Skulferatu #93 - Tolbooth Wynd, Leith, Edinburgh

You may not guess it from walking down this street, what with the Brutalist flats of Linksview House dominating it, but Tolbooth Wynd is one of the oldest streets in Leith and was once described as being one of the most picturesque in the area.  In the early thirteenth century the first houses built in Leith were built upon the land that now stands between Tolbooth Wynd and The Shore.

 

View of Tolbooth Wynd by Linksview House

 

Linksview House on Tolbooth Wynd

 

View from The Shore looking towards Tolbooth Wynd

 

View of Tolbooth Wynd from The Shore

 

View down Tolbooth Wynd towards The Shore

 

Tolbooth Wynd takes its name from the fact that about half way down the street there used to stand the Old Tolbooth, a building that served as a meeting chamber, courthouse, a jail and occasionally, accommodation for soldiers stationed at Leith.  The Tolbooth was built in 1565 and was in use for nearly two hundred and fifty years, before falling into disrepair.  It was then proposed that it should be demolished and a new court house and prison built in its place. There was a campaign, led by Walter Scott, to preserve the façade of the building, but this was ‘cavalierly dismissed’ by the Lord Provost and the building was demolished in 1825.  The new building only functioned as a courthouse for a few years before being converted into shops and offices.

 

The Old Tolbooth - from ‘Memorials of Edinburgh in the Olden Time’

 

The Tolbooth housed many prisoners in its time, though not that many of note, as most of the more infamous criminals ended up in the Tolbooth at Edinburgh.  Probably the most distinguished prisoner who had the misfortune to reside there was William Maitland of Lethington.  He was the Secretary of State to Mary Queen of Scots and was imprisoned in the Leith Tolbooth in 1573 by the Regent Morton.  Fearing he would face the humiliation and cruelty of a public execution, he took a dose of poison and died in his cell.  It was said that his corpse was left lying in his cell for so long that it was partially eaten by the numerous rats that infested the building.  So, you can probably imagine that it was not the healthiest place to serve out any time as a prisoner.  On a lighter note, another of those imprisoned within the Tolbooth was a rather hapless thief.  In 1763 a sailor arrived in Leith on a ship from London and went for a few ales in one of the local taverns.  While there he boasted to his new found companions that he had made some money while away and had a chest on board the ship with over £200 in it.  This boast was overheard by a local ne'er-do-well who saw a way of making some quick money.  He disguised himself as a porter and went to the ship where he told the crew that he had been sent by the sailor to collect the chest.  The unsuspecting crew handed the chest over to him.  However, the thief, being unused to ships, slipped on the plank leading down to the dock and fell into the sea, along with the chest.  A host of people quickly gathered around to rescue the poor man, including the owner of the chest, who was shocked to see that it was his own chest that was fished out of the water along with the would be thief. The thief, still dripping wet and half drowned, was quickly marched along to the Tolbooth, and locked up in a cell.

 

At the eastern end of Tolbooth Wynd there stood for many years a signal tower looking out over the Forth.  It was said to be of a sturdy design, much like an old fort.   It had portholes at the top like those often designed for firing muskets out of, but that were actually for the local merchants to look out from and watch as their ships sailed off from, or returned to, the harbour.

 

Signal Tower at Tolbooth Wynd - from ‘Memorials of Edinburgh in the Olden Time’

 

Like any old street, Tolbooth Wynd has a ghost story attached to it.  Not to be outdone by other tales of headless horsemen and the suchlike, it was said that on stormy nights at midnight, a coach could be heard thundering down the street.  Anyone brave enough to peek out through their window as it passed would see a funereal looking coach tearing down along the cobbled street, driven by a tall, gaunt man, dressed all in black and without a head, and drawn by six black horses who were all also headless.  Through the coach window, it was said you could glimpse a mysterious woman sitting inside, her face covered by a black veil. 

 

Around midnight, during a foggy and cold night a few years ago, I was making my way back home from a local pub and walked up along Tolbooth Wynd.  There I heard a terrible rumbling and screeching.  On looking up and fully expecting to see the dreaded ghostly coach approaching, I instead saw a demonic like figure on an off road motorbike tearing down the road.  He wasn’t headless but rather had his head hidden in the depths of a grey hoodie.  With blue lights flashing and sirens wailing like a screaming banshee, a ghostly police car was in hot pursuit behind him.  They were soon lost in the swirling darkness of the night, like an apparition of old, and I continued my slightly inebriated stumble home.

 

A large part of Tolbooth Wynd was demolished and rebuilt in the 1880s.  During the slum clearances in Leith during the 1950s and 1960s much of it was again demolished and replaced with a housing scheme and the Linksview House tower block.  In 2017 Linksview House became a listed building with Category A Status, being seen as an important example of Brutalist architecture.

