Dean Village and Home

by Dan · August 28, 2025

For our last full day in Edinburgh, Scotland, and Europe, we wanted to explore a part of Edinburgh away from the busy Royal Mile. It was Monday, August 25.

Views from the bus along the way. Not only was this a bus we had never taken before, it was not the same bus company. We had, until that time, only taken Lothian buses. Now we were on a Bluebird bus.

Dean Village is a village close to the city centre of Edinburgh. It was formerly a successful grain milling area, for more than 800 years. At one time there were no fewer than eleven working mills here.

Views from a bridge in Dean Village.

Us on the bridge

School in Dean Village

Typical day in Dean Village

Dean Village next to the Water of Leith

View of bridge we were standing on earlier

Dean Village

Dean Bridge looks over the Dean Village, a stone bridge created in the 1800s

Water of Leith

The mills used to bevlocated here

Waterfalls in the Water of Leith

St. Bernard’s Well

Legend states it was discovered by a group of schoolboys who were out fishing sometime around 1760. But this became no ordinary well. In the latter part of the 18th century, locals believed the waters of this natural spring had medicinal healing properties.

Me at St Bernard’s Well

Heron walking along the Waters of Leith

Pretty fancy pizza parlor. The Franco Manco pizzerias are owned by an Italian pizza chef we met in Oxford in 2022, who was delighted when we expressed our appreciation of his pizza in Italian.