Hello from The Meadows Edinburgh

The Meadows is the perfect open space to walk, jog, play tennis (16 courts), take the kids to the park, play sports, meditate, practice yoga, hire a bike, or just chill and enjoy the company of friends. The play park is one of the best in Edinburgh and The Meadows is also fortunate to have Bruntsfield Links beside it, expanding the area considerably. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Meadows is a large public park in Edinburgh, Scotland, to the south of the city centre. It consists largely of open grassland crossed by tree-lined paths, but also has a children's playground, a croquet club, tennis courts and recreational sports pitches. It is bordered by the University of Edinburgh's George Square campus, the Gordon Aikman Lecture Theatre and the Quartermile development on the site of the old Edinburgh Royal Infirmary to the north and Marchmont to the south.[1] To the south-west, it becomes Bruntsfield Links where there is a free, public pitch and putt golf course. History The Meadows originally contained a loch, known as the "burgh loch" or, later, the "South Loch". It covered much of the area bounded in the east by Hope Park Terrace and in the west by the point where Melville Drive becomes Brougham Street, and in the south by Melville Drive and in the north by the site later occupied by the Old Royal Infirmary, a total of 63 acres (250,000 m2). The loch drained from east to west, where the burn known as the Loch-rin was sluiced to prevent the water from draining out. It is from this burn that the street names Lochrin Buildings and Lochrin Place in Tollcross derive. Until Edinburgh's first piped water supply from Comiston arrived in 1621, the loch provided much of the town's drinking water. It was partially drained in the mid-17th century and for a time named Straiton's Loch or Straiton's Park after the burgess who tried to improve the area. In 1722 Sir Thomas Hope, 8th Baronet Hope of Craighall (c. 1681–1771), an agricultural improver and politician, ordered more drainage work, making the marshy land into a park with a path around the edge, hedges, avenues of lime trees, drainage canals and a summer house. The central tree-lined path known as Middle Meadow Walk followed, and for several decades maps labelled this area as "The Meadows or Hope Park". It is the traditional practice ground of the Royal Company of Archers, whose meeting-place is nearby. In 1827 an Act of Parliament protected the Meadows from being built upon. Though animals were grazed there and notable Edinburgh citizens are known to have walked there, there was no full right of public access until the middle of the 19th century when new paths were gradually added, crisscrossing the park. An exception to city council rules against building on the land was allowed for the temporary large glass pavilion of the 1886 International Exhibition of Industry, Science and Art.[8] The whale's jawbones forming an arch over the Meadows path called Jawbone Walk originally formed the display stand of the Zetland and Fair Isle Knitters Association. Having been severely affected by weathering, the Arch was removed in 2014 for restoration. In the 1870s the Meadows became an important venue in the early development of football in Edinburgh. Amongst the numerous fledgeling teams using the Meadows were Heart of Midlothian F.C. and Hibernian F.C., later to become the city's preeminent sides, and the first derby match between them was played there on 25 December 1875. Although a modern plaque has been placed near Whalebone Arch to commemorate the event, the main pitch was on the eastern fringe of the park, running from east to west, parallel with the Boroughloch Brewery. The Second World War brought more than 500 allotments to the east end of the Meadows as part of the effort to make the nation more self-sufficient in food. By 1950 many local residents wanted the area re-turfed, but it was 1966 before the last signs of vegetable cultivation were removed.