Restoring the Gardens

Restoring means "returning the existing fabric of a place to a known earlier state by removing accretions or by reassembling existing components without the introduction of new material."

Restoring Edinburgh Gardens means taking out the intrusive buildings as soon as an opportunity presents. This means finding alternative sites for these services so these buildings can be demolished.


When the The Maternal & Child Health Centre was built in the late 1960's, together with a public toilet block and shelter, a fountain and paths were destroyed.
A fountain and paths are shown at that location on this MMBW map from the 1890's.

Here the map is overlaid onto a recent photo of the gardens, showing its approximate relation to the Maternal & Child Health Centre buildings.

The fountain, surrounded by a low fence, is just visible in the background on the right of this 1965 photo of the childrens' playground. The playground is still in the same location and International House is visible on the left, but the fountain was removed or destroyed.This postcard from 1907 shows the fountain near where the proposed multi-purpose building will be

[SLV H33677/50 a03778]

It is not necessary to recreate the fountain, but removing the intrusive buildings and recreating the paths and circular garden bed would be a fitting project to celebrate the garden's 150th anniversary in 2012.

This is not the place for a building.