Edinburgh City Part 5: The Hub and its Spire

This really is a fabulous building. I was walking up the hill to the castle and could not help but be stopped, transfixed in awe at it. I was already running behind schedule for the day (with my mission being photographing the castle thoroughly to produce a display for the school) but still had to stop and take pictures. 

I have a fondness for setting spires diagonally.

When I went on the ::history:: page of The Hub's ::website::, and read that it was a collaboration between James Gillespie Graham (who designed St, Mary's Catholic Cathedral, featured yesterday) and the famous Augustus Welby Pugin (Think 'Palace of Westminster') and I was both delighted and not entirely surprised. Everything about this building is wondrous, and the more recent conversion and restoration have been done most tastefully and include the work of a lot of modern crafters of great skill. 

A sense of verticality.
Photo taken after castle visit, hence duller sky.

It's dominating spire and wonderfully vertical architecture draws one to look upwards to he heavens and even on a cloudy, awful and drizzly day like the day I was there, it is beautiful. The page says the spire is the highest point in central Edinbugh, but after walking uphill into the castle and looking up at some of its towers, they certainly seem higher up, even if they are shorter towers. I am not a surveyor, though, and appearances can be deceiving. 

The sky was white with cloud, but weirdly bright.

The Hub is currently a venue associated with the Edinbugh International Festival (an arts festival) and includes a cafe. When I was there, the entrance was lit by flaming torches flickering in the wind (it certainly gets breezy on that hill, even if all the buildings make it look less exposed) and a piper was standing by the door. The next time I go to Edinburgh, it will certainly be somewhere I will have to visit the interior of, rather than just walk past.

At least the clouds were vaguely interesting here.

I'd like to visit this building again when the weather is more conducive to good photographs. The skies are dull and white here because they were dull and greying white with cloud on the day. It was also a rather windswept day. A calmer day with more varied and interesting clouds would be preferable.