Fountainbridge
Fountainbridge is an area of Edinburgh, Scotland, a short distance west of the city centre, adjoining Tollcross and West Port to the east, Polwarth to the west and south and Haymarket to the north and Gorgie and North Merchiston to the west. The main streets through the area are Fountainbridge and Dundee Street; the Union Canal which continued a short distance north-eastwards to Port Hopetoun at Lothian Road now terminates at the Lochrin Basin. The canal to the south and the route of the former Caledonian Railway to the north continue to define the area. Originating as a new suburb created on the Dalry estate after 1696, the name "Fountainbridge" appears on John Laurie's A plan of the County of Mid-Lothian of 1763. According to the Edinburgh Evening Courant newspaper in 1774 the name derived from the Foullbridge Well of "singularly sweet water", south of the road and east of a burn and bridge 20 yards east of Gilmore Park. An earlier reference to the "lands of "Foulbriggs" exists from 1512. "Foul", pronounced "fool" in Scots and encountered in the names of fords, signified "muddy", "briggs" may have indicated the presence of another bridge further west on the Lanark Road.
West Fountainbridge was named in 1869 and its western extension Dundee Street in 1885. From the early 19th century until the late 20th century Fountainbridge was home to two of the city's major industries and a mixture of working-class tenement housing, which in part degenerated into some of the worst of the city's slums between the 1930s and the 1960s. Before being elected Prime Minister in 1964 the Labour Party leader Harold Wilson toured the area and promised major redevelopment under a Labour government, though this did not take place for another generation. In 1856 a wealthy US entrepreneur, Henry Lee Norris, established the North British Rubber Company in the buildings of the former Castle Silk Mill alongside the Union Canal; the company's Castle Mill premises covered 20 acres of land in the area and employed thousands of workers over five generations in manufacturing a variety of products from galoshes and rubber Wellington boots to solid rubber wheels for Thomson steam traction engines, pneumatic tyres and hot-water bottles.
The company's design for trench boots, chosen by the War Office during the Great War, led to a lucrative government contract which saw the firm supplying up to 2750 pairs a day, reaching a total of 1.2 million pairs by the end of the war. Similar contracts resulted in the production of 1/4 of a million pairs of gymshoes, 47,000 pairs of heavy snow boots for the French Army, 16,000 tyres and 2.5 million feet of hosepipe. The Second World War brought another boom with the production of millions of civilian gas masks and barrage-balloon fabric. In 1958, the company produced Britain's first traffic cones for the M6 motorway; the United States Rubber Company took control of the company. The United States Rubber Company was renamed Uniroyal in 1961 and North British took on this name when taken-over in 1966. In that year, Uniroyal relocated the tyre manufacture to Newbridge outside Edinburgh. In 1957 Castle Mills began the production of Royalite thermoplastic sheeting. In 1967 Royalite production was moved to a new factory adjacent to the tyre plant at Newbridge.
The manufacture of PowerGrip drive belts was relocated to the former Arrol-Johnston factory at Heathhall, Dumfries around 1970. All that remained at Castle Mills was the hose factory which continued until its closure in late 1973. Another company which established itself in Fountainbridge in 1856 was McEwan's Brewery; the site on the north side of Fountainbridge and Dundee Street was chosen because of its proximity to both the Union Canal and the new line of the Caledonian Railway. Within five years, the firm's annual turnover was £40,000 and it went on to become one of the market leaders in the Scottish brewing industry over the next century. In 1973, as a result of a £13 million investment, a new Fountain Brewery was opened on the south side of Fountainbridge on the former site of the North British Rubber Company's premises. Redevelopment of the area began with the construction of the Fountain Park leisure centre on former brewery ground on the north side of Dundee Street in 1998; this multi-purpose complex includes ten-pin bowling.
