Gilmerton Cove


Useful Information

Location: Edinburgh.
Meeting Point: 16 Drum Street, Gilmerton, Edinburgh, just off Gilmerton Crossroads, opposite Royal Bingo Hall.
Lothian Buses 3, 3a, 29 and First Bus 82.
(55.905601, -3.133061)
Open: All year Sat, Sun 12, 14.
Booking essential for all tours.
[2020]
Fee: Adults GBP 7.50, Children (5-16) GBP 4, Students GBP 6.50, Seniors (60+) GBP 6.50, Family (2+2) GBP 20.
[2020]
Classification: SubterraneaCave House, sandstone.
Light: LightIncandescent
Dimension:  
Guided tours: D=60 min.
Photography:  
Accessibility:  
Bibliography:  
Address: Gilmerton Cove, Gilmerton Heritage Trust, 16 Drum Street, Edinburgh, EH17 8QH, Tel: 0131-666-2035, Tel: 07914-829-177. E-mail: contact
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then.
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History

1719-1724 cavern probably dug out by the blacksmith George Paterson.
1782 earliest written account produced by the Rev. Thomas Whyte of Liberton.
1897 extensive survey by F.R. Coles, Assistant Keeper of the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland in Edinburgh.
1998 acquired for the sum of GBP 1 by the City of Edinburgh Council from Ladbroke's Bookmakers and development started.
16-AUG-2003 opened to the public.

Description

Gilmerton Cove are some man made tunnels and chambers below Edinburgh. The first description was made by Rev. Thomas Whyte of Liberton in 1782. He told they were cut between 1719 and 1724 by the blacksmith George Paterson. He also told that Paterson had died around 1735, so he never met him personally. But later several investigators of the cove, like F. R. Coles, the Assistant Keeper of the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland, doubted that Paterson was able to build it in only five years. They guessed the caves were much older, and he just widened them.

The whole cavern has a central passage with numerous chambers of strange form to both sides. The passage is only 3 m deep and 12 m long, but it has seven sidechambers. As Paterson told, he built this cellar as an underground dwelling house, the rooms are named bedroom, drinking parlour, or forge. Most of the chambers contain some kind of rock hewn furniture, bed like recesses or a stone table with benches on either side.

The drinking parlour is a 4.50 m long and 1.50 m wide chamber, supported by a stone pillar in the center of a 3 m long rock table. This table is cut inwards at the base with a 7.5 cm wide stone ledge left as a foot-rest, and it has a 35 by 20 cm big bowl-shaped cavity in its center. This is called a punch bowl. Along the walls all around the chamber are benches cut out of the rock. A number of narrow holes in the ceiling may have been for bringing liquor down into the cave.