Swanston is a tiny hamlet of thatched, whitewashed cottages tucked under the Pentland Hills on Edinburgh’s southern edge — a real surprise so close to the city. Robert Louis Stevenson spent his boyhood summers at Swanston Cottage here, and the hills above gave him some of the landscape he later wrote about. It’s a walkers’ spot, with paths climbing straight up into the Pentlands from the edge of the hamlet. Slateford station is a few km to the north-west.