Closure of the Fountainbridge brewery was announced in 2004 with the entire 22 acre site decommissioned and demolished between and 2006 and 2011 as part of a wider redevelopment and regeneration programme which had begun with Edinburgh Quay at the Lochrin Basin on the canal in 2004. In 2012, construction of new student accommodation for Edinburgh Napier University began on the south side of Fountainbridge opposite Fountain Park. Four concrete frame buildings contain 777 bedrooms in clusters of 6-8 bedrooms, each with a communal kitchen and dining area. Sean Connery grew up here, his former production company was known as Fountainbridge Films. He shut down the company after a series of disputes with a business partner. Bartholomew's Chronological map of Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Part of the county of Midlothian, it is located in Lothian on the Firth of Forth's southern shore. Recognised as the capital of Scotland since at least the 15th century, Edinburgh is the seat of the Scottish Government, the Scottish Parliament and the supreme courts of Scotland; the city's Palace of Holyroodhouse is the official residence of the monarch in Scotland. The city has long been a centre of education in the fields of medicine, Scots law, philosophy, the sciences and engineering, it is the second largest financial centre in the United Kingdom and the city's historical and cultural attractions have made it the United Kingdom's second most popular tourist destination, attracting over one million overseas visitors each year. Edinburgh is Scotland's second most populous city and the seventh most populous in the United Kingdom; the official population estimates are 488,050 for the Locality of Edinburgh, 513,210 for the City of Edinburgh, 1,339,380 for the city region.
Edinburgh lies at the heart of the Edinburgh and South East Scotland city region comprising East Lothian, Fife, Scottish Borders and West Lothian. The city is the annual venue of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, it is home to national institutions such as the National Museum of Scotland, the National Library of Scotland and the Scottish National Gallery. The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1582 and now one of four in the city, is placed 18th in the QS World University Rankings for 2019; the city is famous for the Edinburgh International Festival and the Fringe, the latter being the world's largest annual international arts festival. Historic sites in Edinburgh include Edinburgh Castle, the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the churches of St. Giles and the Canongate, the extensive Georgian New Town, built in the 18th/19th centuries. Edinburgh's Old Town and New Town together are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site, managed by Edinburgh World Heritage since 1999. "Edin", the root of the city's name, derives from Eidyn, the name for this region in Cumbric, the Brittonic Celtic language spoken there.
The name's meaning is unknown. The district of Eidyn centred on the dun or hillfort of Eidyn; this stronghold is believed to have been located at Castle Rock, now the site of Edinburgh Castle. Eidyn was conquered by the Angles of Bernicia in the 7th century and by the Scots in the 10th century; as the language shifted to Old English, subsequently to modern English and Scots, The Brittonic din in Din Eidyn was replaced by burh, producing Edinburgh. Din became dùn in Scottish Gaelic, producing Dùn Èideann; the city is affectionately nicknamed Auld Reekie, Scots for Old Smoky, for the views from the country of the smoke-covered Old Town. Allan Ramsay said. A name the country people give Edinburgh from the cloud of smoke or reek, always impending over it."Thomas Carlyle said, "Smoke cloud hangs over old Edinburgh,—for since Aeneas Silvius's time and earlier, the people have the art strange to Aeneas, of burning a certain sort of black stones, Edinburgh with its chimneys is called'Auld Reekie' by the country people."A character in Walter Scott's The Abbot says "... yonder stands Auld Reekie--you may see the smoke hover over her at twenty miles' distance."Robert Chambers who said that the sobriquet could not be traced before the reign of Charles II attributed the name to a Fife laird, Durham of Largo, who regulated the bedtime of his children by the smoke rising above Edinburgh from the fires of the tenements.
"It's time now bairns, to tak' the beuks, gang to our beds, for yonder's Auld Reekie, I see, putting on her nicht -cap!"Some have called Edinburgh the Athens of the North for a variety of reasons. The earliest comparison between the two cities showed that they had a similar topography, with the Castle Rock of Edinburgh performing a similar role to the Athenian Acropolis. Both of them had fertile agricultural land sloping down to a port several miles away. Although this arrangement is common in Southern Europe, it is rare in Northern Europe; the 18th-century intellectual life, referred to as the Scottish Enlightenment, was a key influence in gaining the name. Such luminaries as David Hume and Adam Smith shone during this period. Having lost most of its political importance after the Union, some hoped that Edinburgh could gain a similar influence on London as Athens had on Rome. A contributing factor was the neoclassical architecture that of William Henry Playfair, the National Monument. Tom Stoppard's character Archie, of Jumpers, said playing on Reykjavík meaning "smoky bay", that the "Reykjavík of the South" would be more appropriate.
