Home to poets and playwrights: Scotland's most expensive street
La N
Home to poets and playwrights. Scotland's most expensive street
Published on 29 Dec 2009
It has gone from near dereliction to Scotland's most expensive street - and
through its windows have gazed famous artists, poets, playwrights,
publishers and one of history's
greatest composers.
Throughout its chequered past, Warriston Crescent, on the edge of the New
Town in Edinburgh, has always been favoured by some, from bohemians to
architectural aficionados, but now Bank of Scotland research of house sales
puts the average price of property in the cul de sac at �960,671.
Artists John Bellany and Francis Cadell lived there, as did poet George
Bruce, renowned architectural historian Colin McWilliam, father of author
Candia Mc William, and the composer Chopin, who stayed there while playing
his only concerts in Scotland, one in Glasgow and one in Edinburgh, in 1848.
The research, based on postcodes of houses sold in the last five years,
found six Edinburgh addresses in the New Town and Morningside areas were
among Scotland's 10 most expensive streets. The most expensive street
outwith Edinburgh is Morningfield Road in Aberdeen, with an average price of
�592,297, while the dearest in Glasgow were Victoria Park Gardens South
(�523,429) and Park Gardens (�492,222). The most expensive street in Dundee
is Lawers Drive at �495,833.
One of the most famous residents was George Bruce, a contemporary of Hugh
MacDiarmid and last survivor of the Scottish literary renaissance, who died
in 2002. He became known as the street's poet laureate and often gave
spontaneous works to neighbours, some of which were published in a book
called The Crescent.
As well as writers such as Mr Bruce, who lived there for 50 years, perhaps
attracted by the open-front outlook and Water of Leith at the bottom of the
back gardens, architectural critics have also been attracted to the street.
Colin McWilliam, a leading influence on architecture as a National Trust for
Scotland leader, was co-author of The Buildings of Scotland and a separately
important work titled Edinburgh. Archie Turnbull, who published another key
architectural book, AJ Youngson's The Making of Classical Edinburgh, also
lived there.
Yesterday, residents in the capital welcomed the news and told of Warriston
Crescent's highs and lows.
The current resident who has been longest in the row of Georgian
townhouses - which date from the start of the 19th century - is former
timber merchant Laurie Harris, 70, who has spent 37 years there with wife,
Frances. He said: "We've had floods and there have been attempts at
development.
"In the 1960s there was a plan to build a motorway right through the middle
but it was resisted. There is good wildlife out the back. I swear I saw an
otter in the river."
Mr Harris, also the residents' association treasurer, added: "It has a great
history. Lord Provost Andrew Murray was said to have got permission for a
turning circle to make it easier for him to be picked up for work."
He told the story of another resident with whom he had gone to school, the
son of playwright Robert Kemp, Arnold, who grew up to become an editor of
The Herald. "The story goes that the Kemps opened the wall at the back to
allow ducks into their garden but it caused a flood. Flooding is not
popular," said Mr Harris.
Another resident, Charles Guest, said a number of neighbours had left in
recent years, prompting house sales. "At one point some of the houses were
almost derelict. You couldn't give them away in the 1950s. But its history
has changed over the years," he said.
Those who made early investments will now see dividends, but not all
residents have realised such good fortune in the past: Francis Cadell, whose
paintings now sell for hundreds of thousands, died penniless at number four
Warriston Crescent in 1937.