Scottish Property News

Scotland's most expensive street

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.