The city has been known by several Latin names, such as Aneda or Edina. The adjectival form of the latter, can be seen inscribed on educational buildings; the Scots poets Robert Fergusson and Robert Burns used Edina in their poems. Ben Jonson described it as "Britaine's other eye", Sir Walter Scott referred to it as "yon Empress of the North". Robert Louis Stevenson a son of the city, wrote, "Edinburgh is what Paris ought to be"; the colloquial pronunciation "Embra" or "Embro" has been used, as in Robert Garioch's Embro to the Ploy. The earliest known human habitation in the Edinburgh area was at Cramond, where evidence was found of a Mesolithi
Aberdeen
Aberdeen is a city in northeast Scotland. It is Scotland's third most populous city, one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas and the United Kingdom's 37th most populous built-up area, with an official population estimate of 196,670 for the city of Aberdeen and 228,800 for the local council area. During the mid-18th to mid-20th centuries, Aberdeen's buildings incorporated locally quarried grey granite, which can sparkle like silver because of its high mica content. Since the discovery of North Sea oil in the 1970s, Aberdeen has been known as the off-shore oil capital of Europe; the area around Aberdeen has been settled since at least 8,000 years ago, when prehistoric villages lay around the mouths of the rivers Dee and Don. The city has a long, sandy coastline and a marine climate, the latter resulting in chilly summers and mild winters. Aberdeen received Royal burgh status from David I of Scotland; the city's two universities, the University of Aberdeen, founded in 1495, Robert Gordon University, awarded university status in 1992, make Aberdeen the educational centre of the north-east of Scotland.
The traditional industries of fishing, paper-making and textiles have been overtaken by the oil industry and Aberdeen's seaport. Aberdeen Heliport is one of the busiest commercial heliports in the world and the seaport is the largest in the north-east of Scotland. Aberdeen hosts the Aberdeen International Youth Festival, a major international event which attracts up to 1000 of the most talented young performing arts companies. In 2015, Mercer named Aberdeen the 57th most liveable city in the world, as well as the fourth most liveable city in Britain. In 2012, HSBC named Aberdeen as a leading business hub and one of eight'super cities' spearheading the UK's economy, marking it as the only city in Scotland to receive this accolade. In 2018, Aberdeen was found to be the best city in the UK to start a business in a study released by card payment firm Paymentsense; the Aberdeen area has seen human settlement for at least 8,000 years. The city began as two separate burghs: Old Aberdeen at the mouth of the river Don.
The earliest charter was granted by William the Lion in 1179 and confirmed the corporate rights granted by David I. In 1319, the Great Charter of Robert the Bruce transformed Aberdeen into a property-owning and financially independent community. Granted with it was the nearby Forest of Stocket, whose income formed the basis for the city's Common Good Fund which still benefits Aberdonians. During the Wars of Scottish Independence, Aberdeen was under English rule, so Robert the Bruce laid siege to Aberdeen Castle before destroying it in 1308, followed by the massacring of the English garrison; the city was rebuilt and extended. The city was fortified to prevent attacks by neighbouring lords, but the gates were removed by 1770. During the Wars of the Three Kingdoms of 1644 to 1647 the city was plundered by both sides. In 1644, it was taken and ransacked by Royalist troops after the Battle of Aberdeen and two years it was stormed by a Royalist force under the command of the Marquis of Huntly. In 1647 an outbreak of bubonic plague killed a quarter of the population.
