Tag: Granton Edinburgh

Community Walking Projects

Remembrance Day for Lost Species 2025

Please join us for a community walk along the coast from Wardie Bay to Granton / Royston (the ‘Brick’) Beach to search for flat oyster shells on Remembrance Day for Lost Species.

Date: 30 November 2025.

Time: 2-3.30pm (14.00 – 15.30).

Meet: Wardie Bay, Granton, Edinburgh.

Ending: walk to Granton (Brick) Beach and The Pitt.

Register on Eventbrite

Meet on November 30 2025 at 2pm to walk together and find out about the restoration of seagrass habitats and European flat oyster populations in the Firth of Forth – a species which used to be abundant and was fished to local extinction around 100 years ago. Together, we will search for evidence of these flat oysters. There will be talking and sharing about our concerns for the health of the sea and the species who live in and depend on it.

We anticipate the event lasting 1.5 hours. It may be cold, so please bring a flask of something hot and wear warm clothes and suitable footwear. We will end at The Pitt where a variety of drinks and food will be on sale.

Granton (Brick) Beach, Edinburgh

This event has been thought up by Katie Smith from Granton Community Gardeners who is working to gather local knowledge about our wildlife and build a Granton nature restoration plan, and Tamsin Grainger, local walking artist with an interest in local history and community wellbeing.

Cost: Free (you can make a donation to cover costs if you would like to). Everyone is welcome including children and dogs. This walk will be manageable on wheels. We aim to be inclusive and open.

Hopefully, we will walk with representatives from and Edinburgh Shoreline

Community Walking Projects

Seaside City: revisiting the history of Edinburgh’s coastline

A Scottish Historic Buildings Trust evening event on November 12, 2025 at Riddles Court, Edinburgh with Tamsin Grainger and Dr Jonathan Gardner. Ticket link

Stretching from the River Almond to the River Esk, Edinburgh’s remarkable coastline runs from one of the few Roman ruins in Scotland to buried quarries and beaches made entirely from the rubble of the city’s demolished buildings. Through docks and ports to beach resort, nature and culture, past and present are brought together in diverse ways. 

This part of the city has enjoyed something of a revival of interest over the past few years: esplanade, beach, and shore, making new lungs for the city. How might engaging with this oldest and most ephemeral boundary of the city help us re-imagine it anew?

Jonathan Gardner is a contemporary archaeologist and critical heritage studies researcher. His work examines processes of recent and contemporary large-scale landscape transformations in the UK using archaeological methods, with his current research looking at the longstanding exploitation of Scottish hydrocarbon resources as a form of contested heritage. Gardner’s talk, ‘Washed up on the beach: revisiting the heritage of Edinburgh’s coastline‘, aims to provide an overview of some of the history and heritage of the city’s coastline and its importance for thinking about the city of the future.

Granton / Royston / the ‘Brick’ beach ©Tamsin Grainger

Tamsin Grainger is a Walking Artist and writer. Her recent work, ‘Walking Like a Tortoise’, explored the edge of Granton using maps from 1870 to the present day, each showing a different boundary line, and collected stories of peoples’ heritage and local history. This work asked, ‘How are the people who live in Granton related to each other, the wider area, and the rest of the world?’ and became an enquiry into the links between geography and community, into mapping and belonging.

1896 Granton map (annotated to show the Granton Burn and nearby wells and springs)

Tamsin’s talk, ‘A walk along the Granton Burn, from Hill to Sea’ follows a newly created map that traces the Burn’s journey from Corstorphine Hill Tower to the sea, reflecting May East’s* advice not to rely on old maps when navigating changing urban landscapes.

The Granton Burn, detail (in progress) ©Tamsin Grainger

*May East

You may also like:

The Granton Boundary

Pilgrimage for COP26

Patrick Geddes (Wiki)

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…’

Community Walking Projects

May Day, a provocation

I’m happy to be part of Kel Portman’s May Day project, an assemblage of artists’ work made on 1 May 2024.

I made a ritual sea swim with women from Granton, Edinburgh then walked from Granton https://w3w.co/porch.asks.rocky to Portobello https://w3w.co/land.fuel.middle

Inspired by Kel’s prompts, I had researched the goddesses associated with this time of year and incorporated them in my words and images.

Mayday Walking
Though Floralia dawned turquoise and pink, the haar cloaked us in grey.
wearing wreaths of bluebell and campion, we swam in the lace-edged estuary,
Flora, goddess of flowers, Aphrodite,
subtle of soul and deathless, of dove and seashells,
And Àine, the radiant.
Convinced that the sea is a restless woman and she an ordinary person,
She circled from home seeking celandine and comfrey in the hedgerows,
Smell of coconutty gorse and scent of scorched air,
By Stedfastgate, through The Quilts, 
Collecting hearts as she went.
Love walked behind her, not quickly following,
Venus, didn’t catch her up.  
Kneeling by the water where the stones were stacked,
Nut, sky goddess of the four directions, poured libation,
Isis, her daughter, offered healing,
And Wingéd Ma’at stood for justice, incandescent.
Notes:
A haar is a sea fog
'subtle of soul and deathless' is taken from Sappo’s Ode to Aphrodite 
'a restless woman' comes from ‘Hagstone’ by Sinead Gleeson
Nut is an Egyptian sky goddess
Isis is Nut’s daughter, invoked in healing spells to benefit ordinary people

With thanks to Natalie Taylor @natalietaylorartist

With me, Suze Adams, Sabine Crittall, Jaqui Stearn, Amanda Couch, Kate Roberts, Therese Livonne and Kel Portman

Community Walking Projects

Knock on Wood

May 18th 2024 1.30-3.30 Gather at Pianodrome, Granton, Edinburgh. Book via Eventbrite

Listening to the tree types we will visit (from top left around down and across bottom right to left:

American Sycamore, Rowan (leaves, bark/trunk), Apple, Whitebeam, Hazel, Wych Elm, Wheatley Elm (whole tree), Willow, Hazel, Cherry, Alder, Wheatley Elm (leaf and bark), fir (unknown name), Himalayan Birch.

We will also see Whitebeam, Silver Birch, Oak, Scots Pine, Copper Sycamore (or is it Maple?), Beech, and the Pianodrome / Granton Apple Orchard.

Pauline Oliveros

We will be practising Deep Listening, as developed by Pauline Oliveros, which:

explores the difference between the involuntary nature of hearing and the conscious nature of listening. It cultivates a heightened awareness of the sonic environment, both external and internal, and promotes experimentation, improvisation, collaboration, playfulness, and other creative skills vital to personal and community growth.

https://www.deeplistening.rpi.edu/deep-listening/ 

See also the full Knock on Wood story here

Nearby:

The Wall sound walk also by Tamsin Grainger