History of Leith, Edinburgh

Those who can remember and had seen Leith in its primeval filthiness and irregularity can sufficiently appreciate the great improvements which it has undergone.

The original Town of Leith, at least seventy years ago was bounded on the east by Quality Street and the Kirkgate beyond which in that direction there was not a single house. The whole space therefore between those two streets and the east side of the Links was bare and open all the way down to the sea with the exception of one solitary glass house which stood and still stands along with others within a short distance of the water.

On the south side of South Leith Church and about where Laurie Street is now formed the ground was covered with trees which as they harmonised with the ancient gothic fabric considerably heightened the interest in its appearance. These however I believe were removed even prior to the formation of the street just named. Nearly the whole of the ground between Quality Street and the east side Constitution Street was then occupied by gardens as nearly all of the houses in that fashionable quarter of the town had large gardens behind them. The ground between the Kirkgate and the Links were devoted to the same purpose. I have already said that those two streets formed the boundary on the east. By drawing a line from the top of the Kirkgate past the Yardheads and joining the Water of Leith immediately above the Sheriff Brae we have the old boundary of Leith on the South. In this direction until lately that a new road leading over the Water of Leith was formed were to be seen in the best preservation the remains of what was once a prominent and pleasing feature in the locale of Leith its numerous and extensive gardens. These have now in consequence of the extension of the town nearly altogether disappeared.

In North Leith there was about the beginning of the last century but one place deserving the name of a street and that was Sandport Street where there are some very old houses whose exterior appearance indicates that they must have been once highly respectable. The most remarkable of these which is on the east side and not far from Bridge Street bears the date 1622. We may also mention that there is in this Street another old house not without some interest. Above the door on an oblong stone built into the wall we find the following inscription;

“God bless the Carpenters of North Leith who built this house.1715”

And underneath the hull of a ship in alto relieve. This house appears to have been built a few years after the formation of the oldest dock in Leith which lies immediately behind it and was built in 1710. Sandport Street therefore with a few irregularly built houses in the immediate vicinity of the old church and two or three houses around the Citadel formed North Leith in the past. A sufficient time has not yet past to make it either strange or interesting to mention that the place where the wet docks now stand was formally a mere continuation of the beach. However in time this will become of interest and so I have noted it. I should mention that about forty years ago a ship was wrecked immediately at the Citadel when that ground was open shore. On that sad occasion the tremendous sea which rolled in forced the unfortunate vessel so high upon the land that her bowsprit kept beating until she went to pieces against the North gable of that row of low tile roofed houses which form the west side of the Citadel. On this spot I may also add where the present day Custom House now stands a line of battle ship called the “Fury” was built and was the first ship of War to be built in Scotland after the Union.

On the whole there is not I would venture to say a town in Scotland apart from Dysart where for its size a greater number of old respectable houses then what is found in Leith. These however as in other places have long since been abandoned by that class of people for which they were originally intended and are now with few exceptions inhabited solely by the meanest and poorest of people the carved window frames of these ancient houses strangely contrasting with the miserable appearance of an old hat or a bundle of rags stuffed through their broken panes. The dark and dirty stair case, the wretchedness and poverty within together with the excess of population which they generally contain, every room being converted into the separate dwelling of a distinct and frequently numerous family tend to excite sad reflections on their departed grandeur, When we see the squalid room with its coarse, scanty and dilapidated furniture, we think of the comfortable though antique splendours of former days and the roaring hilarity which once resounded through its now cheerless and poverty stricken halls. But sic transit Gloria mundi and so pass away the days of other years.