Princes Street Gardens

Princes Street Gardens are a public park in the center of the Scottish capital Edinburgh. You are at the foot of Edinburgh Castle. The park was created in the 1820s in the wake of the long draining of the Nor Loch and the building of the New Town. Nor Loch was a large lake in the center of the city, which was for centuries contaminated waste water from flowing down the higher-lying Old Town.

Princes Street Gardens run south along Princes Street and are of an artificial hill ( The Mound called ) cut. The eastern part (East Princes Street Gardens ) is from The Mound to Waverley Bridge and makes an area of ​​34,000 m ² made. The larger western part of the park (West Princes Street Gardens ) has an area of ​​120.000m ² and extends to the neighboring churches of St. John 's and St Cuthbert's in the near Lothian Road.

The park is a popular meeting place in Edinburgh. It hosts regular basis, particularly during the Hogmanay celebrations, concerts at the Ross bandstand instead.

Monuments

Within the park, along the south side of Princes Street is home to many statues and monuments. The most striking is the 1844 built in honor of Sir Walter Scott in the Gothic style Scott Monument. In the eastern part there are also statues of the explorer David Livingstone, the publisher Adam Black and the writer and Professor John Wilson. In the western part there are statues of the poet Allan Ramsay, the reformer Thomas Guthrie, of Obstetrics pioneer James Young Simpson and the Scottish -American War Memorial, the Ross Fountain and bandstand and a popular flower clock.

The Ross Fountain

The Ross Fountain is an iron ornamental fountains from the 19th century. It is located at the western end of the park. The items shown in the fountain figures include mermaids and four women, which science, the arts, poetry and industry represent. Another female figure is located at the top of the fountain.

The fountain was cast in the early 1860s by the Durenne ironworks in Haute- Marne. 1862, the fountain at the Great Exhibition was issued in London. There he was discovered by philanthropist and weapons producer Daniel Ross, who acquired him for Edinburgh city center. The fountain was transported in 122 parts and 1869 came in Leith ( now part of Edinburgh).

With great deliberation the installation of the statue Princes Street Gardens were selected as the site. The preparation was carried out in 1872. The fountain was controversial at the time. Marked as the Dean of the neighboring St. John 's Episcopal Church Edward Bannerman Ramsay the fountain as " terribly obscene and disgusting ".

Since a renovation in 2001 flows for the first time since 1996 water from the well.

The fountain is run as a building of Class B and thus is considered important for the overall architectural image of the environment.