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Andy Arthur 💃🏰🦌

@cocteautriplets

Sep 21

If old gate piers could talk, they could tell many a tale of who once passed through them, could they not?
There's an old gate pier on Lochend Road.
What would it tell us if it could? Would it have interesting tales to tell?
Shall we find out? 🧵👇

Why is there a Georgian gate pier leading to 1980s housing? Well of course there used to be a Georgian house here before there were 1980s houses. Given this area is known as Hawkhill, the house was sensibly called Hawkhill House.

The name Hawkhill is descriptive and literal - there was once a hill here were hawks must have dwelled. It's mentioned as Halkehill in 1560, and shown as Halkhill in Adair's map of 1682.

Read 40 tweets

Andy Arthur 💃🏰🦌

@cocteautriplets

Sep 16

It's Friday, so let's start the day with a #NowAndThen animated transition to visualise a bit of local history. This view shows Jock's Lodge toll house in the mid-late 19th century, looking east down the Portobello Road at Willowbrae. 🧵👇

The original image is from Old & New Edinburgh by James Grant, published 1885. The tollhouse is in the middle of the image, you can see the barriers, one on each side of the cottage, and another on the left of the road.

Other features we can see are what was the Jock's Lodge Tavern (for now, The Willow), with a cavalryman from Piershill Barracks standing outside. The belfry belongs to the barracks chapel.

Read 16 tweets

Andy Arthur 💃🏰🦌

@cocteautriplets

Sep 14

I love this calotype by David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson. For obvious reasons it is called "Edinburgh Ale" and shows (L-R), writer and stained glass artist James Ballantine, social reformer Dr. George Bell and D. O. Hill himself, all on the sauce and having a giggle

It shows serious men being relaxed and having fun. Taken in 1844, in the infancy of photography, it also just happens to probably be the first ever photograph taken of people drinking beer.

Given it's probably taken in Hill & Adamson's studio at Rock House on Calton Hill, also Adamson's home, it definitely needs a blue plaque to say "on this spot in 1844, the first ever drunken* group selfie was taken".

Read 7 tweets

Andy Arthur 💃🏰🦌

@cocteautriplets

Sep 11

Apropos current events, I thought it might be interesting, relevant or both to delve a little into the name of a certain street and dispel a few myths or misapprehensions about it. 🧵👇

The Royal Mile of course is the ancient "high street" of Edinburgh's Old Town, marking the mile long route between Edinburgh Castle and the Palace of Holyroodhouse; long trodden by monarchs of Scotland, yes?

Well, no. Not really. Well, the bit about it being a mile long between the Castle and the Palace is correct, it almost exactly is. But that's a statute mile, not a Scots mile (which is ~200m longer) which should raise a slight suspicion as to how ancient it really is.

Read 27 tweets

Andy Arthur 💃🏰🦌

@cocteautriplets

Sep 7

https://twitter.com/cocteautriplets/status/1493005529479884802

The "things I'd like to write a thread about" in traycan get pretty overcrowded so it brings me more than a little bit pleasure to say that it's only taken me 7 months to get around to my promise of following up on the Quarryholes (which at least 2 of you are keen to hear!) 🧵👇

https://twitter.com/cocteautriplets/status/1493005529479884802

The Quarryholes is not one but two distinct places, the Upper or Over Quarryholes (blue) and the Nether or Lower Quarryholes (red), as shown by Roy on his 1750s Lowland Map (🗺️NLS). You can see the tailburn of Lochend cutting between the two.

As the name suggests, the Quarryholes were areas where quarrying had once taken place and left behind pits and cliffs on the ground. A settlement grew up at each location.

Read 60 tweets

Andy Arthur 💃🏰🦌

@cocteautriplets

Sep 6

Here we. Here we. Here we foaming go!

Verdict from herself who had never ever been allowed to try it as a child:
👩🏼 "It tastes like church hall diluting juice with a Vitamin C tablet in it".
Then refused to drink any more...

I personally can't recall what it really tasted like, 35-odd years ago. But I suppose the chemical fruit flavour is accurate, but I do remember it being a bit gloopier and fizzier and with more of a head on it

Read 5 tweets

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