Dumbiedykes - Hutton Memorial Garden Traditional Geocache
Shrek, Fiona & Donkey: Sadly it appears this area is being used for the wrong reasons. I am therefore taking the decision to archive this cache.
Dumbiedykes - Hutton Memorial Garden
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Size: 
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A quick series of caches in and around the Dumbiedykes area of Edinburgh.
Dumbiedykes is an area of central Edinburgh, located between Salisbury Crags, the Pleasance, and the Moray House campus of Edinburgh University. It comprises the three streets of Viewcraig Gardens, Viewcraig Street and Dumbiedykes Road.
It takes its name from the first School for the Deaf and Dumb that was founded nearby by Thomas Braidwood in the 1800's. For many years in the late 1800's and the first half of the 20th century the housing in the area was of a very poor quality. Indeed the Victorian tenements were known as the "Penny Tenements", the story being that the dilapidation was so bad that the owner of the properties, afraid of being liable should an accident occur, was so desperate to sell that he was prepared to let the properties be purchased for a single penny! No-one took him up on the offer.
Dumbiedykes is now a council housing scheme. Built in the 50's and 60's, and owned by the council ever since, it has until recently been the centre of a controversial plan to transfer the council's housing stock in the area to Housing Association control, with the promise of a massive injection of cash to renew the fabric of the properties (which fell through just before Christmas 2002).
There are around 700 individual flats and maisonettes in all, compressed in an area about a quarter of a mile square. Apart from owner occupiers and private tenants (of which there are a growing number, consisting of young professionals and students), the vast majority of residents are council tenants, some of whom have lived on the scheme since its inception, with a smaller proportion finding temporary accommodation on the scheme.
The district between Holyrood Park and the Pleasance was once an area of arable land divided into strips by DYKES.
Around 1764, Thomas Braidwood established an Academy for the Deaf and Dumb here, on the east side of St Leonard's road.
The Academy soon became known by the nickname DUMMIE HOOSE. It closed in 1873, but the nickname remained. The house appeared on Kirkwood's 1817 map of Edinburgh as DUMBIE HOUSE, and was later known as Craigside. It was demolished in 1939.
This cache is situated in The Hutton Memorial Garden. There was a cache here previously (GC106QF) but it was diabled due to the rundown nature of the area. However as this series is about Dumbiedykes i feel that this area is quite fitting.
There are other geo-caches that pay tribute to James Hutton, notably one on Arthur's Seat (Weir's Way: An Edinburgh Volcano) and another at Siccar Point on the East Coast of Scotland near Cockburnspath.
This one is located near the site of the house that he built and moved into in the early 1770's and where he died in 1797.
James Hutton - another of the great unsung heroes of the Scottish Enlightenment - is widely credited with the theories that placed the age of the earth as "immeasurably old." He based his work on his own personal geological observations - confronting the other theories of the time, amongst them those of biblical creationism - and is probably most famous for what is known as Hutton's Unconformity at Siccar Point off the east coast of Scotland.
He was born in Edinburgh on 3rd June 1726 to William Hutton and Sarah Balfour. His father held the office of Edinburgh city treasurer and owned farms in the borders which James inherited and lived on - forming many of his geological ideas from his observations there. James' father died when he was only two years old and he was subsequently brought up by his mother alone.
He entered Edinburgh High School in 1736 and Edinburgh University in 1740. He graduated in 1743. He had a brief career as a solicitor, but returned to the University in 1744 to study medicine - although his real interest was chemistry - a subject which fascinated him. His studies were interrupted in 1745 by the Jacobite rebellion when Edinburgh had to be defended.
It is likely that he fathered an illegitimate child - and in order to avoid the scandal went to Paris to continue his studies, then moving to Leiden to complete them. When he returned to the UK he lived in London then on a farm in Norfolk for two years.
Whilst in London he spent time on chemical studies, discovering with James Davie (an Edinburgh school-friend) how to make sal-ammoniac, a substance used in welding metal. He and Davie set up a factory in Edinburgh to make this substance, which provided Hutton with an income for life.
Hutton's interest in geology developed during the early 1750's. He moved to one of the farms he had inherited in 1754 where he farmed and worked on his theories.
He returned to live in Edinburgh in 1767. This was at a time now known as The Scottish Enlightenment where intellectual activity in the city was at fever pitch.
Hutton used his own personal observations of the rocks around him to understand the history of the Earth rather than the Bible.
He realised that the process of rock formation and erosion was a very slow cyclic one - and that therefore the earth had to be immeasurably old - well beyond the 6000 years or so suggested based on biblical study. He lacked the technology to determine the actual age (which has only been done within the last 50 years or so.)
In 1784 the Royal Society of Edinburgh invited Hutton to give two lectures on his theories. The first of these was actually delivered by his friend the chemist Joseph Black (who discovered Carbon Dioxide) because Hutton himself was ill. Hutton did give the second lecture.
Not surprisingly, his lectures challenged the established wisdom and stirred up some controversy.
In 1788 he undertook a now famous expedition with his great friend John Playfair and Sir James Hall. They took a boat along the North Sea coast of Scotland to examine the rock formations in the cliffs - this was the expedition where Siccar Point was identified - now a place of homage for all geologists and other interested parties.
Hutton died in 1797 at his house in St John's Hill.
After Hutton's death, his friend John Playfair undertook a number of further expeditions to seek out rock formations to support his theories and spent a number of years writing up his notes.
This small 'rock' garden was developed in 2001 and completed in 2002. It bears a bronze plaque on a stone at its centre - and at the entrance is a key to the various rocks placed within it.
The cache itself is a micro with just logbook so BYOP.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Ovfba oruvaq evtug unaq cvyyne nf lbh ragre gur tneqra.