In the 18th century, a new Town Hall was built and the first social services appeared with the Infirmary at Woolmanhill in 1742 and the Lunatic Asylum in 1779. The council began major road improvements at the end of the 18th century with the main thoroughfares of George Street, King Street and Union Street all completed at the beginning of the 19th century; the expensive infrastructure works led to the city becoming bankrupt in 1817 during the Post-Napoleonic depression, an economic downturn after the Napoleonic Wars. The increasing economic importance of Aberdeen and the development of the shipbuilding and fishing industries led to the construction of the present harbour including Victoria Dock and the South Breakwater, the extension of the North Pier. Gas street lighting arrived in 1824 and an enhanced water supply appeared in 1830 when water was pumped from the Dee to a reservoir in Union Place. An underground sewer system replaced open sewers in 1865; the city was incorporated in 1891. Although Old Aberdeen has a separate history and still holds its ancient charter, it is no longer independent.
It is an integral part of the city, as is Woodside and the Royal Burgh of Torry to the south of the River Dee. During the Second World War Aberdeen was bombed quite badly on the 21 April 1943 when around 20 Luftwaffe bombers circled around Aberdeen; because there were no planes at RAF leuchars they were all fighting in the Battle of Britain this meant that the bombers would fly back and forth around Aberdeen. 98 people died on that night and 20,000 homes were destroyed during the bombing which caused severe damage to many different homes around the city. Aberdeen became Gaelic-speaking at some time in the medieval period. Old Aberdeen is the approximate location of the first settlement of Aberdeen; the Celtic word aber means "river mouth", as in modern Welsh. The Scottish Gaelic name is Obar Dheathain, in Latin, the Romans referred to the river as Devana. Mediaeval Latin has it as Aberdonia. Aberdeen is locally governed by Aber
First Scotland East
First Scotland East is collective name for FirstGroup bus operations in the south east and central Scotland, which covers First Scotland East and Midland Bluebird. The company was created by the merger of three companies: Lowland Scottish, Eastern Scottish and Midland Scottish to form a single operation in 1997. In 2000 the company was split into two licences, First Edinburgh and Midland Bluebird although both licences function as one entity under one name, but in 2012 they reverted to two separate entities; the main depots are: Bannockburn, Larbert: - Midland Bluebird Livingston - First Scotland East During 1998, First decided to reorganise their operations within the area and to merge three subsidiaries: Lowland Scottish, Eastern Scottish and Midland Scottish. By doing so helped simplify the operations, as areas such as West Lothian or Midlothian were covered by at least two out of the three companies; the start of the process came into effect in 1999, with many back-office functions being transferred to Larbert and a new single livery introduced.
By 2002 all of the companies' operations were controlled by Larbert. The company's original name was First Edinburgh, despite this name the operating area was much wider and covered much of the Central, Borders regions of Scotland and into northern England; the name was renamed First Scotland East in 2008 to better reflect the operating area. In 1997 First launched Fife First to compete with Stagecoach Fife on route 56 between Edinburgh, Dunfermline and Ballingry, using vehicles transferred from Lowland and Rider York and painted in allover red. A sub-depot was established in Dunfermline with Westfield providing most of the vehicles used. Fife First ceased in July 2000 when the service was axed and the low floor buses used were transferred to the Falkirk area. In 2001 First sought to increase their market share of Edinburgh city services, cutting fares and increasing traffic on certain routes, while cutting back on more traditional routes; this sparked a bitter bus war between First and Edinburgh city operator Lothian Buses, with fares being cut, extra vehicles drafted in, timetables altered and routes diverted.
