Find An Event



Advanced Search











Event Listing

Lauriston Lectures 2010

  • Venue: Lauriston Castle
  • Date: 02 May '10 - 15 Dec '10
  • Time: 10:30 - 12:30
  • Price: £8
  • Showing Notes: Includes special tour of Lauriston Castle, coffee and cakes
  • Venue Address:
    Culture and Leisure, City of Edinburgh Council, C.1 Waverley Court, 4 East Market Street, EH8 8BG

  • Child Friendly

Event Details

The 2010 series launches with a free event - PRE BOOKING ESSENTIAL

Garden Cottage Diaries


Sunday 2 May and repeated Monday 3 May, 10.30 am-12 noon or 1 pm-2.30 pm or 3 pm-4.30 pm

Challenged to prove her claim that an 18th-century diet was better than today's, for a full year, Fiona J Houston recreated the lifestyle of her 1790s rural Scottish ancestors in a basic one-roomed cottage, cooking from her garden and the wild.  She learned lost crafts and skills, making nettle string, quill pens and ink as well as cheese and ale, lighting her fire with a tinder box, and dressing in hand-sewn period clothing, with nothing but an old range stove and candles for warmth and light. As a result of this experience Fiona wrote The Garden

Cottage Diaries: My Year in the Eighteenth Century which tells her extraordinary story, and is packed with historical anecdotes, folklore, practical gardening info, seasonal menus, recipes, wildlife notes and more. During these sessions at Lauriston Castle, against the backdrop of the old kitchen,

Fiona Houston will give us a resume of her extraordinary year.  During the Sunday sessions she will demonstrate various cooking lessons and talk about the kind of food eaten in the 1790s. She will cook kail and batches of barley bannocks.  During the Monday sessions she will demonstrate how to
make rush lights.

Download the full Lectures Programme here (838kb)

Some of the files might be in PDF format
- download Adobe Reader


Lauriston Castle
Lauriston Castle Lauriston Castle