Edinburgh 900 exhibition opens at St James Quarter
There was a grand opening ceremony on Leith Street on Tuesday when the Rt Hon Lord Provost cut the ribbon on the combined Edinburgh 900 exhibition.
This is a showcase of the various projects funded to celebrate the 900 years since the capital became a royal burgh under King David 1.
Get along and see the 11 displays all created around different themes from now until 31 August.
'Edinburgh 900 is a series of events and activities from a wide range of organisations in the city which tells the story of Edinburgh's through the centuries from the 12th century City of David right up to the 21st century, the City of Diversity.
'Together with partners and community groups across the city, the City of Edinburgh Council is curating a rich programme of events, talks, tours and tales to paint the picture of what has made Edinburgh into the internationally admired city it now is.'
More information about what to expect here.
Photo Dr Roderick Howlet.
Photo Dr Roderick Howlet.
Photo Dr Roderick Howlet.
Photo Dr Roderick Howlet.
As part of the Edinburgh 900 budget, £100,000 was allocated to a community fund and a further £100,000 to a civic fund.
The community strand features local events run by community groups in the city over 2024-25 promoting local heritage and initiatives, designed to engage with new local audiences and to showcase the diversity of Edinburgh.
The civic strand is an opportunity for cultural and heritage organisations to exhibit Edinburgh and its illustrious past.
Successful Community Fund applications:
Citadel Arts Group Leith Customs: £5,000.00
Ukraine t Margaret's Saturday School & St Cuthbert's Parish Church 900 Artworks
Exhibition for the 900th Anniversary: £3,000.00
The Living Memory Association Our Working City: £4,860.00
Art and Spirituality CIC 'International South West Community Project': £3,466.00
THE MELTING POT Innovation: Past and Present: £4,750.00
Passion4Fusion Black History Month Gala: £5,000.00
Abbeyhill Colony of Artists Colony of Artists 20th Anniversary Celebrations: £5,000.00
Leith walk polisbox Outside the (polis)box: £5,000.00
Newhaven Coastal Rowing Club Seafaring Spirit: Celebrating Newhaven's Coastal Community: £2,396.00
PenPal Productions Tales of the City: £4,116.00
Portobello Toddler Hut Storytelling – The UK's oldest playgroup: £4,685.00
Project Esperanza A City of Diversity: Past, Present, and Future: £5,000.00
The Edinburgh Remakery Ltd Celebrating 900 Year through Art & Stories: £5,000.00
Just Festival: £5,000.00
Edinburgh & Lothians Greenspace Trust Magical Woodland Walk: £4,990.00
Active Inquiry 900 years of Leith – a play: £5,000.00
WHALE Arts WHALE Members' Art-History Trips: £1,875.00
Scottish Historic Buildings Trust Open House: Leith Custom House Festival: £4,953.00
Lavender Menace Queer Books Archive Reading Queer Edinburgh with Lavender Menace Archive: £5,000.00
Gracemount Mansion Development Trust Our Gracemount Community Heritage 900: £5,000.00
Greatway Foundation SCOTAFRICAN Stories: £5,000.00
The Edinburgh Tool Library Edinburgh Tool Library turns 10: Celebrating a Decade of
Community and Creativity: £4,812.50
Successful Civic Fund applications:
TRACS for The Scottish International Storytelling Festival EDINBURGH: Our Storied Town: £10,000
Multi-Cultural Family Base Heritage, community and wellbeing: £12,380
Edinburgh Leisure Edinburgh Leisure Celebrating Edinburgh 900: 'Your Health Is for Life': £7,000
Edinburgh Printmakers Castle Mills: Then & Now | 900 Stories in Print: £14,736
Push the Boat Out (Arts SCIO) Disrupting the Narrative at Push the Boat Out, Edinburgh's International Poetry Festival: £14,627
F-Bomb Theatre Monumental: £14,987.2
African Connections CIC / Edinburgh Multicultural Festival: £14,883.75
Like this:
Like
Related
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Edinburgh Reporter
4 days ago
- Edinburgh Reporter
Edinburgh 900 exhibition opens at St James Quarter
There was a grand opening ceremony on Leith Street on Tuesday when the Rt Hon Lord Provost cut the ribbon on the combined Edinburgh 900 exhibition. This is a showcase of the various projects funded to celebrate the 900 years since the capital became a royal burgh under King David 1. Get along and see the 11 displays all created around different themes from now until 31 August. 'Edinburgh 900 is a series of events and activities from a wide range of organisations in the city which tells the story of Edinburgh's through the centuries from the 12th century City of David right up to the 21st century, the City of Diversity. 