 

Tolbooth Wynd – from ‘Old and New Edinburgh’

 

Tolbooth Wynd, Leith, circa 1900 – from a postcard by Valentine & Sons

 

Linksview House, Tolbooth Wynd

 

Today, in the not so cold light of day, I took a walk around Leith and through Tolbooth Wynd.  In a gap in a crumbly, stone wall by the small park there, I left the Skulferatu that had accompanied me on my walk.

 

Skulferatu #93

 

Skulferatu #93 in a gap in the wall at Tolbooth Wynd

 

Map showing location of Skulferatu #93

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

 

Latitude 55.974437

Longitude -3.171031

 

what3words: riches.moons.clear

 

I used the following sources for information on Tolbooth Wynd –

 

Historical Notes Concerning Leith and its Antiquities, Volume 1

By James Campbell Irons M.A.

1897

 

Cassell’s Old and New Edinburgh, Vol 3

By James Grant

1883

 

Memorials of Edinburgh in the Olden Time, Vol 2

By Daniel Wilson

1891

 

 

Historic Environment Scotland

Iconic Leith flats recognised at highest listing category

 

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.

 

View of chimney from Leith Links

 

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.

 

The ‘water chimney’ or stink vent at Pillans Walk

 

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.’    

 

The stink vent at Pillans Walk

 

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.

 

Skulferatu #92

 

Skulferatu #92 in a gap in the sandstone plinth

 

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

 

 

Skulferatu #90 - Training Trenches, Dreghorn Wood, Edinburgh

 

On a day of damp and drizzle, with occasional bursts of warm sunshine that promised much but gave little, I went on a trip to Dreghorn.  This is a part of Edinburgh I’ve never really ventured to before.  I think I’ve passed through it on the bus a few times, but it is not a place I’ve ever stopped off in.  However, I’d been told there was a rather interesting relic from the First World War in the woods here, so I thought I’d go and take a look.

 

Dreghorn Woods are next to the army barracks, so there is a lot of fencing and barbed wire along the paths taking you round. The woods are quite tranquil though, a haven from the busy roads nearby.  Being Autumn, the paths were pretty much mud and puddles with a covering of gold and red from the fallen leaves. But, hey, that’s nothing for an intrepid explorer like me!

 

Braid Burn running through Dreghorn Woods

 

Obligatory photo of fallen leaves

 

Swirling branches

 

Barbed wire and fences – Dreghorn Barracks

 

I took the long walk round to my destination, which lay on a slope by the river and just down from the barracks.  Handily signposted, otherwise you’d just think it was some mud and old earthworks, were what I’d come looking for.  These holes in the ground were actually training trenches from World War One, to get the poor sods drafted into the army ready for fighting out on the front.  

 

I followed a well-worn path that skirted around them.  A path of wet, slippery mud and leaf goo.  It gave some impression of what the soldiers training here would have had to go through.  Though, unlike them, I wasn’t going to crawl through the trenches and the puddles of water and sludge.

 

Training trench at Dreghorn Woods

 

Training trench at Dreghorn Woods

 

A zig zag of trenches in the wood

 

Trenches in the woods

 

Dreghorn Woods used to form part of the Dreghorn Estate, which stretched up into the nearby Pentland Hills.  In 1905 the estate was purchased by the War Department, now the Ministry of Defence, for training, and as a barracks.  During World War One, recruits constructed a major trench system through the woods and were trained in the tactics and ways of trench warfare.  Though, having read both Erich Maria Remarque’s ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ and Ernst Jünger's ‘Storm of Steel’ I do wonder how well it would have really prepared them for the slaughter they were about to face. 

 

Remains of a trench in the woods

 

Remains of a trench in the woods

 

A trench in the woods

 

After World War Two, the military stopped using the woods for training and the trenches became overgrown and many were eroded away.  They were largely forgotten about until a local historian, Lynne Gladstone-Millar, led a campaign to preserve them.  Her father, who fought in the First World War, had trained at Dreghorn Woods, and had told her about his experiences there and that the mud in the woods, the ‘Dreghorn Sludge’, had been good training for fighting at the Somme.  In 2013 an archaeological survey was carried out on the remnants of the trench system, and it was cleared of trees and vegetation to help preserve it.

 

After taking a walk around, I left the Skulferatu that had accompanied me, at the side of one of the shallower trenches, by the remains of some corrugated iron that would once have been used to strengthen the sides of the trench.

 

Skulferatu #90

 

Skulferatu #90 in a trench

 

Skulferatu #90 in a trench

 

Skulferatu #90 in a trench

 

Map showing location of Skulferatu #90 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

 

Latitude 55.902423

Longitude -3.24401

 

what3words: book.trains.lock

 

I used the following sources for information on the Training Trenches –

 

Information Board at Site

 

Historic Environment Scotland

Dreghorn Woods Training Trenches

 

BBC – World War One at Home

BBC - World War One At Home, Edinburgh, Scotland - The Dreghorn Training Trenches

Skulferatu #83 - Acheson House, Bakehouse Close, Edinburgh

 

On a warm and muggy day during the Edinburgh Festival, I made my way up to the old town.  There I found the streets crowded, not so much with tourists and festival goers, but rather with piles of rubbish.  Some were almost six feet high and beginning to stink in the heat.  Bins were overflowing and cups and containers from takeaways were strewn across the pavements and the road.  In the slight, gentle breeze napkins, tissue paper and plastic bags floated up, swirled around and then dropped back to the ground.  The bin men had been on strike for only a few days and in those few days Edinburgh had started to resemble one of those cities in zombie movies.  There was abandoned junk everywhere, zonked out people stumbling from show to show and bewildered looking tourists staring glass eyed at their phones as they tried to work out where the hell they were and how they could get to where they were going.

