A brief history
The Dean Village, originally the Village of the Water of Leith, grew around a milling community and has a well documented history back to 1128. Here the town of Edinburgh and the Incorporation of Baxters (the Bakers' guild) operated eleven water mills, and produced all the meal for the town and surrounding villages. For a milling industry the situation was uniquely attractive, a fast-flowing river providing power, two areas of flat land for mill sites, and a main road leading to the town. Milling has been carried out here since the twelfth century, when David I refers, in his great charter to Holyrood Abbey, to the 'Mills at the Dene'. Dene or dean means a deep valley. The village continued to flourish until the rise of the large flour mills of Leith in the 19th Century.
In Dean there are several artefacts relating to the Baxters of Edinburgh. On Kirkbrae House at the top of Bell's Brae there is a panel taken from the ruins of Jericho, a granary built for the Baxters in 1619, which stood in Miller Row immediately below Kirkbrae house. The top corners of the panel have cherubs' heads, with a circular garland between, sun at the top and scrolls on each side. Below is the inscription: 'In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, Gen.3 verse 19'.
Next to Bell's Brae Bridge, there is a panel with two crossed peels (used for taking hot loaves out of ovens) and the date 1643. Beside this is a window lintel with the legend in large Roman letters, 'Blesit be God for al his Giftis'. On the building opposite is another panel with crossed peels, and the words, 'God's Providence is our Inheritans'. On the door lintel are the words 'God bless the Baxters of Edinbrugh who bult this Hous 1675'.
Well Court, dated 1884, was commissioned as housing for workers by the philanthropist J R Findlay, proprietor of The Scotsman from the architect Sydney Mitchell. The building with the clock tower, now a lighting architect's office, was a community hall.
Hawthorn Buildings, the half-timbered building on the south side of the river, was built in 1895.
West Mill, reputed to have had two enormous wheels powered by water from the lade which cut through the village. The date 1805 on its facade refers to a rebuilding, mills having been on this site from a much earlier date. Closed in the late 19th Century as part of an attempt to reduce pollution in the river, the mill was converted to housing in 1973.
The Dean Cemetery was formed in 1845 and is entered from Dean Path and occupies the site of the old Dean House, which was built in the 17th Century for a branch of the Nisbet family, and demolished in 1845. Some of its carved stones were used in the wall of the Cemetery. Dean Cemetery contains the ashes of many distinguished Scotsmen, including Lord Cockburn, Jeffrey, Murray, and Rutherford. There are the graves of Edward Forbes, the naturalist, Goodsir the anatomist, Allan, Scott and Sam Bough, the painters, W H Playfair the architect and sculptor, William Brodie, RSA, and Dr Elsie Inglis. George Combe, the phrenologist and author of the 'Constitution of Man', is buried here, and so is Alexander Russel, editor of The Scotsman. In the centre of the Cemetery is a tall obelisk, erected to the memory of the soldiers of the Cameron Highlanders.
Sources of information about Dean Village:
Cant, Michael. Villages of Edinburgh, an illustrated guide. 1997
Grant, James. Old and new Edinburgh: Its history, its people, and its places. Vol III. 1883
City of Edinburgh Council. A Guide to The Water of Leith Walkway.