Local knowledge - Granton, Edinburgh

[Thrall]

For anyone local that is interested in old Granton I hear on the grapevine that there is to be an exhibit at the Starbank Inn on Saturday Jan 29 with photographs and memorabilia etc. Too bad I'm so far away

Me too, but that one name "Starbank" (wonder where it comes from) brings back memories of Starbank Park beside the pub, where we kids were taken at Easter. There we rolled hard boiled eggs which Mum had coloured with cake icing colours down the steep grassy banks. Was this a family thing or do others remember doing this? Not sure we quite appreciated the reason for the egg rolling!

The hill alongside was the best one in the area for bogies, steep and with a hairpin near the top. I remember having to bail out on occasion to avoid a confrontation with a bus at the bottom when brakes proved insufficient. Great views over to Fife on a good day.

Always sunshine then...........

Thrall

[LesleyB]

Hi Thrall
Are you talking about the park with Starbank House in it, by Leith? If so, Starbank House was built by Alexander Goalen, 1768 - 1851 shipbuilder, my half-third gr granduncle!

But...I don't know why it is called that!
I have a picture of it - here
Lesley

[BarbR]

Yes the park and the house are the same, I remember going there many times as a young person. The house is behind the park don't think you can see the house from the road, the park is quite a steep hill leading down to the road. Always remember it as a quiet place to walk around with some nice flower beds.

Barbara

[Thrall]

Hi Thrall
Are you talking about the park with Starbank House in it, by Leith? If so, Starbank House was built by Alexander Goalen, 1768 - 1851 shipbuilder, my half-third gr granduncle!

Hi Lesley, not sure the locals would call it "by Leith", but yes the house is at the top end of the park. Was the property bequeathed to the council? Its great to have a park there, but why?

"My my half-third gr granduncle" is a wonderfully exact term. Not sure I can work it out though, I think I´ll stick to Sudoku.

Barbara, where did you live? I mean in Edinburgh - I was down on Newhaven Road, but went through Trinity daily, either delivering milk or on my way to Granton harbour.

Then there was the Old Chain Pier with associated pub, with would you believe, royal connections, which do however escape me after thirty five years´absence. No doubt someone will enlighten us.

Takes you back.

Have now Googled OCP and here it is http://www.oldchainpier.co.uk/index.shtml

Amazing - it used to be a fairly down market d*mp, but things change.

Thrall

[BarbR]

Hi Thrall,

We lived on Hawthornvale. Top end met Newhaven Road we lived near the bottom. The Old Chain Pier pub was where all the under age drinkers from Trinity Academy seemed to congregrate 30 years ago

Barbara

[Thrall]

Thrall said:"Then there was the Old Chain Pier with associated pub, with would you believe, royal connections, which do however escape me after thirty five years´absence. No doubt someone will enlighten us.
Amazing - it used to be a fairly down market d*mp, but things change."

Sorry Barbara, didn´t mean to malign you, assuming you went to "Trinity".

One thing that sticks in my mind, is when they WEEDED the railway tracks past Hawthornvale from Leith when the Norwegian king ( Hákon, Olaf?) paid a visit. Next thing we knew, they were ripping up the line.

Keep the memories coming!

Thrall

[BarbR]

Yes, I went to Trinity, but I did not frequent the Old Chain Pier - though I knew many who did

Barbara

[Skene Dhu]

The Old Chain Pier, was also owned by Betty Moss, a very colourful character, she wore bamboo framed glasses, and had a habit of parading around in silk dressing gowns, her son Peter was in the Merchant Service, and used to send her items from all over the world, which she would display in the pub. As I remember it in 1964, the celing was covered in record albums, the walls covered in photos, swords, hats, bugles etc. I remember one time at 10 O`clock (drink up time) Betty shouted "time up gents", "aye two minutes hen" I replied, and I felt a prod in my back, I turned round, and to my horror Betty was standing pointing a sabre at me, that pint went down in one second flat, and by the way the pint cost 1/6d, happy days, sitting on one of the settee`s on the veranda, out the back watching the sun set.

John

[Thrall]

Hi John, you are very lucky to have imbibed at the Old Chain Pier - my memories are from tender years, of having been ushered past that den of iniquity on afternoon walks, where men, and women, fell and couldn´t stop DRINKING, according to my tea-total aunt, who belonged to the British Women's Temperance Association. My father however could not refrain from asking her what "temperance" meant? A modicum? Not too much? This riled my aunt so much, she caught the bus home - which was probably the original intention.........

One of the other landmarks of my youth was the "Whale Brae". This was the cobbled hill up from Newhaven Village, pretty steep, but which only those born in Newhaven could ascend in their hearses. Others had to take the longer mild incline up Craighall Road en route to to the cemetery.

Some wonderful early photographs were taken in Newhaven in 1843-47 by Hill and Adamson, and some examples can be seen here http://www.edinphoto.org.uk/pp_d/pp_hil ... herman.htm Amazing to see photos taken more than 150 years ago.

Best wishes,

Thrall

<URL edited - it works now! Lesley, TS moderator>

[Jamboesque]

Hi Andrew, and thank you for the pictures of Granton Harbour; takes me back over forty years, to teaching myself and others to sail in the East Harbour. Reminds me of reports I read recently of emigrants from Iceland at the end of the nineteenth century who landed first on foreign soil at Granton, were then loaded onto trains which took them through amazing (for them) town and country to Scotland Street where the steep tunnel began and trains were winched up for a mile or so to Waverley Station, which was described as being an immense building, the largest ever seen, before hurtling through to Glasgow and another long difficult sailing to Canada, the promised land.

Sorry, I tend to diverge,

Thrall

All this talk of Granton Harbour in its heyday has brought back memories of my Final Project in my Open University course Cities & Technology (Babylon to Singapore). The subject was to do with Playfair’s radical design from Calton Hill down to Leith, and why it was only partly completed.
Part of my studies was based on the railway from Canal St (now Waverley) to Granton that utilized the Scotland St Tunnel. This tunnel was operational only from 1846 to 1868 (for passenger traffic). Through the tunnel, carriages and wagons were pulled up the incline by a stationary engine on cables. An alternate route to the East via Abbeyhill, Powderhall and then to Trinity which took the incline out of the equation.

It maybe of some interest to know that World’s First Train ferry operated from Granton to Burntisland (1850-1876). This area of the city was incredibly busy from the 1860 to 1890 the demise really set in with the opening of the Forth Bridge negating the need for passenger & goods ferries across the Forth where 6 ferries operated daily in the 1870’s. In a wider context, although as other folk have said most Transatlantic shipping was done via the Clyde, one could get a berth leaving Granton to some fairly exotic destinations Valparaiso, Cape Town, Wellington etc., but in the main the foreign shipping was to and from Scandinavia and the Baltic ports but you could also get a boat to Stirling and Alloa. The Scotsmans Digital Archive has all the lists of ships arriving and departing and a host of advertisements relating to the shipping, it’s just a pity that it costs to access it.

This is the link an informative site re the railway to Granton
http://www.railscot.co.uk/Edinburgh_Lei ... /frame.htm