My wife and I went for a nice sunday afternoon walk around Cammo Park, on the edge of Edinburgh today. It was actually our first time there, having only really found out that there was a country park there fairly recently.
We were actually quite surprised with all the old ruins that were left in the park. The whole park area used to be a fairly wealthy estate (established around 1650) - so was quite impressive at some point in time, although its long since all gone to ruin.
The building in the pics above was some kind of stable block, dating from 1811. Entirely ruined now, but clearly a lovely building at some point.
Thats a view looking up through the central tower in the middle.
The majority of the park is forested, but with quite impressive trees, including red woods, and all kinds of other varieties. The branch above was quite cool. The main branch was sprawled along the ground, but all of its off-shoots, shot straight up.
And this huge tree above has come up not so long ago. There is nothing in the pic to provide scale, but the up ended root parts was about 9-10 foot tall.
And all this fungi had grown on the bottom of the root base of the tree, which was quite interesting.
Above is the old mansion house - Cammo House. There is very little left of it now, although that main doorway is quite pretty. There were some pics of it on an info board and it was about 4 floors high at one point, quite grand, and built around 1650.
The above tower also sits off to one side on the park. Its called Cammo Tower, but is just a folly really, and seems to have served no real purpose that we can see - it was just decorative.
We made our way up the wee hill behind the tower which gave this lovely view back over the west side of Edinburgh.
I'd seen the tower many times from a distance, so it was nice to get up to see it close-up. However, its wrecked inside and has now been taken over by crows for nesting.
The estate also had a large walled garden (above) which is where they would have grown their veg, flowers, etc - but as can be seen its completely overgrown and wild now.
Above is part of the old gardens next to the house.
There is not really much left to see, but they would have been quite ornamental at one point. This lovely carved cone is one of just a few things that remain - quite nice to see !
Above is another huge tree that had come down, with just its base remaining now - it was quite massive too - the stump was about 5 foot across.
We really did enjoy our walk around exploring the old ruins from the estate. We will certainly be back as its only about a 10 minute drive from where we live, and it must be lovely there in summer ! Cant wait to go again.
