Tuesday, 14 March 2023

Skulferatu #92 - Stink Vent, Pillans Walk, Leith, Edinburgh

 

When I’m out walking through the Claremont Park bit of Leith Links, I often find myself singing along in my head the verse of Jean Genie by David Bowie that goes –

 

The Jean Genie lives on his back

The Jean Genie loves chimney stacks

He's outrageous

He screams and he bawls

The Jean Genie, let yourself go

 

At least I think I’m singing it in my head, but, given some of the strange looks I get maybe I’m singing it out in a tuneless mumble to myself.  Why am I singing this while walking in that area you may wonder, that is if you’ve got nothing better to wonder about.  Well, it’s because from that bit of the park there is a view of a red brick chimney that use to stand in the scrubby wasteland that was once there.  There was no way I could get closer to look at it, as high fences and walls closed off the land around it.  That is until they built a new housing estate on the land and kept the chimney there as an architectural feature.  So now, in the middle of this shiny new housing estate sits what looks like an industrial chimney from the Victorian era.  Only it is not a chimney is it.

 

A photo showing a view over the sheds and plants of some allotments, to a red brick chimney with some town houses standing behind it.   Photograph taken by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
View of chimney from Leith Links

 

A photo showing a view over some new allotments along to a red brick chimney or stink vent that is standing in front of a row of new town houses.  Photograph taken by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
An architectural feature at Pillans Walk

 

What is it then you may ask?  The brochure for the shiny new housing estate describes it as being a ‘Scottish Water Chimney’. Hmm, a water chimney.  What does that do then?  When the pressure in the mains gets too much does water spray out the top of it? No, of course not.  Calling it a water chimney is just a way of covering up that its real function was as a stink vent for the sewage system.  A vent to release the noxious and inflammable sewer gases that would build up down there.

 

A photo showing the stink vent standing in a paved area with a row of houses to the right, white building standing behind and bare branched trees on the left.  The stink vent sits on a sandstone plinth with an iron door sealing an entrance into it.  The chimney above is red brick with a pattern in white that is repeated twice.  Photograph taken by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
The ‘water chimney’ or stink vent at Pillans Walk

 

An old-style photo showing the stink vent standing in a paved area with a white building standing behind and a bare branched tree on the left.  The stink vent sits on a sandstone plinth with an iron door sealing an entrance into it.  The chimney above is red brick with a pattern in white that is repeated twice.  Photograph taken by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
The stink vent

 

This stink vent, or sewer vent, was built around 1889 as part of the improvements to the Edinburgh sewage system, with sewers being built to run under Leith Links and down to the sea.  I think the sewers are still there, though now connect up to the Seafield Waste Water Treatment Works, or Shit Pit as the locals fondly refer to it, that was built on reclaimed land near Leith Docks in the 1970s. 

 

The stink vent does not seem to be in use anymore, which I’m sure those who’ve just spent several hundred thousand pounds on one of the houses by it will be grateful to hear.  In 2019 investigations were carried out by Scottish Water regarding complaints about noxious odours.  Odours that appeared to be coming from the sewage works at Seafield.  As part of this investigation, they looked at the stink vent to see if the smells could be coming from that.  However, they found that it had been capped and that there was ‘no wastewater exposed to the atmosphere.’    

 

A photo looking down a row of houses with the stink vent at the centre.  The sky above is a dull grey.  Photograph taken by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
The stink vent at Pillans Walk

 

A photo looking up towards the sky with the stink vent pointing at an angle that makes it look slightly phallic or as the automatic descriptor called it, a photo of a gun.  Photograph taken by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
A monument of Victorian endeavours in sewage disposal and public health

 

On a chilly winter's day, I walked down to the Ropeworks housing estate in Leith, where this monument of Victorian endeavours in sewage disposal and public health can be found.  I had a sniff around but couldn’t smell anything nasty there.  Then, finding a little gap in the sandstone plinth on which the chimney stands, I left the Skulferatu that had accompanied me on my walk.

 

A photo showing a small ceramic skull (Skulferatu 92) being held up by a gloved hand.  In the background can be seen the red brick chimney or stink vent, and on the right-hand side there is a row of houses.  Photograph taken by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Skulferatu #92

 

A photo showing a small ceramic skull (Skulferatu 92) in a crack between two stones, where the cement has crumbled away.  Photograph taken by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Skulferatu #92 in a gap in the sandstone plinth

 

Google Map showing location of Skulferatu #92
Map showing location of Skulferatu #92

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

 

Latitude 55.971849

Longitude -3.158927

 

what3words: ruby.drove.couches

 

I used the following sources for information on the stink vent –

 

The Ropeworks, Leith

Sales Brochure

 

Scottish Water Newsletter #3

February 2019

 

 

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