@Rosie, if you look at some of the other maps in the NLS collection (see @IWRATS excellent link) you can see that the main thoroughfare was always Leith Street to Leith Walk, with Queen Street approaching from the west. The triangular building though appears as early as an 1804 town plan. It was probably an odd shaped bit of land that some developer saw an opportunity in. The cut through to the top of Broughton Street stayed pretty much a cut through until the modern era, as far as I can make out.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
The Sustrans proposals for Picardy Place/Leith Street
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Posted 6 years ago #
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@Morningsider Very well put. A supine letter.
@Rosie "Does anyone know why it had that triangle in the middle? It seems an odd way to build a lot of tenements."
I suspect for very similar reasons to modern development. There was a bit of land in the interstice of two roads and there was some money to be made by building low grade accommodation. I expect living there wasn't particularly pleasant even in those days of minimal motor traffic. And it doesn't provide any reason to emulate that layout today.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@paulmilne My suspicion has always been that historically the thoroughfare was Leith Walk to Calton Road and thence to the old town; later Little King St connected Leith Walk to the New Town, and Leith St was added later. The above is total surmise and I'd be interested to hear from anyone with historical knowledge on the issue.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Picardy Place Phase 3 - burial under basaltic lava and a large cinder cone.
Councillor MacInnes regretted the large-scale loss of life and inconvenience to traffic but noted that the plan was necessary to restore the site to its original geological layout.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@paulmilne, ih
Thanks both. I'd have guessed Queen St & the way to Leith Walk were main thoroughfares. So that left a parcel of land.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@ih
There's a section in Stevenson's Catriona where he walks from the High Street to Pilrig through Picardy Village where the French Weavers are at work and via Leith Walk over a causeway. Past men dangling on the gallows.
Chapter III
Posted 6 years ago # -
As a physicist, I take a longer term view of "historical"; let's return Picardy Place to a pre-recombination hadron soup.
Posted 6 years ago # -
What is now Leith Walk existed as a thoroughfare long before the New Town was built. Queen Street was a planned part of the New Town grid layout. Similarly Waterloo Place, Princes Street did not exist until New Town was built, North Bridge even later again. What the exact main route was between Old Town and the current Leith Walk is not quite clear, but I expect a circuit of the Nor Loch (now Waverley Station/Princes Street Gardens) was involved. Possibly via Abbeyhill and then back again? Or down what is now Easter Road (ie. the easterly route to Leith, nowt to do with eggs and Christ raised from the dead).
Posted 6 years ago # -
@Rosie, that's a cracking read. Chapter III, his route appears to be as follows:
High Street; north by Leith Wynd; Calton Hill; over Mouter’s Hill; Picardy village (where he stops for directions); a little way on he passes by a gibbet; then down " the causeway of Leith Walk"; past "the old rampart" (Leith fortifications?) and thence to Pilrig, "a pleasant gabled house set by the walkside among some brave young woods."
A quick Googol reveals this nugget:
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Mouter’s Hill’ is yet another spelling of Multries Hill, where the St James Centre now stands. The weavers’ houses were built in 1730, and later demolished to make way for Georgian Picardy Place. When Stevenson’s David Balfour made his journey in 1751 Leith Walk’s origins as General Leslie’s seventeenth-century rampart would still be obvious, and it was still for pedestrians only. And the gibbet stood on the site now known as Shrubhill, but previously as the Gallowlee.
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From "Broughton in Literature", BROUGHTON HISTORY SOCIETY NEWSLETTER, NUMBER 23, SUMMER 200.
Further Googoling yields:
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The beginning: Leith Wynd
Before the draining of the Nor Loch and the development of the New Town, the primary route from Edinburgh to Leith was to exit the burgh via the eastern Nether Bow Gate and turn left down Leith Wynd. You can see Leith Wynd on the right side of the map below, just north of the Nether Bow. This led to Calton Road, noted on the map below as ‘The Western Road to Leith,’ which proceeded down to Leith roughly along the route of the current Leith Walk. There were no routes from Edinburgh to Leith further west as the Nor Loch prevented crossing from Edinburgh to the land that was to become the New Town.
On Edgar’s 1742 map below, generally agreed to be the first accurate scale map of Edinburgh, you can see that St Mary’s Street (St Mary’s Wynd in 1742), the High Street, and the Canongate are all in the same place as they are today. Calton Road roughly follows the same route as today though it was moved slightly to be closer to the crags during Waverley’s redevelopment in the 1890s.
You can also see Trinity College Hospital & Church (including the Orphan Hospital) which was demolished, along with its physic garden, and partially moved when the original Waverley Station was built in the 1840s.
---From "History of the Route: Leith Wynd", in "Re-Bridge The Gap, a campaign site to re-open the (now closed) footbridge over Waverley Station!
http://www.rebridgethegap.org.uk/Re-Bridge_the_Gap/Leith_Wynd.html
Also:
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Evolution: Cranston Street
The City Improvement Act of 1867 led to Leith Wynd being replaced by Jeffrey Street and Cranston Street. Jeffrey Street started outside the Netherbow from the same point as Leith Wynd had, however it then curved around to the west. Cranson Street started slightly east of Jeffrey Street but then curved slightly west and followed the old route of Leith Wynd, connecting up to Calton Road.
