π’The time has come to create a chronological thread of all my other threads to help keep track of everything.
π₯If you ever feel like helping out, here's a link to my collection tin which goes a bit towards the costs of archives, subscriptions & books ko-fi.com/andyarthur
May 2018. The thread about the toponymy of Scottish railway stations; what their place names mean and where from they came. threadreaderapp.com/thread/9982852β¦
Jan 2019. A thread for the anniversary of the closure of the "Waverley Route" railway from Edinburgh to Carlisle via Hawick. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1082210β¦
Feb 2019. The tread about the Chancelot Roller Flour Mill, its railways and some other SCWS factories and brands threadreaderapp.com/thread/1097431β¦
March 2019. The thread about Powderhall, its railway, its destructor, its old house of that name and its stadium. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1103230β¦
May 2019. The thread about the final days of Henry Robb Shipbuilders of Leith, the occupation of the winter of 1983-4 and what's left of it. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1131300β¦
June 2019. The thread about the vanished 16th century walls and fortifications of Leith, the 17th century citadel and what they might have looked like. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1138754β¦
July 2019. The thread about the Denny Hoverbus; when 1960s Scotland tasted the air-cushioned future of public transport. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1145813β¦
July 2019. The thread about King David I of Scotland, the foundation of Leith and what some of early Leith might have been like.threadreaderapp.com/thread/1153796β¦
July 2019. The thread about the de Lestarics and the early history of the Barony of Restalrig and its burgh port of Leith. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1153994β¦
July 2019. The thread about Brigadier Mackintosh of Borlum, the Jacobite uprising of 1715 in Edinburgh and Leith and the wacky tale of its military incompetence. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1156666β¦
August 2019. The thread about the East Foul Burn and Edinburgh's forgotten, stinking and profitable "irrigated meadows" at Restalrig, Meadowbank and Craigentinny. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1160862β¦
August 2019. The thread about Leith's first public water supply at Lochend, the "Big Pipes" and why it didn't work. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1166333β¦
August 2019. The thread about the coming of electricity to Edinburgh and Leith and all the details about it you never knew you needed to know. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1171842β¦
October 2019. The thread about the strange, the unusual and the downright weird things advertised for sale in Victortian Edinburgh. Sang's Patent Throstle?! threadreaderapp.com/thread/1188937β¦
November 2019. The thread about the beautiful, regular, Georgian symmetry of Edinburgh's New Town and why its grid is not quite as regular or as intentionally planned as you might first think. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1192779β¦
November 2019. The thread about the long lost Edinburgh neighbourhood of Society and the Rectorial War of 1908. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1193830β¦
November 2019. The thread about Marionville, its place in Georgian Edinburgh and the strange tale of its most eccentric resident. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1194969β¦
November 2019. The thread about the peculiarities and quirks of how Edinburgh used to name its streets, and how its pioneering first postal system gave us our street numbers. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1200028β¦
December 2019. The thread about the tragic and farcical "Battle" of May Island, or the night the Royal Navy went to war with itself and lost. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1201817β¦
December 2019. The thread about John Paul Jones, the Scottish sailor who joined the American War of Independence and came back again intent on sacking Edinburgh and Leith. (And how he gave Leith its Fort) threadreaderapp.com/thread/1204372β¦
January 2020. The thread about CERT. Edinburgh's 1990 guided busway network that never was (but actually kind of was) threadreaderapp.com/thread/1221930β¦
February 2020. The thread about Sciennes, how you pronounce it, how it got its name and everything you never needed to know about it until now. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1224730β¦
February 2020. The thread about the network of cables and pulleys hidden in your tenement walls, why they were there and how they worked. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1225734β¦
March 2020. The thread about London Road and why it isn't where it first was and why it's the fault of the North British Railway. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1244920β¦
August 2020. The thread about AIROHs, ORLITS and BISFs or some of Edinburgh's post-WW2 prefab houses and where you can still find them. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1299347β¦
August 2020. The thread about the back door to Piershill Cavalry Baracks that's been hiding in plain sight for over 100 years. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1300104β¦
September 2020. The thread about Leith shipowners and its connection to industrial whaling and "homes for heroes". threadreaderapp.com/thread/1303643β¦
September 2020. The thread about one of photo of the Shore at Leith and all the amazing historic details we can scrape from it. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1305625β¦
September 2020. The thread about the University of Edinburgh Comprehensive Development Area, or how 1960s Edinburgh planned to destroy itself. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1306179β¦
September 2020. The thread about the Air Ministry's attempt to build a sheep-killing death ray and how it led a Scottish scientist to pioneer radar and radio direction finding. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1307625β¦
September 2020. The thread about 1980s suburban sprawl in East Edinburgh and how mining history is hiding in plain sight within. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1308134β¦
September 2020. The thread about the launch of the mail steamer RMS Forth in Leith and how she was wrecked in Mexico only 8 years later. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1308719β¦
October 2020. The thread about old Leith bank notes and the rise and fall and rise again of early banks in Scotland. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1313926β¦
October 2020. The thread about a postwar chair made in Glasgow and just what it has to do with the early history of helicopters. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1314887β¦
