OssianLore

Empire Retold: Augmented Reality Narratives Discover untold stories of ordinary people living during the British Empire and experience their stories in augmented reality.In 1938, a huge British Empire Exhibition took place in Bellahouston Park,...

Exhibition opens on Friday!

Empire Retold: Augmented Reality Narratives
6 - 15 Nov, 2025, 10:00 - 19:30
The ARC, University of Glasgow

www.beinghumanfestival.org/events/empir...

I took the liberty of commemorating the event by giving giving the unnamed lane on the old property line the name of 'Thorndyke Lane', in reference to the lands of Thorn and the demolished dyke.

Harvey be damned!

Harvey's Dyke?

Thought for a minute this door I spotted in Vienna was from Mackintosh's Willow Tea Rooms interior but it was just the champagne monocle playing tricks on me 🧐

Especially self-appointed gatekeepers

Heritage gatekeepers forget their ane arses at times 😒

access encouraging antisocial behaviour would seem to be the source of most of the consternation around this idea of an eastern access point. It's a very strange position for them to now take given that increased accessibility was one of the main aims of the Friends in securing a future for the site

Thanks for clarifying, confirms what I'd understood already, that the main objections are those being raised by the current FGN committee. FGN's apparent amnesia surrounding the background of this proposal (given it was amongst the original aspirations in 2005) and disingenuous arguments around...

Quick - get her everybody! 😂

Ach it's all just a matter of experiences on that point, and healthy disagreement can be very productive! So thanks again to you too :)

Yeah

I wouldn't dream of doubting your sincerity, we all want the best for our built and lived environment, even when it's a cemetery. But the Friends committee are dead wrong on this. I'd love to know for sure why the committee has changed their stance on this but they aren't for telling

I getcha, please dont think Im trying to shoot the messenger as it were, I appreciate your conversation:) I'm also stating information in the public domain, gut facts rather than conjecture and rhetoric being spread by the Friends committee. From experience I disagree with your last point though

The only concerns FGN and the CC seem to be citing are antisocial behaviour and some as yet unqualified existential threat. Its all hyperbole based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the facts, the processes and aim

It's a listed site, any changes need planning approval, there are no planning submissions, no planning application for a gate has been approved. You're conflating a funding award with planning approval, they're nothing to do with each other

All smacks of nimbyism and ego on behalf of the FGN committee tbh

No gate has been approved. A funding award is not a planning submission let alone approval, hence the consultation. There seems to be a lot of confusion being sewn by the position being taken by the Friends group but a new gate is not an existential threat to the Necropolis

But there was never a wall there in the original layout so I'm still not following the argument. The march wall is not significant, it's just a boundary to separate the cemetery from the now demolished tenement back courts on Firpark St

Going a bit round in circles here with the antisocial behaviour argument. I don't understand how the potential for increased footfall results in antisocial behaviour, as if that correlation were true the Necropolis should be worse now than 20 years ago, but the opposite is the case

Also also, I appreciate you explaining your thoughts here, many thanks :)

Also, 20 years in the making hardly qualifies as rushed...

I was responding to you point about 'puncturing the original boundary'

The committee of the Friends speak for themselves and noone else, I'm still a member and haven't been consulted by them on my opinion... the council actually is consulting the public

Sorry I'm not quite following here, it's my understanding that the Precinct, John Knox, and Wishart St gates already locked at closing, and that a gate to the east would be operated in the same manner. So I'm not at all sure why this is an issue now?

Creating an eastern entrance was amongst our original aims and I can't see any reason why that view should have changed given the evidence of the past 20 years. This volte face from the Friends is confusing and disappointing I have to say

I remember the state of the place when I and a very small group of people came together to form the Friends of the Necropolis and it was our work in encouraging and promoting its active use was our main tool against the antisocial behaviour so common at the time.

Thanks Lorraine. The original layout of the necropolis evolved and expanded in it's firat 50 years and wasn't originally conceived in the form it currently takes. There were feuing plans for tenements to be built on the eastern summit and into the Ladywell Quarry. Does that change anything for you?

Can I ask how you think it might be detrimental?

Excellent exhibition at the Dovecot Studios. Not to be missed!

You need 5,000 words on the history of interwar concrete housing in Edinburgh? No problem, I'll have that with you this afternoon.
Oh, you want a brief 200 word introductory bio about myself? Er, give me a few weeks.