150 years on - why Edinburgh still needs the Cockburn Association

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Why is Edinburgh still such a beautiful and distinctive city? Why isn’t it sliced through by motorways? Why do wild, green hills dominate views in this highly urban place? Why is the Old Town still “old” and romantic? Why can anyone just chill out in Princes Street Gardens, taking in the magnificent views for free?

The answers have a lot to do with the citizens who, over generations, have cared enough about their city to advocate for healthy and attractive public spaces, and to raise their voices when the Council or developers have concocted myopic and damaging schemes. Although often attacked, sometimes fairly, for 150 years the Cockburn Association has been a channel to amplify citizen concerns to “protect and enhance the beauty of Edinburgh”. In an age of austerity, when everything has a price, it remains vital. Don’t take Edinburgh’s uniqueness for granted.

Henry Cockburn was one of those formidable figures who graced the city in the first half of the nineteenth century. In 1817 he described how “the gentle philosopher Professor Playfair” chaired “another of these new things called public meetings” at which “attention was called to duty of maintaining the beauty of Edinburgh”.

That simple but profound connection between duty and beauty inspired those who followed in his footsteps, and honoured his legacy through the name of their Association, which was formed in 1875. So what has the Cockburn Association done for Edinburgh, and why is it needed now and in the future?

Parks and trees do not directly generate income, but they are part of Edinburgh’s wealth. From its earliest days the Association has been passionate about the need for, and benefits of, trees and free access to green spaces for all. In 1876, to everyone’s lasting benefit, it campaigned successfully to open Princes Street Gardens to the public. Over the decades, successors of those founder members have defended those same gardens from a variety of “improvements”, including a Winter Garden, a multi-storey car park, and more recently an events arena and “visitor centre”, while firmly asserting the rights to free access in the face of commercial pressures.

The principle of the “public interest”, and its expression through the enjoyment of the city, has been a fundamental belief. It underpinned an early campaign for municipal acquisition of land for Inverleith Park. As an independent organisation, open to all, it relies on subscriptions, donations and legacies, and the persuasive power of its ideas and arguments to influence decision-makers. Thus, early advocacy of the benefits of trees encouraged Sir George Warrender to stop tree-felling on his Bruntsfield estate, with short-term and lasting benefits, private and public. The gardens at Nicolson Square and St Patrick’s Square are other early legacies.

The Association grasped the potential of the city’s waterways. Walkways were proposed along the burns and rivers in the 1920s, but only came into being decades later. Today’s pathway networks owe much to campaigns spanning a century.

Relations between the Cockburn Association and the City Council were relatively harmonious until the post-war period, when proposals to modernise the city included a motorway standard inner ring road plunging through a tunnel under Calton Hill, connecting to a major roundabout behind Waverley Station before entering another tunnel below the Royal Mile and heading on stilts by the Meadows to Tollcross. Skirmishes with the Council over these and other transformational road proposals rumbled through the 1960s and 1970s, before a lasting reprieve was won. Had the plans gone ahead, damage to the Old Town would have been irreversible, and World Heritage status unimaginable.

The Old Town has experienced regular periods of existential crisis; in each the Association has led campaigns to save it. In 1920, faced with proposals for demolition and clearance, the Association declared “The Old Town is not a Slum”. Without its activism, iconic buildings such as John Knox’s House, Moubray House, Huntly House and the Canongate Tollbooth were unlikely to have survived. More than half a century later, when the plans for roads and clearances had blighted this historic area and others, the Cockburn Conservation Trust took a hands-on approach, renovating buildings for reuse. It worked in partnership with architects, funders and the City Council, putting into practice the “conservative surgery” philosophy of Patrick Geddes, a long-time member in the Victorian and Edwardian era.

In our own times, the Old Town faces a new crisis. The widely opposed Caltongate development, though stalled by the property crash after 2008, anticipated the displacement of the resident population; the short-term letting industry, purpose-built student accommodation and overtourism have all but completed that process. The Cockburn Association has campaigned against this transformation, and can claim some credit for new powers taken up by the City Council to try to restrict and better regulate the loss of housing, but the damage has been done.

So what are the lessons for Edinburgh, and other cities? There is an important physical legacy, to enjoy day by day: without the Association, Edinburgh would be a more mundane, less beautiful city, its centre plastered with advertisements. Our book, Campaigning for Edinburgh, presents a much fuller, though not uncritical, account of what the Cockburn Association has contributed and how. A key message is that cities need passionate and informed civic organisations to give citizens a voice. In 1849 Lord Cockburn warned against “hurtful projects and hurtful indifference”, “incompatibilities between public and private interests” and public authorities “tormented by absurd schemes and claims”. These sentiments could be expressed today. Edinburgh still needs a strong Cockburn Association.

Campaigning for Edinburgh: The Cockburn Association 1875-2049 by Cliff Hague and Richard Rodger with DJ Johnson-Smith and Terry Levinthal and Foreword by Alexander McCall Smith is published by Birlinn at £25.