01 EDINBURGH FRAGMENTS 3 | I J Mellis, a cheesemonger’s shop in Stockbridge
This is the third collection of images made whilst exploring Edinburgh streets for subjects that inspired images. I photographed this shop several times but only this image and one full frontal composition held later appeal. I like this and their Victoria Street shop for what they sell and how they smell as well as their links to boyhood memories when all manner of food shops seemed small and visually interesting before supermarkets appeared.
02 EDINBURGH FRAGMENTS 3 | Southern Cross Café window on Cockburn Street
I usually arrive in Edinburgh by train at Waverley Station tand leave by its Market Street side entrance beside the Fruitmarket Gallery and the City Arts Centre. The next stop is ‘around the corner’ to the Stills Photography Gallery on Cockburn Street. If timed well, walking three exhibitions definitely requires coffee and something to eat. The Southern Cross Café is one of many on that street and is worth visiting. I like what they offer inside and their always idiosyncratic window displays out front. 
03 EDINBURGH FRAGMENTS 3 | A Grassmarket clothing shop, closed long ago
This clothier’s was in almost the last shop below the Castle at the western end of the Grassmarket. Since it closed at least two businesses have passed through and in 2019 its modest building was again under renovation. Here, the substantial and likely hand-knitted sweater drew my attention as did the mechanised hands, the stylised head on the figure wearing it and the glass graffiti. My late mother-in-law was a great knitter and I still have her last major creation completed for me but not quite on this scale. I’d like to have bought this one.
04 EDINBURGH FRAGMENTS 3 | Sir Walter Scott seated in his Gothic memorial on Princes Street
Walter Scott was born in Edinburgh in 1771, died in 1832 at Abbotsford near Melrose and now lies in Dryburgh Abbey. Perhaps best known for his historical novels he was also a poet, dramatist, advocate, sheriff-depute, clerk of session, historian, Fellow and Chairman of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and more. He was created Baronet in 1820, titled Sir Walter Scott. I was encouraged to study and write about his novel ‘Ivanhoe’ when I was a schoolboy of twelve.
05 EDINBURGH FRAGMENTS 3 | Carving details on the Scott Monument over the sculpture
The1838 competition to design the Scott Monument was won by a joiner and self-taught architect George Meikle Kemp under a pseudonym of John Morvo, the medieval builder of Melrose Abbey. His 200 feet Victorian Gothic structure in sandstone shelters Sir John Steell’s sculpture of the writer and his dog in Carrera marble. Both were worked from 1840 to 1844. Many characters from his stories appear as small sculptures across the spire’s richly decorated forms. The nearby train station is named after his series of Waverley Novels as was the Waverley Route railway to Carlisle. 
06 EDINBURGH FRAGMENTS 3 | An apartment tower passed on a Waters of Leith walk
I like following the Waters of Leith Walk with a favourite section linking the Botanic Gardens with the Museums of Modern Art on Bedford Road. This apartment block is on the river bank where its steel, unpainted timber and glass seems to fit comfortably into place amongst the mainly stone buildings of Stockbridge. 
07 EDINBURGH FRAGMENTS 3 | A recent addition to the skyline passed walking to The Meadows
This new apartment block was passed on a walk through Edinburgh University buildings to reach the wide expanse of the Meadows beyond. With the adjoining Bruntsfield Links to the west it offers recreational activities to the City. During the Second World War it carried some 500 public allotments for vegetable growing. It’s protected against building development. 
08 EDINBURGH FRAGMENTS 3 | Another addition standing close to Image 7
This is a second apartment block in the same area of the University I shot as a contrast to the tile cladding on that in Image 5.
09 EDINBURGH FRAGMENTS 3 | A squared glass curtain wall façade at 22-34 Bread Street
The St Cuthbert’s Co-operative Association department store occupied a terrace of stone buildings in Bread Street towards Lothian Road for a century from 1892. This is a detail from a new and contrasting building completed in 1936 to the designs of architect Tomas Maller Warwick. Its bronze frame glazing is the first use of a curtain wall structure in Scotland and the style was intended to create a ‘modern’ showroom to display furniture. Its framework and separate conventional window openings can be seen very closely behind. Now used as hotel and conference venue, the1990s lettering font follows the original.
10 EDINBURGH FRAGMENTS 3 | Classical detailing on the Surgeon’s Hall Museums building
The Surgeon’s Hall Museum was established in 1699 and subsequent development and expansion in the buildings, their function and the stream of medical advances have created a popular and much visited institution. Extensive changes and renovations in 2014>2015 have been followed by a wide ranging series of exhibitions. I’ve photographed the exterior of William Playfair’s 1832 building but I’ve not ventured inside as yet.
11 EDINBURGH FRAGMENTS 3 | Doorway detail on the former St Thomas Church, Rutland Place
St Thomas Church on Rutland Place at the west end of Princes Street was designed by David Cousin and finished in 1843. Built for the Church of England it was deconsecrated and when I made these images it was a pub and restaurant. 
12 EDINBURGH FRAGMENTS 3 | Red door and stone carving detail
This neo-Romanesque porch and doorway was a later addition to the façade and carries rich and dense figurative and geometric stone carving echoed by the red timber door. The interior retains some significant original features alongside later alterations and additions. As with the Surgeon’s Hall Museum I must look inside. 
13 EDINBURGH FRAGMENTS 3 | Carving detail
Decay is beginning to affect some details of the stonework but generally it’s remarkably sharp edged after such long exposure to the Edinburgh climate.
14 EDINBURGH FRAGMENTS 3 | A cherry tree set behind iron railings in afternoon shade
Had I walked here in the morning this image would have been very different. Now the sun was well down behind the terrace and its indirect light is levelling and subdued. I looked at a monochrome alternative but preferred this lightly tinted hued variation.
15 EDINBURGH FRAGMENTS 3 | Carved stone and iron railings at the Dean Cemetery
Contrasts of solid and void, hard and soft, smooth and chiselled, colour and monochrome all appealed in this composition from the Dean Cemetery entrance gates and railings. 
16 EDINBURGH FRAGMENTS 3 | Trimmed trees and stonework by Image 16
These trimmed and closely spaced trees echo the Dean Cemetery entrance railings. Their verticality contrasted with the stacked horizontal emphasis of the stone blocks on the building beyond. Green algae on trees and masonry added a further dimension.
17 EDINBURGH FRAGMENTS 3 | A wind felled Persian walnut tree trimmed and cut
In the Royal Botanic Garden the high winds of the2018 Storm Ali brought this Persian walnut tree and others down and damaged glasshouse glazing. Much more extensive damage was caused by Cyclone Andrea in January 2012. Some of the salvaged timber from it was seasoned and used by Scottish furniture makers to create the unique pieces I saw in a 2016 exhibition in the Garden’s Gateway Gallery. 
18 EDINBURGH FRAGMENTS 3 | A globe light glows through a whitewashed basement window
On Dundas Street a building basement behind railings and down stone steps was under renovation. Its window glass had been whitened with broad brush flourishes admitting daylight and hiding the interior. A light globe floated as a cool yellow sun behind clouds. This and a second painted glass shown in EDINBURGH FRAGMENTS 2 seem as though influenced by paintings in the many nearby art galleries.
