Thatched Cottage at Lochend
Early example of a thatched cottage at Lochend now gone
Captain Duncan was born in Water Street and rose to become Commodore of the Union Castle Line of Mail Steamers.
March 31, 2005
Lady Fifes Brae, Well and House
This hill on Leith Links is believed by some was the site of a Elizabethan gun mount from the Seige of leith . However this is unlikely to be the case according to evidence which has come to light in the past few years
Far and Sure
From 1679 to 16S2 James, Duke of York, the king’s brother and heir to the throne, was much in Scotland, where he seemed to divide his leisure between witnessing and encouraging the cruelties of the torturing chamber and playing golf on Leith Links, then one of the chief centres of the game. The Golfer’s Land in the Canongate still survives to remind us of his match on the Links with two English noblemen, when, partnered by John Paterson, a member of a noted golfing family, he won the stakes and handed over the money to his partner, who built with it the great tenement which he decorated with his crest dexter hand grasping a golf club, per with the motto Far and Sure
March 30, 2005
Note of the Leith Banking Company
The Leith Banking Company failed in 1842 but has left leith with a very fine domed building in Bernard Street.
The Craigentinny Marbles
This is the Tomb of William Henry Miller of Craigentinny who wished to be buried in one of his own fields. It is ornamated with two beautiful sculptured marble panels known as “the craigentinny marbles”. The Tomb is based on a Tomb on the Appian Way at Rome.
Portobello and the Figgate Muir
Portobello now a favourite bathing quarter of the citizens, occupies a locality known for ages as the Figgate Muir, a once desolate expanse of muir-land, which perhaps was a portion of the forest of Drumsheugh, but which latterly was covered with whins and furze, bordered by a broad sandy beach, and extending from Magdalene Bridge on the south perhaps to where Sea- field now lies, on the north-west.
Through this waste flowed the Figgate Burn out of Duddingston Loch, a continuation of the Braid. Figgate is said to be a corruption of the Saxon word for a cow’s-ditch, and here the monks of Holyrood were wont to pasture their cattle
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Coming to the city? You really must see Leith
LEITH is to be promoted as a “must-see” tourist attraction alongside Edinburgh Castle and the Royal Mile.
Thousands of visitors currently stop off to see the Royal Yacht Britannia, then leave without seeing any more of the port area.
for more click on the link
March 28, 2005
THE LIGHTS OF LEITH.
The lights o Leith! the lights o Leith!
The skipper cried aloud
While the wintry gale with snow and hail
Blew snell thro sail and shroud.
The lights o Leith! the lights o Leith!
As he paced the deck cried he
How merrily bright they burn this night
Thro the reek o the stormy sea!
for more click on the introduction