An 18th century cottage in Edinburgh is to be reconstructed stone by stone, years after being painstakingly taken apart.

Botanic Cottage was the gateway to the previous Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh site in Leith Walk between 1764 and 1821.

But when RBGE moved its collections to Inverleith in 1820 the cottage began to fall into disrepair, until it faced demolition in 2008.

Campaigners stepped in to save the historic cottage, where they pulled down each stone one by one, numbered them and began to raise funds to reconstruct it.


James Simpson of Simpson and Brown architects masterminded what he called the "mad idea" to save the building and have it rebuilt.

Friends of Hopetoun Gardens saved the building and in 2009 the Botanic Cottage Trust was formed with the aim of moving the cottage to Inverleith.

Not they have been given the green light for the first round of a £1.2m funding application from the heritage Lottery Fund.

It will see the cottage pieced back together using the original materials in the Demonstration Garden, less than two miles from its original site.

The cottage was once the location of a lecture by Professor John Hope, a famous botanist and a figure in the Scottish Enlightenment.

And it was home to head gardeners at the RBGE.

Given this heritage, it is fitting that the rebuilt cottage will be used as an education centre for horticulture students and school children.

(NE)