Lothian complained to the Office of Fair Trading, claiming First was engaging in anti-competitive behaviour in an effort to become the dominant operator in Edinburgh. The OfT ruled that First's conduct represented legitimate competition, that it did not intend to drive Lothian off the streets, that its fares were low enough in comparison to its costs. Regardless of this decision, the First network in Edinburgh was curtailed, ending the bus war and with Lothian Buses remaining the dominant city operator. Heavy losses were made, which resulted in cutbacks in many parts of their operations which included the loss of all travel shops in Dalkieth, Edinburgh, Galashiels and Livingston; the main depot at Westfield in Edinburgh was closed. Many traditional routes to Penicuik and Bonnyrigg that were cut back have been taken over by Lothian Buses. In June 2004, the ScotRail franchise was awarded to FirstGroup, with the services transferring to First ScotRail on 17 October 2004; the Competition Commission placed a number of controls and undertaking, which resulted in First ability to raise fares and alter selected number of services.
In 2009 and 2012, First were released from a number of routes. In June 2012 First closed Dalkeith depot and scaled back operations in Musselburgh, with 20 bus routes ceasing across East Lothian and Midlothian. First was unsuccessful. In November 2012 Linlithgow depot closed. In June 2013 route X38 Stirling to Edinburgh was rebranded as First Bluebird with buses painted in a dedicated blue livery, it is operated by Midland Bluebird. Within a year most of the buses in the Forth Valley area were rebranded as First Bluebird. First tried to improve passenger growth with a number of revised networks in Falkirk and West Lothian during 2012. In January 2015, First withdraw over a dozen bus routes. Paul McGowan, managing director of First Scotland East, said: "I appreciate that some of our passengers will be disappointed. However, the services that we're changing have been operating at a loss, in some cases a considerable loss, for many years"The Company made a request in October 2015 to the Competition and Markets Authority about reviewing of the undertakings given in 2002 by FirstGroup.
The undertakings were given following the Monopolies & Mergers Commission’s conclusion that the completed acquisition by FirstBus of SB Holdings Limited which took place in 1996 created a merger situation which may be expected to operate against the public interest. As part of the undertaking First had mileage floor which required to First to operate x number of miles no matter what. In April 2015 First was released from the undertaking with all requirements dropped. In May 2016 First announced it would cease operations in East Lothian with both Musselburgh and North Berwick depots closing, affecting 88 jobs. In August 2016, Lothian Buses took over the two depots with all staff given the option to transfer. Services are operated under the East Coast Buses brand. In the Scottish Borders First withdrew from the Hawick town services and a Galashiels to Selkirk local service, which were taken over by Perryman's Buses. On 7 March 2017 First announced the sale of the remainder of its Borders operations, including the depot at Galashiels and outstations at Hawick and Peebles, to Perryman's owners, West Coast Motors with effect from the 25th of that month.
Paul McGowan, Managing Director of First Scotland East, said: “Despite the focus on services and the hard work of everyone across our business, unfortunately
Gorgie
Gorgie is a densely populated area of Edinburgh, Scotland. It is located in the west of the city and borders Murrayfield and Dalry; the name is thought to be Brythonic in origin. Early forms suggest it derives from gor gyn – upper wedge – which may refer to the tapering shape of the land between the Water of Leith and the Craiglockhart hills. An alternative derivation is'big field' from Cumbric gor cyn. Gorgie is recorded in 12th century charters of Holyrood Abbey, when in 1236 it came into the possession of Sir William Livingston. In 1799, the Cox family who owned a mill bought most of the former estate from the residual Livingston family, they developed a glue factory on the site, redeveloped under a new Post Office Telecommunications telephone exchange in 1969. From 1527, the landowners lived in Gorgie House, situated on Alexander Drive, its remnants were demolished in 1937, to allow construction of the Pooles Roxy cinema and some housing. Gorgie developed at a slower pace than nearby Dalry, allowing the continued operation of the 10 acres Gorgie pig farm until 1885.
