Summer term has just started; when it ends my stay in a student residence terminates. The very first thing that caught my eye in Saturday’s property section of “The Edinburgh Evening Dispatch” was a small flat in Dean Village. Perhaps you remember my mentioning sometime during the Easter Vac that this would be my preferred part of Edinburgh?
It is a minute quarter in central Edinburgh, tucked away deep below the four massive arches of Telford’s Dean Bridge. Its quiet; the steep twisty road through is impossible for heavy traffic. The whole setting is of old grey and red sandstone buildings wrapped in the leafy green private gardens of the Georgian town houses. Perched high above and surrounding the small village with its wee river, the houses of the rich look down on the homes of the poor.
It is necessary to follow up on this advert. The upset price is given as £600 exactly the sum of my savings and selling my car. The property has two bedrooms and an inside toilet but no bathroom.
The person showing the advertised flat was a lawyer’s clerk, who directed me (his only viewer) to the firm’s office. The law firm advertising the property in the Dean Village resides behind Doric columns in three floors of Georgian splendor. A man servant opened the door and showed me into a waiting room furnished like a dinning room, with a great mahogany banqueting table surrounded by 22 antique dinning chairs and four carving chairs with arms.