October 2020. The thread about the Great Michael, 16th century Scotland's delusionally large warship and some Scottish naval history. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1315735β¦
December 2020. The thread about the industrial and built history of Bonnington and where you can find it in old prints and maps. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1339326β¦
December 2020. The thread about a Leith beggar's token and when the Scottish state controlled the begging industry. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1340264β¦
December 2020. The thread about Patrick Miller of Dalswinton; about Leith; a crackpot tycoon; early steamboats; paddle-powered Georgian warships; the King of Sweden; war in the Baltic and the introduction of the neep to Scotland. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1340960β¦
March 2021. The thread about the Leith Police and how there's much more to early law and order in Leith than than just dismisseth-ing us. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1368577β¦
March 2021. The thread about an A - Z of streets name after women in Edinburgh and Leith and some of the people behind those names. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1369023β¦
March 2021. The thread about Muschet's cairn and why the tragic story behind it should be much better kenned and commemorated. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1370729β¦
August 2021. The thread about the giant pulley found under Leith Walk and how it helped the early trams go round. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1428361β¦
October 2021. The thread about the threads about the history of Edinburgh's sewer networks and why they are a good thing. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1452257β¦
October 2021. The thread about Leith communion tokens and the rabbit-hole they lead us down about the relentlessly schism-ridden history of Scottish Presbyterian churches. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1454927β¦
November 2021. The thread about the illustrated history of Gaelic churches in Edinburgh and how they've been around the whole time. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1455647β¦
November 2021. The thread about a gravestone in Leith and how it leads us to the improbably bizarre story of the bungled attempt to capture Edinburgh Castle for the Jacobites in 1715. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1456227β¦
November 2021. The thread about Alexander Bain and why he should be as famous as Alexander Graham Bell and John Logie Baird. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1458708β¦
November 2021. The thread about the fiery loss of the Leith steamship "Brilliant" and the sad loss of her captain, Cawfield Wade. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1459521β¦
November 2021. The thread about the Dean Village and why it isn't where you think it is; why you've been calling it the wrong thing all this time; and how it tried to start a revolution in Scotland. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1465456β¦
December 2021. The thread about the first Royal Navy warship built in Leith, her short history and her captains good and not-so-good. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1466170β¦
December 2021. The thread about Lepers in 16th century Edinburgh and how Leprosy was a death sentence in more than just the obvious way. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1473667β¦
December 2021. The thread about the other terrible Scottish railway disaster that shares an anniversary with the fall of the First Tay Bridge (part 1). threadreaderapp.com/thread/1475875β¦
December 2021. The thread about the other terrible Scottish railway disaster that shares an anniversary with the fall of the First Tay Bridge (part 2). threadreaderapp.com/thread/1475894β¦
January 2022. The thread about the building of Early public schools in Edinburgh and how they were being used as a weapon in the city's pioneering war on infectious diseases. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1486818β¦
February 2022. The thread about how school design was mobilised in the Scottish state's war on left-handedness and Victorian NIMBYism in Morningside. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1490312β¦
February 2022. The thread about how on of Ireland's most legendary ballads was written by a Scottosh gas-meter collector from Abbeyhill threadreaderapp.com/thread/1490806β¦
February 2022. The thread about the building of the Regent Road and how the usually infallible Robert Stevenson got it a little bit wrong. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1493000β¦
February 2022. The thread about the Ukrainian Church in Leith and a little of the history of its congregation. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1497999β¦
March 2021. The thread about the Austrian Jewish refugee who made Edinburgh his home and came to design modern industrial Scotland (and the best bookcase you will probably never own). threadreaderapp.com/thread/1505494β¦
April 2022. The thread about the Clydebank aviation industry that ended before it really got going and the ridiculous German planes that it built. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1515081β¦
April 2022. The thread about how a shipyard and streets in Finland got a Scottish name and what it's got to do with Leith. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1518711β¦
May 2022. The thread about the woman who was Scotland's first cookery teacher, wrote its first cook books and who introduced us to haggis. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1528850β¦
June 2022. The thread about the Scottish industrialist, the Spanish aristocrat, the sleepy Ayrshire village and their place in numerous pioneering moments in aviation history. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1534103β¦
July 2022. The thread about the Sciennes school strike, the women who stood up to the School Board and rampant anti-Catholicism in 1920s Edinburgh. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1542991β¦
July 2022. The thread about Scapa Flow, the scuttling of the German fleet, its incredible salvage and how it very nearly brought the Forth Bridge down while the cameras were recording. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1550936β¦
August 2022. The thread about the delicious and crunchy history of the Macaroni Pie and how people have been consuming macaroni in Scotland for much longer than you think. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1554501β¦
August 2022. The thread about the greasy history of the Lorne Sausage, which doesn't come from Lorne; or the Square Sausage, which isn't square. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1557372β¦
November 2021. The thread about the 600 year evolution of the boundaries of Edinburgh, Leith, the Canongate and some baronies and burghs you may not be so familiar with.
