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Craigmillar is a suburb of Edinburgh, Scotland, in the south east of the city, consisting mainly of council housing. It is next to Niddrie. The name comes from Scottish Gaelic Crag Maol Ard meaning "High Bare Rock".
Despite the relative newness of the area, the settlement is very old, and contains Craigmillar Castle, built in c. 1400.
The Craigmillar housing scheme was created through the Housing (Scottish) Act of 1924, where the lands were bought from the Wauchope Estate, to create housing for "the working class" and ease the over crowding and poor housing of central Edinburgh.
In recent years, Craigmillar has seen riots in the 1980s and also complaints about the lack of facilities. It now has an arts centre, and a library -- which has in fact been in place since 1974, although the arts centre is a more recent establishment -- and there is some grassroots based community action trying to tackle the area's problems, including the highly regarded Craigmillar Festival Society.
Helen Duncan, the last woman to be imprisoned under the Witchcraft Act, lived in Craigmillar. Bill Douglas, the famous filmmaker was born and raised in Newcraighall. The former Craigmillar Primary School building houses a renowned mural by John Maxwell, who was trained by Fernand Léger and fellow student to Marc Chagall in Paris. There is a fine example of 20th century stained glass by Sadie McLean in The Robin Chapel The Robin Chapel in The Thistle Foundation The Thistle Foundation. The area also has the largest concrete sculpture/playstructure in Europe[citation needed] called "Gulliver, The Gentle Giant that cares and shares" by Jimmy Boyle and built by The local CAT team for The Craigmillar Festival Society in 1976.
The University of Edinburgh has playing fields in this area, including one of the oldest modern style shinty fields in Scotland.
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The Robin Chapel
Coordinates: 55°54'N, 3°07'W
(Source: Wikipedia) |