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Andy Arthur

@cocteautriplets

Jan 27

https://twitter.com/cocteautriplets/status/1485559479026565121

My new book is really, *really* interesting, not just about school buildings but about the social history that they go hand in hand with. A real work of labour and love of someone who (I think) spent their life working in Education.

https://twitter.com/cocteautriplets/status/1485559479026565121

There are distinct phases in school building programmes, as those charged with the provision of schools responded to legislation and the societal pressures at the time. What is very relevant to the current day is the effort they went to in responding to infectious diseases.

This became something of a guiding obsession in the period between WW1 and WW2 as the physical structure and design of schools was brought into service as a weapon in the war against infections diseases such as TB, cholera, typhus etc.

Read 37 tweets

Andy Arthur

@cocteautriplets

Dec 29, 2021

One thing that always fascinates me, as you probably know by now, is how a place name evolves over time, from century to century and map to map, and how the local pronunciation of the name either leads this or follows it. This morning my eye was caught by "Cammo". 🧵👇

Cammo was formerly a grand house and estate to the west of Edinburgh, now a local park / nature reserve finding itself being swallowed up by suburbification where the fields are replaced by car dependent new build estates with evocative names like "Cammo Meadows"

Cammo almost sounds biblical to my ear. You can imagine it sitting alongside Canaan or Jericho in the old testament. It's an old name indeed, but not quite *that* old, and is recorded on a charter in 1296 as Cambo or Cambok.

Read 35 tweets

Andy Arthur

@cocteautriplets

Dec 28, 2021

The engine was therefore running with no weather protection for the crew, into a blizzard, with a blockage on the line ahead. And to make things worse, the driver had whiled away the delay in Arbroath by warming himself in the station bar.

So although the driver, Gourlay, had been told to proceed with caution and to stop at Elliot Junction station, he couldn't really see what he was doing, the blockage was *at* the station and by taking a drink had tarnished his reputation in the subsequent inquiry.

Gourlay proceeded too fast in the circumstances and passed semaphore signals which with the weight of snow on them had dropped from the danger to the clear position - but which he should still have treated as being at danger and passed with all caution.

Read 11 tweets

Andy Arthur

@cocteautriplets

Dec 28, 2021

28th December is the anniversary of the Tay Bridge Disaster (of 1879), but is also the anniversary of the Elliot Junction Disaster of 1906. The former, which saw ~70 deaths often overshadows the latter, which caused 22 deaths and 24 injuries. (Pic via The Courier, © unknown)

Elliot Junction Station was on the mainline between Dundee and Aberdeen, just south of Arbroath, where a short local branch to Carmyllie diverged to the north.

The Station was an "island" between the tracks, with goods sidings on the up and down lines, as well as the junction for the line to Carmyllie, so was relatively complex for an otherwise insignificant place which at the time was little more than a few farms, cottages and a mill.

Read 22 tweets

Andy Arthur

@cocteautriplets

Dec 22, 2021

🧵Apropos recent events, let's take a few minutes to spare a thought for Lepers in 16th century Edinburgh who lived an incredibly strict life of lockdown. 👇

There was a leper hospital in Edinburgh from medieval times, but there's no hard record as to where it may have been. The "Liberton" = "Leper town" thing is a myth as the place name predates the arrival of the word Leper into Scots language by centuries.

No, Edinburgh's 16th century leper hospital was in Greenside, outside the city boundary at the time (and actually in the barony of Restalrig). The approximate location was between the London Road roundabout and Greenside Church.

Read 30 tweets

Andy Arthur

@cocteautriplets

Dec 20, 2021

£2.8 million for a 2 bed flat? Quite possibly Scotland's most expensive bit of residential real estate per square foot?

It isn't even *that* big.

When I were a lad* this were all damp and draughty shared bedrooms. I forget which particular demographic of the student body made this place its home back in the day.
* (ok, a young adult).

Read 4 tweets

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