Agnes Stevenson

BETWEEN the high houses and narrow alleyways that lead off the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, green shoots are stirring. From the Castle Esplanade to Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh's Royal Mile throngs with life. Tourists cram the pavements and fill the tartan shops, street performers draw the crowds, advocates head for the High Court, politicians, journalists and petitioners bustle around the Parliament and art lovers queue for exhibitions at the Queen's Gallery at Holyroodhouse.

It may not be as crowded now as during the 17th century, when 50,000 people lived in cramped conditions in its tall houses, but it is still a teeming thoroughfare. Yet just a few steps away from the frenetic life of the High Street and the Canongate are some small yet fascinating green spaces.

These are the Hidden Gardens of the Royal Mile and they have been sought-out by Jean Bareham of Greenyonder Tours whose walking tour of what she calls "these unexpected green gems" is a Festival Fringe 5 star event.

Bareham began the tour when she stumbled on one of these green gems herself, Over the course of the following months she explored the many closes and back courts of the area until she had identified every garden, green patch and window box and she then spent long hours in the National Library of Scotland researching their roots.

These gardens, says Bareham, tell the history of the Royal Mile, from the volcanic eruption 350 millions years ago that formed Castle Rock, through the tumultuous years of English invasion and the overcrowding that led to the creation of the New Town Plan, then the descent of the Royal Mile into a slum before restoration and UNESCO World Heritage status.

Through all this gardens have been made and swept away, a few survived, more were revived and today enterprising individuals and community groups are once more greening even the tiniest of spaces.

"If you look at the famous Rothiemay Map of the Edinburgh of 1647, where the city is laid out like a filleted haddock, you can see how densely populated the High Street was, yet behind the Canongate, which was a separate borough at the time, large gardens and orchards stretched out behind fine homes," says Jean.

Today if you walk through many of the closes that open off the Royal Mile you can find lawns, wild flowers, formal gardens and ponds. Some are tiny, but size has proved no hinderance to the vision and creativity that has gone to create them.

Residents, community groups and schools are active in garden-making along the length of the street, many of them supported by a diverse group of organisations, including Edinburgh City Council, The Climate Challenge Fund and the Patrick Geddes Gardening Club, an offshoot of the Old Town Development Trust, which works to help residents find places to garden.

You don't have to delve deep into the history of gardens along the Royal Mile before the name of Patrick Geddes surfaces. Geddes (1856-1932) was an environmentalist and town planner whose ideas on the importance of green spaces to city dwellers are finding resonance with community gardening groups today. He commissioned architects to open up courtyards and add balconies to provide residents with outdoor space. The Witches' Fountain beside Ramsay Gardens, which Geddes commissioned and where he lived, features in another of Bareham’s tours, The Patrick Geddes Garden Tour.

From here, close to the castle, Bareham has identified a further 15 gardens down the length of the Royal Mile, including Tron Square where residents fill the space with summer colour; Coinyie House with its communal borders and individual plots; Moray House where remnants of its grand 17th century garden can still be found; White Horse Close, almost every available space in which has been filled with pots brimming with flowers and edibles, and the wildflower meadows of the Scottish Parliament.

"There are lots of wee nooks and crannies where people have found ways to grow things," says Bareham, who knows every sun trap and shady spot along the length of Scotland's most famous thoroughfare.

When she first began to lead tours into these secret spaces she thought that there would be a limit to the number of enthusiasts who would want to follow her, but instead the tours, which run in August during the Festival Fringe, and which are also available to groups by arrangement throughout the year, have been sold out for seven years in a row.

She says: "It is astonishing how many Edinburgh residents have no idea that there are gardens along the length of the Royal Mile, but once they discover that there are, they want to explore them."

Details of The Hidden Gardens of the Royal Mile tour are available from www.greenyondertours.com.