East Meadows Play Park

East Meadows Play Park — the city’s biggest playground on ground drained from a loch

Officially it is the Magnet play area, and it is the largest and busiest children’s playground in central Edinburgh: some forty separate items of play spread across nearly five thousand square metres at the eastern end of the Meadows, with well over three hundred visitors on an ordinary day. What makes it more than a big set of swings is where it sits. The Meadows is a flat green plain right beside the Old Town and the university quarter, and it exists because the city drained a loch to make it in the eighteenth century. Children scramble on nets and pedal roundabouts under an avenue of mature trees on ground that was once open water.

Highlights

• The scale of the play area — around 40 individual items of play across roughly 4,877 square metres, which makes it a destination playground rather than a neighbourhood one.
• The seasonal water play unit — switched on in the warm months and the single feature that empties the rest of the playground when it starts running.
• The inclusive design — the play spaces were laid out for easy access and for use by all ages and abilities, with specialist swing seats and a basket buddy swing alongside standard equipment.
• The secret entrance — as well as entry points at either end of the central footpath there is a crawl-through tunnel set into the hedge, designed as a children’s way in.
• The setting — trees, grass and safe surfacing rather than a fenced tarmac compound, with the whole of the Meadows opening out around it.
• The Meadows treescape — more than 1,200 trees stand across the park, elm, lime, cherry, beech, sycamore, ash and oak among them, and the cherry avenues are one of Edinburgh’s best-known spring sights.

What you’ll find

The playground occupies one corner of a much larger public park, so a visit almost always turns into a longer outing. The Meadows covers around 63 acres of level grass crossed by tree-lined walks, with sports facilities at the eastern end and Bruntsfield Links running off to the west. Everything is open, free and unfenced, and on a warm evening in term time the grass fills with students, families and games of every description.

• The Magnet play area itself: slides, a drag ramp, scramble net, pedal roundabout, tyre swing, basket buddy swing and specialist seats.
• Sixteen outdoor tennis courts at the eastern end of the Meadows, run by Edinburgh Leisure.
• Wide, level grass used informally for football, frisbee, cricket, picnics and sunbathing.
• Long tree-lined walks crossing the park, including the historic central avenue laid out in the eighteenth century.
• Croquet and other recreational pitches, plus the pitch-and-putt golf course on the adjoining Bruntsfield Links.
• Monuments and relics of the 1886 International Exhibition scattered across the park, including a sundial commemorating Prince Albert Victor.

Things to do — and who it’s for

• Families with children of mixed ages — the range of equipment means a toddler and a ten-year-old can both be occupied in the same place, which is rare.
• Children with additional support needs — the layout, the accessible surfacing and the specialist swing seats were designed with mixed abilities in mind.
• Students and young residents — the Meadows functions as the shared back garden of the university quarter, busiest on the first warm evening of the year.
• Runners and cyclists — flat, well-surfaced paths cross the whole park and connect the Old Town with the southern suburbs without a hill in the way.
• Tennis players — sixteen public courts sit a short walk from the playground at the same end of the park.
• Visitors interested in city history — this is the site of a drained loch, a Victorian world’s fair and the earliest days of Edinburgh football, all readable on the ground.

Getting there & practical

The play park sits at the eastern end of the Meadows, on the edge of the Southside and Newington district and immediately south of the university quarter and the Old Town. It is one of the most walkable destinations in Edinburgh: Edinburgh Waverley station is around twenty minutes on foot, and the tram reaches the city-centre stops from where the walk south takes a quarter of an hour. Lothian services running through Tollcross on the western side — among them the 11, 15, 16, 23 and 45 — and the dense cluster of routes along the Southside corridor to the east, including the 7, 8, 29, 31 and 37, all set you down within a few minutes’ walk of the park. Everything is free: the playground, the park and the open grass are public, unfenced and accessible at any hour, and only the bookable tennis courts carry a charge. Families typically spend an hour or two, longer if the water play is running.