'Together with partners and community groups across the city, the City of Edinburgh Council is curating a rich programme of events, talks, tours and tales to paint the picture of what has made Edinburgh into the internationally admired city it now is.' More information about what to expect here. Photo Dr Roderick Howlet. Photo Dr Roderick Howlet. Photo Dr Roderick Howlet. Photo Dr Roderick Howlet. As part of the Edinburgh 900 budget, £100,000 was allocated to a community fund and a further £100,000 to a civic fund. The community strand features local events run by community groups in the city over 2024-25 promoting local heritage and initiatives, designed to engage with new local audiences and to showcase the diversity of Edinburgh. The civic strand is an opportunity for cultural and heritage organisations to exhibit Edinburgh and its illustrious past. Successful Community Fund applications: Citadel Arts Group Leith Customs: £5,000.00 Ukraine t Margaret's Saturday School & St Cuthbert's Parish Church 900 Artworks Exhibition for the 900th Anniversary: £3,000.00 The Living Memory Association Our Working City: £4,860.00 Art and Spirituality CIC 'International South West Community Project': £3,466.00 THE MELTING POT Innovation: Past and Present: £4,750.00 Passion4Fusion Black History Month Gala: £5,000.00 Abbeyhill Colony of Artists Colony of Artists 20th Anniversary Celebrations: £5,000.00 Leith walk polisbox Outside the (polis)box: £5,000.00 Newhaven Coastal Rowing Club Seafaring Spirit: Celebrating Newhaven's Coastal Community: £2,396.00 PenPal Productions Tales of the City: £4,116.00 Portobello Toddler Hut Storytelling – The UK's oldest playgroup: £4,685.00 Project Esperanza A City of Diversity: Past, Present, and Future: £5,000.00 The Edinburgh Remakery Ltd Celebrating 900 Year through Art & Stories: £5,000.00 Just Festival: £5,000.00 Edinburgh & Lothians Greenspace Trust Magical Woodland Walk: £4,990.00 Active Inquiry 900 years of Leith – a play: £5,000.00 WHALE Arts WHALE Members' Art-History Trips: £1,875.00 Scottish Historic Buildings Trust Open House: Leith Custom House Festival: £4,953.00 Lavender Menace Queer Books Archive Reading Queer Edinburgh with Lavender Menace Archive: £5,000.00 Gracemount Mansion Development Trust Our Gracemount Community Heritage 900: £5,000.00 Greatway Foundation SCOTAFRICAN Stories: £5,000.00 The Edinburgh Tool Library Edinburgh Tool Library turns 10: Celebrating a Decade of Community and Creativity: £4,812.50 Successful Civic Fund applications: TRACS for The Scottish International Storytelling Festival EDINBURGH: Our Storied Town: £10,000 Multi-Cultural Family Base Heritage, community and wellbeing: £12,380 Edinburgh Leisure Edinburgh Leisure Celebrating Edinburgh 900: 'Your Health Is for Life': £7,000 Edinburgh Printmakers Castle Mills: Then & Now | 900 Stories in Print: £14,736 Push the Boat Out (Arts SCIO) Disrupting the Narrative at Push the Boat Out, Edinburgh's International Poetry Festival: £14,627 F-Bomb Theatre Monumental: £14,987.2 African Connections CIC / Edinburgh Multicultural Festival: £14,883.75 Like this: Like Related
The National
5 days ago
- The National
Capital link to writer of landmark vampire story should be celebrated
Almost 80 years before Stoker's Dracula, Edinburgh medical graduate John William Polidori (1795-1821) wrote The Vampyre: A Tale (1819), said to be the first English-language vampire novel. Polidori's work, based on an abandoned scrap of a story by Lord Byron, was a huge hit because its authorship had initially been misattributed by the publisher (accidentally on purpose?) to the scandalous pop-star poet. Whatever the reason for its popularity, Polidori's tale speedily gave rise to stage adaptations in French and English and sparked the genre that today is still spinning money. Except in Edinburgh – which has never made capital of its connection with this huge literary 'first'. READ MORE: I knew I needed Sir Geoff Palmer in my documentary instantly Dr John Polidori is influential for having shifted the vampire tale from lore to literature, introducing the aristocratic, salon-friendly vampire into the literary bloodstream. He had graduated in Edinburgh in 1815 with a thesis on nightmare, in 1816 being employed as personal physician to the Anglo-Scottish poet Lord Byron during his Swiss stay by Lake Geneva. During this famous summer of incessant rain, Byron and his friends swapped ghost stories. What emerged were Mary Shelley's Frankenstein's monster and the first literary vampire, and discussion leading to both was influenced by the work of Edinburgh-trained medical men – Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) and Gorgie-born James Lind MD, FRS (1736-1812). Polidori died very young – the consequence of a carriage accident or, some say, by suicide. Although their vampire tales were written almost 80 years apart, Polidori has a connection with Bram Stoker in that he was an uncle of the artistic Rossettis who became part of Bram Stoker's circle. READ MORE: Glasgow region needs 'elected mayor and devolution deal' A few years go, when researching for my dramatised lecture 'Vampire and Monster', I was fortunate in being able to able to identify, with the kind help of the University of British Columbia Library, the student lodgings in Edinburgh of John Polidori – even learning the name of his landlady. This flatted tenement, in the vicinity of St Cuthbert's Chapel of Ease, was demolished in 1947 in the face of much opposition, but in recent years has risen from the dead in the form of a tenement property built on the site in a similar style – over the historic trance which would have known the feet of Polidori, the diligent Anglo-Italian medical student whose inclination was rather toward literature and politics. A Polidori plaque – or something more ambitious and attractive to visitors – should surely be placed in this southside location. This would accord with City of Edinburgh Council's recent decision to prioritise the transformation of The Causey into an urban