September 2021. The thread about a 17th century map of Leith, what the place looked like then and the time King Charles II's saucy royal yacht came to town
October 2021. The thread about Bread Street, how it did (or didn't) get its name and why it has a legendary status with a certain generation of Edinburgh folk
May 2022. The thread about The Disruption; when much Scotland literally got up, walked out of the established Kirk and formed their own; why they ended up building a great floating church and just why this has anything to do with the history of photography
March 2020. The thread about the time the great Covenanter general Alexander Leslie captured Edinburgh castle and wasn't hoist with his own petard in the process.
June 2019. The thread about the time the French ran Leith and banned speaking ill of Frenchmen and then the time the English ran Leith and had to ban the garrison from marrying Leith lasses.
August 2022. The thread about Creamola foam, a pleasant tasting chemical concoction with an unpleasant tasting beginning. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1562920β¦
November 2019. The thread about the Leith Turkish baths.
January 2022. The thread about Darling's, Edinburgh's premier outfitter for the discerning lady around town, and it's political proprietor William Young Darling, great uncle to Baron Darling of Roulanish
The derailment by strikers of the Flying Scotsman on May 10th 1926 has meant a much more serious and fatal rail accident in Edinburgh later that same day which claimed 3 lives and injured many has been somewhat overlooked π§΅ππ
The 1:06PM train from Berwick-upon-Tweed to Edinburgh hit a goods train being shunted across its path at St. Margaret's Depot just west of the tunnel under London Road. Due to the General Strike, most signal boxes were unmanned and only a rudimentary signalling system was running
The busy but confined St. Margaret's depot was on both sides of the LNER East Coast Mainline as it approached Edinburgh, with Piershill Junction for Leith and north Edinburgh to its east and the 60 yard tunnel under London Road constraining it to the west.
It's been hard to find time recently for any in-depth threading, but I think tonight we can sneak in the story of the lesser-known Leith shipyard of Ramage & Ferguson, builders of luxury steam mega-yachts to the Victorian and Edwardian elites. β΅οΈπ§΅π
In its working life from 1877 to 1934, the Ramage & Ferguson yard built 269 ships: 80, almost 1/3 of the total, were luxury steam yachts, built mainly to the designs of the 3 most prominent yacht designers in the world. It became the go-to shipyard for the rich and famous
When I say yachts, don't think about those little plastic things bobbing around in marinas these days. We're talking about multi-hundred (up to two thousand!) ton wooden and steel palaces, fitted out to the standards of ocean liners
As promised / threatened, there now follows a thread about the origins and abolition of the Tawse as the instrument of discipline in Scottish teaching. So lets start off with the Tawse - what is it and how did it evolve? π§΅π
"Tawis" or "tawes" is a Scots word going back to c. 16th c., a plural of a leather belt or strap. In turn this came from the Middle English "tawe", leather tanned so as to keep it supple. Such devices were long the favoured instrument of corporal punishment in Scottish education
In 1848, George Mckarsie sued Archibald Dickson, schoolmaster of Auchtermuchty, for assaulting his son without provocation with a tawse "severely on the head, face and arms to the effusion of his blood". He was awarded a shilling but had to pay all expenses!
This pub has been in the news for the wrong reasons recently, but despite appearances it's a very important pub; a surviving example of only a handful of such interwar hostelries built in #Edinburgh - the Roadhouse. And these 9 pubs have a story to tell. Shall we unravel it?π§΅π
The short version of the Roadhouse story is thus: a blend of 1930s architecture and glamour used by the licensed trade to attract a new generation of sophisticated, Holywood-inspired, car-driving drinkers. That's partly true, but not the full story here
To understand how Edinburgh got its roadhouses we have to go back to 1913 when the Temperance movement was at the peak of its power and the Temperance (Scotland) Act was passed. This was also known as the Local Veto Act as it allowed localities to force referendums on going "dry"
In 1839, Dr. Thomas Smith of 21 Duke (now Dublin) Street in #Edinburgh tried on himself a purified extract of "Indian Hemp" - Cannabis sativa. He "gave an interesting account of its physiological action!". He was most probably the first person in Scotland to get high.
The medicinal and psychoactive properties of "Indian Hemp" had only just been introduced to Western medicine that year by Irish doctor William Brooke O'Shaughnessy, so it's unlikely anyone had done so before.
Cannabis seeds were advertised for sale in Edinburgh in the Caledonian Mercury as far back as 1761 (apply to the Gardener at Hermitage House in Leith), but these probably refer to Hemp: Cannabis sativa. π±
Between 1950 and 1973, #Edinburgh built 77 municipal, multi-storey housing blocks (of 7 storeys or more), containing 6,084 flats across 968 storeys. So as promised, I've gone and made a spreadsheet inventory of them all. Let's have a look at them chronologically π§΅π
1950-51 saw the first such building - the 8 storey Westfield Court with 88 flats (and a nursery on the roof!) Built by local builders Hepburn Bros, it was heavily inspired by London's Kensal House by Maxwell Fry. It was a bit of a 1-off though and is rather unique in the city.
There then followed a series of experimental mid-rise blocks, variations on a theme, as a rather conservative local administration (headed by the Progressive Party) tried to work out what it wanted to do regards high-rise housing post-war.