When to visit

Spring is the Meadows’ famous season, when the cherry avenues blossom in April and the entire park is photographed from every angle. Summer is peak playground time, with the seasonal water unit running, daylight stretching past ten at night and the Meadows Festival filling the park on the first weekend of June. Autumn thins the crowds and turns the great tree avenues gold, and the playground becomes noticeably calmer on weekday afternoons. Winter is bare and often wet, but the paths are surfaced and lit, the playground stays open and usable, and the low sun through leafless limes across an empty green plain is one of the underrated sights of the city.

Good to know

The Meadows was once the burgh loch, also called the South Loch, an open sheet of water of roughly 63 acres that supplied the town. After an earlier attempt at improvement by a burgess named Straiton, Sir Thomas Hope of Rankeillor, 8th Baronet, who lived from about 1681 to 1771, ordered the drainage from 1722 and turned the marsh into a park with a walk around it; the ground was known for a long time afterwards as Hope Park, and the great central avenue he laid out was thirty feet wide and lined with hedges and lime trees. An Act of Parliament protected the land from building in 1827. In 1886 the Meadows hosted the International Exhibition of Industry, Science and Art, which ran from May to October and was opened by Prince Albert Victor, grandson of Queen Victoria; the sundial named for him survives at the western end, while the Brassfounders’ Pillar designed by James Gowans with sculpture by John S. Rhind was resited to Nicolson Square Gardens in 1909. The whale jawbone arch, originally part of the Shetland and Fair Isle knitters’ display at that exhibition, was dismantled for conservation in 2014 and judged in 2022 to be too fragile to return, with a bronze replica proposed in its place. The Meadows also saw the earliest days of Edinburgh football: Heart of Midlothian and Hibernian both played here in the 1870s, and their first derby was contested on 25 December 1875.

Visitor tips

• Arrive early on warm weekend mornings — by early afternoon in summer the play area is genuinely crowded.
• Bring a change of clothes in the warm months: the seasonal water play unit is the most popular thing in the park and no child stays dry.
• Use the park itself as the second half of the visit; the walk west across the Meadows to Bruntsfield Links takes about fifteen minutes and resets tired children.

Questions & answers

Is East Meadows Play Park free? Yes. The playground and the surrounding park are free, public and open at all hours, with no gates and no tickets.

How big is the playground? It covers about 4,877 square metres and holds roughly 40 individual items of play, which makes it one of the largest play areas in Edinburgh; it typically sees over 300 visitors a day.

What equipment is there? Slides, a drag ramp, a scramble net, a pedal roundabout, a tyre swing, a basket buddy swing, specialist swing seats and, in the warmer months, a seasonal water play unit.

Is it suitable for children with disabilities? It was designed to be. The play spaces were laid out for easy access and use by all ages and abilities, and the equipment includes specialist swing seats alongside standard items.

How many ways in are there? Three: entrances at either end of the central footpath, plus a crawl-through tunnel set into the hedge as a children’s entrance.

Was the Meadows really a loch? Yes. It was the burgh loch or South Loch, drained from 1722 on the orders of Sir Thomas Hope of Rankeillor, after which the ground was laid out as a park and known as Hope Park.

Where has the whale jawbone arch gone? It was taken down in 2014 for conservation work. In 2022 it was judged too fragile to be reinstated outdoors, and a bronze replica has been proposed to stand in its place while the original is displayed indoors.

Can you play tennis nearby? Yes — sixteen outdoor courts operated by Edinburgh Leisure sit at the eastern end of the Meadows, a short walk from the playground. Court time is booked and charged for, unlike everything else in the park.

When is the Meadows Festival? It is traditionally held on the first weekend of June, run by a committee of community volunteers; it ran from 1975 to 2005 and was revived in 2008.

Are there toilets and cafés? The park itself has limited facilities, but the Southside and the university quarter along the northern and eastern edges are full of cafés within a few minutes’ walk of the playground.