The History of Leith

FOR MOST people who look forward to celebrating Christmas, it just wouldn’t be the same without the giving and receiving of special cards. Sending a greeting to family, friends and business contacts has become as much part of the festive fun as trimming the turkey with cranberry sauce or decorating the tree with baubles and chocolate treats.

But unlike the tradition of having a midwinter feast, greetings cards are a relatively recent phenomenon in the history of Christmas. The multi-million pound industry would still be many years away.for more click here

Earlier this year, browsing through the proofs of a book by the Galloway-based photographer Allan Wright, it struck me that it was virtually impossible to go any distance in Argyll without being in sight of, or about to come across, water. for more click here

The Bernard Distillery doesn’t exist now being replaced by modern housing.

This minute from the “South Leith Record” shows that the erection of tombstones was not very common. To show respect like this was considered Roman Catholic and for this reason cherubs and other carved figures were often mutilated. However this attitude changed within a few years of the above minute.

The minute reads as follows-

“Christian Robertson widow of the deceased Alexander Guthrie petitioned the Session to have the favour as to let her errect set up a hewn stone in the Church yard at the head of her husbands corpse but the Session in no way would grant her petition unto her because everyone would strive to have like favour therfore it was not granted but absolutely refused to her and all others”.

The reason for Leith becoming the principal port for Scotland was the sacking and burning of Berwick in 1296 and the capture of Berwick in 1333 by Edward III who replaced the Scottish population by English shown above. From Froissart 14th century chronicles

CHRISTMAS AND HOGMANAY CLING TO Edinburgh perfectly; theirs is a seasonal match designed and written in heaven. A publisher’s dream. Outside, in the purlieu of the city, in Leith or Bruntsfield, in Cramond or Colinton, down the byways of the New Town, among the Old Town’s wynds and closes, the salt wind whips itself to life; a heavenly swirl of tumble-dried snowflakes fills the haloes of the street lamps. Here is the stage-set against which the murmur of indoor life takes on a studious, readerly, almost Victorian, raptness as drams and tomes are consumed by firelight and ghosts are summoned, welcomed, fêted: Stevenson, Conan Doyle, Scott, Barrie, MacCaig and behind them the live and kicking, modern, Johnny-come-latelies: Rankin, Rowling, Welsh, McCall Smith. A seasonal wordfest. A Scottish kyst. for more click here

Throughout the Middle Ages and into the Elizabethan period Leith and Inchcolm was sacked and looted by the English

A woodcut of a Mason and his tools

Leith was first to introduce the electric tramcar before Edinburgh

The uniforms of letter carriers, Mail guards and drivers employed by the Post Office in December 1860. The penny post had been introduced in 1849.