By the 1890s, Cranston Street had several rail lines running over it, but it still followed the old path of Leith Wynd, forming a continuous route from the top of the Canongate across the Waverley valley to Calton Road. The parliamentary boundary also followed the route of Cranston Street and Calton Road, and can be seen by the dotted line on the Ordnance Survey map below.
The 1893–94 Ordnance Survey map below you can see Jeffrey Street and the entirety of Cranston Street. You can also see the northern end of New Street on the far right of the map, significantly east of Cranston Street. Note that ‘North Back of Canongate’ (to the east of the north end of Cranston Street) has since been renamed as a continuation of Calton Road.---
http://www.rebridgethegap.org.uk/Re-Bridge_the_Gap/Cranston_Street.html
Posted 6 years ago # -
http://www.rebridgethegap.org.uk/Re-Bridge_the_Gap/Leith_Wynd.html
1742 map showing Leith Wynd, Calton Road
Posted 6 years ago # -
@Crowriver @Rosie Thank you both. So Leith Wynd is now Jeffrey St/Calton Road. Re Catriona So you were hanged in chains until dead for nicking two shillings, but no, that wasn't enough punishment, you were dipped in tar as well!
Posted 6 years ago # -
You can see William Edgar's full 1765 map here:
http://maps.nls.uk/view/1021905611742 version here:
https://www.ewht.org.uk/news/65/143/Edgar-s-map-of-Edinburgh-1742Posted 6 years ago # -
A geo-referenced version, which helped me understand what's going on: http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=18&lat=55.9512&lon=-3.1849&layers=124&b=1
Posted 6 years ago # -
"So Leith Wynd is now Jeffrey St/Calton Road. "
Don't forget Cranston Road, which is that wee street that cuts down to Market Street, east of Jeffrey Street. It's the closest to the original path of Leith Wynd it seems, though that part is now subsumed in Waverley station and the station car park off New Street (formerly the goods station).
Posted 6 years ago # -
From the brilliant map you referenced @cr looks like Leith Wynd is directly opposite St Mary's Wynd (now St). Seems later when Jeffrey St was altered to meet Market St, Cranston Rd was also adjusted with a dog leg to meet Calton Rd. Looks like a vestage of the original route is retained in the raised roof element of Waverley Station that goes from the corner of Calton St across to Jeffrey St (but doesn't reach it any more ).
Posted 6 years ago # -
The old footbridge across Waverley is west of the line of Leith Wynd, as explained here (see dotted line on 1914 OS map):
http://www.rebridgethegap.org.uk/Re-Bridge_the_Gap/The_Footbridge_Before.html
Posted 6 years ago # -
My wife takes great pleasure in accusing me of being a "fence spotter" after I pointed out difference in the railings along Jeffery Street where the footbridge over Waverley joined.
You can see the original spikes, and the modern blunt tops of the rods.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Quiet, considered, and politely damning – 5 big hitters on Picardy Place shambles:
http://www.broughtonspurtle.org.uk/news/quiet-considered-politely-damning
Posted 6 years ago # -
Hopefully none of the transport committee are fans of the motorway-on-stilts-through-the-Meadows idea, and are repelled by the comparison rather than enthused.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Posted 6 years ago #
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Motion passed. Only Greens voted against.
Gyratory it is.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Not surprised, but very disappointed with that decision.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Posted 6 years ago #
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Right. What do we need to do now?
Posted 6 years ago # -
Oh [Rule 2].
Posted 6 years ago # -
Gnash gnash grind scowl.
I'll send them each a printable PDF of the plans with cut-out lines for them to make millstone-style wearable tokens of shame.Posted 6 years ago # -
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water.Posted 6 years ago # -
If you step back and think about what has happened here, it is simply madness. Picardy Place has been a roundabout, effectively a "non-place", for 50 years. The area is to be completely rebuilt - at considerable taxpayer expense. The end result will be a bigger roundabout, which will presumably be in place for the next 50 years.
Yes, there will be segregated cycle lanes - but that's not really the issue here. There was a chance to remake this area as a place for people. What we ended up with is another no-mans land.
Posted 6 years ago # -
"What do we need to do now?"
Well for myself, I will be completely boycotting the new St James once it's built. Not a single penny will I deposit in their coffers. After all my taxes have already paid for this sh1thole of a gyratory to be built. Effectively I'm funding the private takeover of local democracy.
I'll make a possible exception for John Lewis, who are kind of semi-detached from this whole thing.
#BoycottStJames
Posted 6 years ago # -
Right. What do we need to do now?
Move to Milton Kenes at least this level of idiocy is offical baked in policy and has been for decades...
Posted 6 years ago #
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