page_title: Stockbridge, Edinburgh
section_title: St Bernard's Well
hierarchical_section_title: Stockbridge, Edinburgh / St Bernard's Well
caption_attribution_description: English: St. Bernard's Bridge, Water of Leith, Edinburgh
context_page_description: Stockbridge is a suburb of Edinburgh, located towards the north of the city centre, bounded by the New Town and by Comely Bank. The name is Scots stock brig from Anglic stocc brycg, meaning a timber bridge. Originally a small outlying village, it was incorporated into the City of Edinburgh in the 19th century. The current "Stock Bridge", built in 1801, is a stone structure spanning the Water of Leith. The painter Henry Raeburn owned two adjoining estates, Deanhaugh and St Bernard's, which he developed with the assistance of the architect James Milne. Milne was also responsible for the fine St Bernard's Church in Saxe Coburg Street. Ann Street, designed by Raeburn and named after his wife, is a rare early example of a New Town street with private front gardens.
context_section_description: This mineral water well is on the south bank of the Water of Leith, on an estate once known as St Bernard's. Just below a footpath is St Bernard's Well (55°57′19.1″N 3°12′41.4″W); a small well-house was originally built in 1760. The waters of the well were held in high repute for their medicinal qualities, and the nobility and gentry took summer quarters in the valley to drink deep draughts of the water and take the country air.
  In 1788 Lord Gardenstone, a wealthy Court of Session law lord, who thought he had benefited from the mineral spring, commissioned Alexander Nasmyth to design a new pump room and ornate structure over. The builder John Wilson began work in 1789. It is in the shape of a circular Greek temple supported by ten tall Doric order columns, based on Sibyl's Temple at Tivoli. The original statue (made of Coade Stone) was all but unrecognisable by 1820 and the temple stood for 50 years with no statue.
  In 1884 the lands (including the well) were purchased by the Edinburgh publisher William Nelson, who commissioned the current statue of Hygieia from David Watson Stevenson and presented the improved well to the city as a landmark.
  St Bernard's F.C., a once successful Scottish team but now defunct were named after the famous well and played in Stockbridge. The mosaic interior is by Thomas Bonnar.
  The superiority of much of the St Bernard's estate was purchased in the 1790s by Sir Henry Raeburn, who almost immediately began selling it off by feu charters, although he continued to live in St. Bernard's House until his death in 1823. (The house was demolished in 1826 to make way for the east side of Carlton Street).
  In the opening years of the 19th century George Lauder of Inverleith Mains also acquired parts of these lands as evidenced by a charter whereby "Henry Raeburn, as retoured heir to Sir Henry Raeburn, Knight, Portrait Painter, Edinburgh, his father, was seised on the 19 March 1824 in a piece of ground for the purpose of making a communication by a stone bridge across the Water of Leith from the New Street called Atholl Street, now India Place, to the grounds of St Bernards, parish of St Cuthberts, which piece of ground had previously been sold by George Lauder residing at Inverleith Mains, to the said (deceased) Sir Henry Raeburn on 28 June 1823". Doubtless it was thought that this new bridge (built the following year by James Milne, and today known as St. Bernard's Bridge) would assist in making those so far undeveloped parts of Stockbridge, and the Raeburn lands, attractive to developers. George Lauder, the great-grandfather of Sir Harry Lauder, had also purchased St. Bernard's Well and surrounding land in April 1812 from Francis Garden Campbell of Troup & Glenlyon. His eldest surviving son is described in the Edinburgh Annual Post Office Directories as "William Lauder of St.Bernards Well, farmer" until his death in nearby Saunders Street in 1858. He was buried in Dean Cemetery.
  In 1884 St. Bernard's Well was purchased and presented to his fellow Edinburgh townsmen by the publisher William Nelson, after it had been restored and redecorated by Thomas Bonnar, with a new statue of Hygieia, carved by David Watson Stevenson. Dean Terrace and Ann Street today overlook the valley and Well. The well closed to the public in the 1940s, but was restored in 2013 and is now maintained by the City of Edinburgh Council and open to the public for three hours on occasional Sundays during April to September.
caption: St. Bernard's Bridge and the Water of Leith
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