About St Bernard's Well
Heritage background, architectural provenance & visitor guide
A Classical Neoclassical Rotunda in the Water of Leith Gorge
Designed in 1789 by celebrated Scottish landscape painter Alexander Nasmyth, St Bernard's Well is an enchanting circular Roman Doric rotunda inspired by the Temple of Vesta in Tivoli, Italy. Commissioned by Francis Garden, Lord Gardenstone, the temple stands gracefully on the wooded riverside path of the Water of Leith between Stockbridge and Dean Village.
At the center of the open colonnade stands an elegant Coade stone statue of Hygieia, the Greek goddess of health, holding a medicinal patera bowl. Inside the locked lower chamber, an ancient natural sulfur mineral spring flows, discovered in 1760 and renowned for over a century as Edinburgh's foremost healing spa water.
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