Road, 10 minutes walk westwards from Granton Square.
Nearest transport links: There is parking at the Pianodrome. Buses: the 9 passes very close to the venue. Granton Square: 16, 19, 22, Airport 200. Good cycle paths in and out of the area though the West Harbour Road can be busy so take care.
Walking without a donkey 