Robb's Loan is named after Robert Robb and his son James who farmed at Gorgie Mains for much of the nineteenth century. By 1800, only the area between Robertson Avenue and Saughton Park had any housing, served by a school and a church mission. With grain whisky consumption growing in the industrialised and railway connected Victorian era, independent whisky blenders needed access to a high quality and high volume producer of grain whisky spirit. In 1885, major shareholders Andrew Usher, William Sanderson and John M. Crabbie, with numerous other whisky-blenders as shareholders, established the North British Distillery Company, which bought the former pig farm, began developing a distillery; the distillery gained access to the Edinburgh Suburban and Southside Junction Railway, which began developing a railway station in Gorgie. This brought about the 1888 development of Stewart Terrace, Wardlaw Place, Wardlaw Street, the tenement flats of Tynecastle Terrace and Ardmillan Terrace. McVitie & Price Ltd was established in 1830 on Rose Street in Edinburgh.
The firm moved to various sites in the city, before completing the St. Andrews Biscuit Works factory on Robertson Avenue in 1888. Though the factory burned down in 1894, it was rebuilt the same year, it is one of the claimed sites of. The site was closed in 1969, when production ceased and operations were transferred to Levenshulme in Manchester, Harlesden in London. After closure, Ferranti occupied the buildings as an electronics factory until the 1980s. In 1906, pharmaceutical research company T&H Smith Ltd moved from Canongate to the district. Now merged with two other Edinburgh-based medical research companies, they form leading global medicinal-opiate producer MacFarlan Smith; the chemical plant of Cox's glue and gelatin works, the Caledonian Brewery developed in the area. Most of the large industrial works closed from the late-1960s to the mid-1980s, bringing high unemployment to the area; the recent refurbishment of many of the older buildings has brought a more cosmopolitan nature to the district, allowing it to retain several smaller businesses.
The area is served by Tynecastle High School. Gorgie City Farm was established by local people in 1982 on the site of a derelict railway goods yard. Set up as a community project with the aim of improving education in agriculture and rural crafts for people living in the area. In 2012, Gorgie was the centre of a Legionnaire's Disease outbreak believed to originate from factory cooling towers in the area; the Gorgie area is within the Edinburgh South West constituency for the Westminster Parliament and is represented by the Rt Hon Joanna Cherry MP of the Scottish National Party. At the Scottish Parliament, the area falls within Edinburgh Central, represented by Marco Biagi MSP of the Scottish National Party; the area, as part of the Sighthill/Gorgie ward, elects four councillors to the City of Edinburgh Council. The current representation is: Denis Dixon and Catherine Fullerton and Eric Milligan and Donald Wilson; the area was traversed by both the Caledonian Railway and the North British Railway and was served by Gorgie East Station on the Edinburgh Suburban and Southside Junction Railway.
It was opened on 1 December 1884 and served the area until it was closed in 1962 when passenger rail services were withdrawn from the Edinburgh Suburban line as part of the British Railways rationalisation programme known as the Beeching Axe. No trace of the station remains but the route continues to be used for freight services to this day, so freight trains avoid Edinburgh's main stations of Edinburgh Waverley and Edinburgh Haymarket, diverted passenger trains pass along this line. A local campaigning group, the Capital Rail Action Group, ran a campaign for the ESSJR line to be re-opened to passenger services, proposed that it should be operated either as a commuter rail service or as a light rail system to form an extension of the forthcoming Edinburgh Tram Network. Following a petition submitted to the Scottish Parliament in 2007, the proposal was rejected in 2009 by transport planners due to anticipated cost. After Heart of Midlothian F. C. was formed in 1874, the club played at sites in the Meadows and Powderhall.
Hearts first moved to Gorgie in 1881. This pitch stood on the site of the present-day Wardlaw Wardlaw Terrace; as this site was regarded as being "out of town", Hearts would sometimes stage two matches for the price of one, or set an admission price much
Canonmills
Canonmills is a district of Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. It lies to the south east of the Royal Botanic Garden at Inverleith, east of Stockbridge and west of Bellevue, in a low hollow north of Edinburgh's New Town; the area was a loch, drained in three phases in the 18th and 19th centuries, disappearing in 1865. A small village, Canonmills owes its origins and name, in the same way as the Canongate, to the Augustinian canons of Holyrood Abbey who operated a mill here from the 12th century, it is shown pictorially as a cluster of buildings, three of which have waterwheels, on the 1560 Siege of Leith map. At a period a mill lade from the Water of Leith reached the area via the village of Silvermills to the east; the Incorporation of Baxters in the Canongate were compelled by law to have their corn ground at the Canonmills, during demolition work carried out in 1964 to enlarge a local filling station a stone was unearthed bearing the inscription, "The Baxters Land 1686". It is now incorporated into a wall of the Canonmills Service Station.
