Looking down into Gardener's Cottage at the east-end of West Princes Street Gardens, below the Mound (Floral Clock Entrance); Princes Street Gardens is a public park in the center of Edinburgh, in the shadow of Edinburgh Castle. The Gardens were created in the 1820s following the long draining of the Nor Loch and the creation of the New Town (largely to a 1766 plan by James Craig). The gardens run along the south side of Princes Street and are divided by The Mound. East Princes Street Gardens run from The Mound to Waverley Bridge, and cover 8.5 acres (34,000 m2). The larger West Princes Street Gardens cover 29 acres (120,000 m2) and extend to the adjacent churches of St. John's and St. Cuthbert's, near Lothian Road in the west. The Gardens ...