 

I made my way past them all and the piles of rubbish, as I was in search of one of the many little streets, or closes as they are called up here in Edinburgh, that you can walk down and feel you’ve almost stepped back in time.  One of the most perfect examples of these being Bakehouse Close which sits just off the Canongate and seems to belong to an era from maybe two or three hundred years ago.  Well, that is as long as you face the Canongate entrance and ignore all the parked cars down at the bottom of the close.   

 

Entrance to Bakehouse Close from the Canongate

 

Bakehouse Close

 

Entrance from Bakehouse Close out to the Canongate

 

Just inside Bakehouse Close sits Acheson House, a fine example of an old town mansion built at a time when the wealthy all wanted to be close to Holyrood Palace and the King or Queen of the day.

 

Entrance to courtyard of Acheson House

 

Acheson House was built in 1633 for Sir Archibald Acheson, who was the Secretary of State for Scotland under King Charles I.  It was originally built as a three storey mansion with the main entrance being accessed through a courtyard that led out onto Bakehouse Close.  Above one of the two doorways into the house was carved the date 1633, a monogram of the initials of Acheson and his wife Margaret Hamilton, and also Acheson’s family crest, a cockerel and trumpet. Acheson died the year after the house was completed and it is unlikely that he ever actually lived there.  

 

Doorway into Acheson House

 

The Cock and Trumpet

 

Graffiti on the stone doorframe

 

The house was inherited by Acheson’s son, who quickly sold it on to Patrick Wood, a wealthy Edinburgh merchant.  Over the next two hundred years the house was sold on numerous times.  In the early nineteenth century, as the old town of Edinburgh became more and more run down and overcrowded, the house was split up and became a tenement housing various families and businesses.

 

One of the businesses that occupied the house was a tavern, which also operated as a brothel.  It was commonly known as the Cock and Trumpet, as clients entered through the door with the Acheson family crest above it.  Of the many Victorian gentlemen who frequented the brothel, there was one who would go on to be a world famous and much respected author.  This was the young Robert Louis Stevenson, who often ventured from the stifling Presbyterian atmosphere of his parents’ home in the new town, to drink in sleazy dives and explore the dark delights of the old town.

 

Of the women who worked in the Cock and Trumpet we know very little.  There is though a photograph from 1856 by Dr Keith Thomas showing a woman standing in the doorway there.  Whether she is one of the women from the brothel or is a tenant of one of the tenements around it, we do not know as the photograph is simply entitled ‘Doorway Acheson House’.

 

Doorway to Acheson House, taken by Dr Keith Thomas in 1856

 

In 1924 Acheson house was bought by the city council, who were buying up and demolishing the slum housing in the area.  It lay empty for several years and then, luckily, before it was knocked down, the building came to the attention of the Marquis of Bute, who bought it from the council and had it restored.  It was then occupied by several businesses before becoming the home of the Scottish Craft Centre in 1952.  In 1991 the Craft Centre closed, and the building again lay empty.  This time for nearly two decades.  As it began to crumble into dereliction there was much huffing and puffing about what should become of it, before plans were eventually drawn up and part of the building was incorporated into the Edinburgh Museum, with the main house becoming the headquarters for the Edinburgh World Heritage Trust.

 

The area outside the little courtyard leading to the house now attracts many visitors, mainly Outlander fans attracted to Bakehouse Close, as scenes from the series were filmed there.  On a warm summer’s day try to walk down the close without someone stopping you, handing you a phone or a camera and asking you to take a photo of them there – I dare you.

 

I left the Skulferatu that accompanied me on my walk around Bakehouse Close, sitting on the curve of an old drainpipe running down the wall of Acheson House.

 

Skulferatu #83

 

Skulferatu #83 on the curve of an old drainpipe

Skulferatu #83 on the curve of an old drainpipe

 

Map showing the location of Skulferatu #83

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

 

Latitude 55.951205

Longitude -3.179022

 

what3words: pages.spoon.lamp

 

I used the following sources for information on Acheson House and Bakehouse Close –

 

Information plaques at site

 

Edinburgh World Heritage

Edinburgh World Heritage - Acheson House

 

Wikipedia

Wikipedia - Acheson House

 

Collins Encyclopaedia of Scotland

By John Keay & Julia Keay

1994

 

Royal Scottish Academy – Keith Thomas

Royal Scottish Academy: Keith Thomas - Edinburgh Photographs