The only surviving building of the original village is a pantile-roofed former mill building on the corner of Eyre Place and Canon Street. Until c.1995 further remnants existed on Eyre Terrace. The George V Park, occupying the old Canon Mill Haugh to the south east, used to be a popular sporting arena. With the final draining of the loch in 1865 it became the site of the Royal Patent Gymnasium, described by James Grant as "...one of the most remarkable and attractive places of its kind in Edinburgh", created "at considerable expense for the purpose of affording healthful and exhilarating recreation in the open air". The principal feature was the circular Great Sea Serpent which could seat 600 rowers embarking and disembarking at four separate piers. Other attractions were the Self-Adjusting Trapeze enabling up to 100 patrons at a time to swing by the hands "over a distance of 130 feet from one trapeze to the other", the Giant's Sea-Saw, 100 feet long by 7 wide, which could elevate 200 people to a height of 50 feet, the Patent Velocipede Paddle Merry-go-Round propelled by the feet of 600 passengers.
At the southern edge of the Park, in the cliff-like drop from the streets of the New Town, lies the northern end of the Scotland Street Tunnel which once provided an underground rail link to Canal Street Station on the site of present-day Waverley Station. The tunnel, built under Scotland Street in 1847 by the Edinburgh and Newhaven Railway, is three quarters of a mile long and descends a 1 in 27 gradient. Trains descended the tunnel under gravity, controlled by two men operating handbrakes in two front wagons. Robert Louis Stevenson described the appearance in his'Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes': "The Scotland Street Station, the sight of the train shooting out of its dark maw with the two guards upon the brake, the thought of its length and the many ponderous edifices and thoroughfares above, were things of paramount impressiveness to a young mind." For the return journey, 150mm steel cables were attached to the trains which were pulled up the slope by a stationary winding-engine at the Waverley end.
The bridge linking Canonmills to Inverleith Row was built in 1767, its single arch replaced by three arches in 1840. It was widened in 1896; the deep elliptical crescent of Eyre Crescent was built around Canonmills House, replaced in 1880-1 by a United Presbyterian Church which in turn has been replaced by a modern medical centre. A little lodge-type building on Rodney Street is the old school, where Sir Walter Scott's father was educated; the sculptor Stewart McGlashen had his granite yard at Canonmills Bridge and lived opposite, at 5 Brandon Street. Bartholomew's Chronological map of Edinburgh Photos of Canonmills Google Map Royal Patent Gymnasium
M9 motorway (Scotland)
The M9 is a major motorway in Scotland. It runs from the outskirts of Edinburgh, bypassing the towns of Linlithgow, Falkirk and Stirling to end at Dunblane; the road is 30 miles long, runs in a north-west direction from the M8. It meets the A8 at Newbridge – a traffic blackspot before the junction was grade separated, its next junction is with the M90, the first part of which used to be a spur of the M9 towards the Forth Road Bridge. This spur ended at the single carriageway A8000 road 2 miles short of the bridge, but was extended in September 2007 to meet the A90 at Scotstoun; the road shares space with 1 mile of the M876 en route to the Kincardine Bridge east of Stenhousemuir, at this point the motorway has 3 lanes in each direction, making it the most northerly stretch of motorway in the UK to be 3 lanes wide. At Stirling it meets the M80, taking over the main route through the Carse of Lecropt to the final roundabout at Dunblane. From there, the A9 runs all the way to Thurso. Moto services are located at the M9/M80 junction, accessed via a roundabout which allows access to all routes.
List of motorways in the United Kingdom City of Edinburgh Council Leaflet The Motorway Archive – M9
