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flickr.com/photos/1273405… Powderhall, one of Edinburgh's lesser known railway stations. Only open 21 years from 1895, it closed in 1916 (along with a number of less patronised stations) as a war economy measure and was never re-opened
As we can see from that photo though, the station buildings and platforms remained in situ and in repair for decades after (I'm not sure if it was ever used for "specials" e.g. to the adjacent sports grounds.
The building in the back of the photograph is the ominously named "CORPORATION DESTRUCTOR" - in a time when nearly all household waste was burned in domestic fireplaces, larger or non-combustible items would be carted to the destructor to meet their fate.
flickr.com/photos/kaputni… the former access to the station from Broughton Road is quite obvious. staircases on either side of a retaining wall which has 3 recesses for timetables / advertising posters.
The Destructor had its own incinerator (chimney obvious on the map and the photo), and was replaced in the mid-1970s by a more modern refuse sorting, compacting and the often forgotten incineration plant. See large chimney here flickr.com/photos/1346010…
And by 1986? Incinerator shut down and chimney demolished as the burning of all kinds of waste in an urban environment came to be seen for what it was - a stupid and dangerous idea. flickr.com/photos/1346010…
The railway was served a life extension at exactly the time as it was about to close and be lifted due to the cessation of freight traffic (oil trains to/from a depot at Granton), in the form of "binliner" trains of compacted landfill waste flickr.com/photos/1273405…
There's a photo here of the back of the incineration plant, and the overgrown platforms of Powderhall station railscot.co.uk/img/64/443/
And here is the site being prepared in 1989 for re-purposing as a waste-to-rail transfer station railscot.co.uk/img/65/456/
Here's a striking photo of the Powderhall incinerator at work, just look at that haze it's casting over the city
The name Powderhall reputedly comes from the Powder Hall, a house and powder mill set up by the once powerful local landowners the Balfours (see also Pilrig House, Balfour St., Robery Louis Stevenson etc.)
The mill was built in 1695, here it is on the 1750s Roy map of the Lowlands of Scotland
For most of its life though, Powderhall was a collection of big hooses set in pleasant gardens and tree-lined market gardens, replete with their own curling ponds. The land was gradually sold off, first for a sand extraction pit and a sports field
And later cleared entirely to build tenements, factories and the Destructor
But it remained a recreation facility too, there were municipal bowling and putting greens and of course the stadium, initially for athletics and greyhound racing, later better known as the home of the Edinburgh Monarchs speedway team from the 1960s - 1990s
The stadium went through a series of speculative owners in the early 90s, lost the rights to greyhound racing, the Monarchs fortunes waned, before inevitably finding itself in the hands of offshore property developers and being cleared to build housing
My uncle is a massive Monarchs fan and occasionally used to take me. My outstanding memories are of failing to get my head around the scoring system (you had to note it all down in the programme), eating a cold Scotch pie and the appropriately gunpowder-like smell of the fumes
Speedway persists nearby though, on the other side of the tracks at Redbraes Park on the site of that odd pond in the maps. Cycle speedway that is (which at one time had about 10 tracks across Edinburgh). Photo by @urbancyclist flickr.com/photos/blackpu…
Powderhall Stadium was also home to football (Leith Athletic and later Edinburgh City) in the 1920s and 30s, the football pitch can be clearly seen on this excellent Britain from Above photo. britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/SPW05…
The stadium was built on the site of the original sports grounds in 1927. The "Powderhall Grounds" were later famed as the training and racing home of Olympic champion short-distance runner Eric Liddell while he studied at Edinburgh University (this pic is Stamford Bridge though)
I've just found a picture of Powder Hall house in Old & New Edinburgh, a typical early Georgian villa at first glance, but actually it was a little bit earlier than that and the wonky placement of windows and tacked-on extensions belies it being rather older than that
The engraving matches the 1849 OS Town Plan very closely though, with the large extension to the right
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