oasis. At the very least, could the local graffiti be regularly cleaned off? Carolyn Lincoln Edinburgh THE Donald, for once, has seriously undersold himself. His military parade – while surpassing the more muted affair held in London by a real king earlier in the day, and making a fair stab at the sort of roll-out of kit we associate with the likes of Russia, China and North Korea – fell well short of what he knows in his heart he truly deserves. Donald is no wannabe king, he is a wannabe Caesar. READ MORE: David Pratt: Israel attacks, Iran bleeds, and America plays God Should he survive another year and not meet his Brutus and co en route to Congress to deliver his State of the Union address, he will surely rework the event into the sort of triumphal procession truly befitting his magnificence. Amidst the tanks and the soldiers, probably by then 'goose-stepping' in the manner beloved of dictators, will be groups of chained 'illegals' en route to who knows where, and of course some tarred and feathered judges, senators and maybe even a state governor or two, 'pour encourager les autres'. Maybe Congress will even vote him a triumphal arch for the occasion? Michael Collie Dunfermline I WRITE in response to Susan FG Forde's letter concerning St Valery-en-Caux, and the capture of the 51st Highland Division. My father was there, he was a Lieutenant, and a Territorial, so part-time. He and his friends were shipped off from the Outer Hebrides to France; some had never even seen a train before. They had armoured personnel carriers which bullets just went straight through, anti-tank weapons but no ammunition. He latterly had to use a German automatic weapon. They were told at one point by the French to hold a line, and that the French would reinforce behind them. When the Camerons fell back the French had gone. Eventually they ran out of ammunition, destroyed all their equipment and surrendered. He spent five years in a German prison camp, and returned after the war to have the equivalent of five years' bed and breakfast deducted from what he was due from the Ministry of Defence. Norman Robertson via email
Edinburgh Reporter
5 days ago
- Edinburgh Reporter
Swing into summer at an Edinburgh golf course
Edinburgh Leisure invites locals and visitors alike to 'Swing into Summer' with a new campaign celebrating the city's six diverse golf courses and an exhibition showcasing Edinburgh's rich golfing heritage. Whether you're a seasoned golfer or a beginner, Edinburgh Leisure offers a way to start with a choice of six scenic courses in the city. With both nine and 18 hole options, flexible memberships, and pay-as-you-play access, there's something for everyone. The 'Swing into Summer' campaign highlights the sport's accessibility, sociability, and health benefits—especially for retirees, young professionals, and casual players looking for a relaxing way to stay active. It also positions Edinburgh Leisure as the ideal launchpad for summer golf adventures, including the prestigious Scottish Open in North Berwick this July. Discover the Courses Braid Hills – A historic course with panoramic views and a legacy tied to golfing legends like James Braid and Tommy Armour. – A historic course with panoramic views and a legacy tied to golfing legends like James Braid and Tommy Armour. The Wee Braids – A family-friendly 9-hole course perfect for beginners and quick rounds, just minutes from the city centre. – A family-friendly 9-hole course perfect for beginners and quick rounds, just minutes from the city centre. Silverknowes – A coastal gem with generous fairways and stunning views across the Firth of Forth. – A coastal gem with generous fairways and stunning views across the Firth of Forth. Craigentinny – A walkable parkland course with vistas of Arthur's Seat and Calton Hill, offering a mix of challenging holes. – A walkable parkland course with vistas of Arthur's Seat and Calton Hill, offering a mix of challenging holes. Carrick Knowe – Nestled near Murrayfield Stadium, this mature course blends tradition with modern design. – Nestled near Murrayfield Stadium, this mature course blends tradition with modern design. Portobello – A compact and forgiving 9-hole course with tight greens and a memorable finishing hole. Teeing Off Through Time: A Golf Heritage Exhibition As part of the Edinburgh 900 celebrations, Edinburgh Leisure is proud to present 'Teeing Off Through Time', which will be on permanent display at Silverknowes Golf Course. There will also be an opportunity to visit the exhibition from 9–15 July at St James Quarter, next to Mhor Bakery on Leith Street, where it will be on display as part of Edinburgh Leisure's contribution to Edinburgh 900. This free exhibition explores Edinburgh's pivotal role in the history of golf, showcases the stories behind Edinburgh Leisure's six courses, and celebrates iconic local tournaments like the Dispatch Trophy and Gibson Cup. Visitors can also view rare photographs and memorabilia from the Braid Hills and Silverknowes collections, made possible by the Sporting Heritage Grants Programme and the National Lottery Heritage Fund, which will be on display again at Silverknowes from the beginning of July. PHOTO Chris Watt Photography Photo Chris Watt Photography Photo Chris Watt Photography Like this: Like Related
