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Edinburgh Reporter
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Edinburgh Reporter
Art show at the Commie
Visual artist Rhona Taylor will present an exhibition Immersive: Exploring the Commie Pool at the Royal Commonwealth Pool's café from 6-22 June 2025, as part of the Architecture Fringe festival. The exhibition will display original prints showing the architectural and social significance of one of Edinburgh's public spaces. Immersive features a collection of original prints by Ms Taylor examining the Royal Commonwealth Pool's role as both an architectural landmark and a community hub. The exhibition is part of the artist's broader research project examining swimming pools as social, public and cultural spaces, with particular focus on their architecture, history, and contemporary uses. Rhona said: 'The prints in Immersive have developed from research into the building, its development, and its changing use since it was built for the 1970 Commonwealth Games. I love swimming in the Commie, so it's been great fun digging into the archives to find out more about some of the things that went on behind the scenes when it was built.' The exhibition is presented in partnership with Edinburgh Leisure, which operates the Royal Commonwealth Pool for the council. This collaboration highlights the organisation's commitment to supporting arts and culture within the community spaces they manage. Ed Bethune, Operations Manager at the Royal Commonwealth Pool said: 'We're delighted to partner with Rhona Taylor for this fascinating exploration of our building and its place in Edinburgh's cultural landscape. The Royal Commonwealth Pool has been serving our community for over 50 years, and it's wonderful to see an artist capture both its architectural significance and its ongoing role as a space where people come together for health, recreation, and community connection.' The Architecture Fringe, from 6-22 June, will look at the intersection of architecture, design, and public space across Edinburgh, and Rhona Taylor's exhibition fits perfectly in the framework. Rhona is a visual artist based in Edinburgh whose studio practice encompasses painting, drawing, sculpture, printmaking and installations. She is a member of Edinburgh Printmakers, where she creates her screenprints. Her current research focuses on swimming pools as social, public and cultural spaces in Scotland and internationally. The exhibition is supported by Edinburgh Leisure, Creative Scotland, and The City of Edinburgh Council through the Visual Artist and Craft Makers Awards (VACMA) Edinburgh. Immersive: Exploring the Commie Pool The Royal Commonwealth Pool café 21 Dalkeith Road EH16 5BB Artist Rhona Taylor with some of her work PHOTO Greg Macvean Like this: Like Related
Times
24-05-2025
- Times
Why an Edinburgh city break doesn't have to be expensive
You can't pick up a paper these days without thinking holiday prices have gone absolutely nuts. The latest news is that Edinburgh is now among Europe's priciest city break options (behind Oslo and Copenhagen) and, according to the Post Office's City Costs Barometer, a weekend will cost you double what you'd spend in Lisbon or Porto. There's an old saying in the capital that 'you'll have had your tea', meaning 'nothing's free here, pal'. But, frankly, that 'tea' (read: three-course meal, comfy bed) will set you back about £600 for a two-night break for two. That's where I come in. I've lived in the capital for years and my family (battle-hardened cheapskates every one) are from Corstorphine near Murrayfield Stadium. As a schoolgirl, my mum used to sneak into Edinburgh Zoo with her chums, so, if anything, I've learnt from an early age how to do my home town for a song. I know there are ways to visit without requiring a ginormous outlay; hence, I'm here to cast a few doubts and share some cheats. Let's begin with the free stuff. Museums are gratis (the National Museum of Scotland and four National Galleries of Scotland are worth a city break of their own), and I remember so well going to gloriously gothic Greyfriars Kirkyard as a child. Granted, a cemetery is hardly romance-sparking stuff, but it's still worth a (free) visit. Equally, travelling around Edinburgh leads to the realisation that often the best free bits are hidden. Like the exhibitions at Edinburgh Printmakers in Fountainbridge ( and Dovecot Studios, a tapestry workshop in a former public swimming pool atop the Cowgate ( I'll add to this list the West End's peculiar Library of Mistakes, a mini Bodleian beauty with free lectures from the sharpest economic minds on the financial madness we're living through ( Another tip: the surreal Surgeons' Hall Museums isn't quite free, but its morbidly fascinating lectures on topics from bone detectives to chloroform tea parties are a measly £3 (£9.50 entry; I'll admit that Edinburgh as a pricey overnight proposition has been building for some time. The arrival of a scrum of stiff-lipped hotels (Virgin Hotels Edinburgh; 100 Princes Street; the Resident Edinburgh; W Edinburgh, which locals have dubbed the Golden Turd) has pushed prices up. But there are still options that present great value for money. • 29 of the best hotels in Edinburgh Overlooking Leith Links, the magpie-eyed will spot a newbie in the form of 3 John's Place. It's from the same owners as Eleven Stafford Street, the sleekest Georgian-era guesthouse in the West End, and it's had an equal amount of money thrown at it. The clincher is the rooms are cheaper (room-only doubles from £107; My favourite neighbourhoods are the ones outside the old town. On the northern flank of Calton Hill, beneath the unfinished National Monument of Scotland (the idea here isn't minimalism, it's just that the money ran out), there's the lovely 21212 (B&B doubles from £195; Its four townhouse rooms sit above the chef Stuart Ralston's terrific Michelin-starred Lyla, the very mention of which turns my friends into slavering eejits. Its five-course lunch menu is for deeper pockets, but — get this — you'll save on taxi fares and want to skip dinner (£65, Friday and Saturday only; • Read our full guide to Edinburgh To the north in Stockbridge, I'd stay at the Raeburn for its beer garden alone and the wonderfully free (and endlessly astonishing) Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. But you'll need to plan ahead for a bargain as prices surge in summer (B&B doubles from £139; Another I'd suggest is the two-bedroom Stevenson House, the Georgian family home of the Treasure Island author Robert Louis Stevenson. Coupled with the comfy pubs and shops of the new town, it allows you a wholly true sense of Edinburgh as a literary fantasy (B&B doubles from £160; Unlike other cities on the Post Office Barometer, where you can find dinner for two for as little as £50 — compared with an average of £116 here, so the survey says — Edinburgh has truly upped its restaurant game. It doesn't want to do cheap; rather focus on the bigger picture by better supporting local producers. That philosophy has helped in the rise of nose-twitching places such as the Palmerston in the West End (two-course lunch £21, Tuesday to Friday; and Montrose, the unbuttoned alternative to the Michelin-starred Timberyard. Pretty unbeatable on price, its ground-floor wine bar is another for a lunchtime windfall (two-course lunch £20, Friday to Sunday; While I adore those spots, Leith is the home of Roberta Hall McCarron's three essential restaurants. And though all-day café Ardfern does the same top-notch cooking as the Little Chartroom (next door), it's not dumbed down, just at a lower cost (mains from £8; Her hash browns with kelp and chilli have made it a point of pilgrimage, and their popularity goes some way to mitigating this city's curious love of chip shop salt 'n' sauce (a bafflingly watery, vinegary version of HP). • 11 of the best restaurants in Edinburgh Now the big one: whisky. It's vital, so dodge the warts-and-all Grassmarket pubs and head to the Scotch Malt Whisky Society — only its New Town address, not its HQ in Leith. Plenty of locals will say you have to pay the £100 membership to get past the door, but here's the hack. I'll tell you in a whisper that the private whisky club experience is open to everyone at its ground-floor bar ( Get me a dram as a thank you and I'll see you there. What tips would you add? Share them in the comments
