Bench Marks: Six Tollcross Perches Ranked, Without Mercy or Apology

Every neighbourhood has its unofficial living rooms, and in Tollcross most of them are made of slats. We are not a city of plazas. We are a city of benches: three feet of timber on a bit of worn grass, and around it an entire small society of dog walkers, lunchers, phone-callers and men reading the racing page with tremendous seriousness.

So we spent a fortnight sitting on them. All six. In the wind, in the drizzle, in that low November light that makes everything look like a photograph of somewhere else. Here is the verdict, delivered with the confidence of someone who has personally tested the armrests.

How We Scored Them

Five marks each for comfort (does it hurt after twenty minutes?), shelter (what happens when it rains?), view (is there something to look at that isn't a wheelie bin?), passing traffic (the lifeblood of any good bench) and coffee access (measured in walking minutes to a flat white). Fifty in total. Totally arbitrary. Deeply felt.

6th: The Earl Grey Street Bus Shelter (13/50)

Technically not a bench. Technically a plastic ledge under a scratched perspex roof, and technically the only place in this list where you'll be joined by someone loudly explaining a phone contract to nobody in particular.

It scores well on shelter — it is, after all, a shelter — and superbly on traffic, because Earl Grey Street delivers a constant parade of near-misses, white vans and cyclists taking their lives into their hands. Everything else is a wasteland. Comfort: one mark, generously. View: the back of a bus. Coffee: there is none, unless you count the vending machine feeling in the air.

Sit here only if you are genuinely waiting for a bus, or if you want to feel grateful for the other five.

5th: The Stone Ledge by the King's Theatre Stage Door (16/50)

There is a low stone ledge on Leven Street, near the stage door, and it has a certain theatrical glamour that no other perch on this list can touch. You may see a violinist. You may see a pantomime dame in a coat over her costume. You will certainly see someone crying happily into a bouquet.

That's the view score sorted. Comfort is grim — cold stone, no back, and a slight downward tilt that suggests the stonemason was in a hurry. Shelter is moderate, thanks to the building itself. Coffee access is a respectable three minutes, and there's a peculiar pleasure in watching the audience arrive in their good coats while you sit there in your ordinary ones.

Best used in short bursts, ideally in dry weather, ideally with a reason to be there.

4th: Home Street, Outside the Cameo (18/50)

This one is all about theatre. Not the stage kind — the pavement kind. Home Street is a funnel, and everything in Tollcross passes through it eventually: the school run, the delivery bikes, the couple having a row about whose turn it was to book the restaurant, the man who has walked this exact route since 1979 and resents every new bin.

Comfort is middling, shelter is nonexistent, but the view is superb in a chaotic sort of way and the coffee access is unbeatable — you're two minutes from a decent cup and the cinema's own bar if you fancy something stronger.

This is not a bench for reading. This is a bench for spectating. Bring nothing but patience.

3rd: Jawbone Walk, the Meadows (19/50)

Strictly speaking we've strayed across the boundary here, but every Tollcross resident knows that the Meadows is simply the neighbourhood's back garden, and Jawbone Walk — the long, tree-lined avenue cutting through the middle — is its grandest corridor.

Comfort is good: proper wooden slats, decent height, a back you can lean on. View is excellent, especially in autumn when the leaves do their thing and the light comes through the branches in slabs. Traffic is genteel — joggers, prams, students, the occasional dog doing something embarrassing. Coffee is the weak point: five minutes minimum to anything worth drinking, more if you're heading back towards Bruntsfield.

A fine bench for a long sit and a paperback. Bring a coat; that avenue catches the wind like a sail.

2nd: Bruntsfield Links, Facing the Pitches (21/50)

This is the connoisseur's choice. You get the bowling greens, the pitch-and-putt, the odd determined golfer in waterproof trousers, and — if you sit at the right angle — a long view east that puts the Castle casually in the background like a badly photoshopped postcard.

Comfort is the best on this list: sturdy, well-spaced, generous to the spine. Shelter is fair, because there are trees about. Traffic is constant but civilised, and the dog population is exceptional. Coffee is four minutes to the top of Bruntsfield Place, which is a pleasant stroll rather than a chore.

It loses points only because the wind gets in from the west without asking permission. Choose your bench orientation carefully and you'll stay an hour longer than you meant to.

1st: Lochrin Basin, by the Canal (23/50)

Here it is. The best bench in Tollcross, and it isn't close.

You sit facing water that is almost always glassy, because the buildings take the sting out of the wind. A heron stands on the far bank with the smugness of something that has never paid rent. There are moored boats, a few gulls, the occasional swan doing a lap. The path hands you a slow parade of runners, dog walkers and people carrying flat whites with the gravity of a religious object.

Comfort: proper bench, good back, right height. Shelter: remarkably good, since the surrounding buildings do most of the work. View: five, easily. Traffic: gentle and endlessly watchable. Coffee: about two minutes, which is the sort of score that wins championships.

It is not the grandest view in Edinburgh. It's not even the grandest view within half a mile. But it is the most restful, and restfulness is a rare commodity in a city that never quite stops moving.

The Scores at a Glance

Bench Etiquette, Briefly

Don't spread out across a four-seater with your bags. If someone older or more tired than you is hovering, get up. Take your cup with you — the amount of cold coffee left on these benches is a small civic scandal. And talk to people occasionally. The best thing about any of these six spots isn't the slats; it's that a bench is one of the last places in the city where strangers are allowed to acknowledge each other without a reason.

See you at the canal.