Kevin Nosferatu: Hawthornvale Path

When I’m out cycling or walking along the paths, through and round Edinburgh, on which the old city railway lines used to run, there is a building that has always tended to catch my eye. It stands on pillars over Hawthornvale Path and looks a bit like a Victorian Boy Scouts hut. This building was originally Newhaven Railway Station and was for the former Caledonian Railway line. This line ran from Edinburgh Princes Street Station, which was at the West End of Princes Street next to the Caledonian Hotel, to North Leith Station, which was on Commercial Street in Leith.

Newhaven Station Building on Craighall Road, Edinburgh

A photograph showing an ivy covered telegraph pole next to Newhaven Station. There are no wires connected to the pole. Photograph by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project

Old telegraph pole next to Newhaven Station

Newhaven Station from Hawthornvale Path

Newhaven Railway Station was opened in 1879 and closed on the 26^thof April 1962. It is the only station building to have survived of the five stations that were on the Caledonian line. It originally had stairs leading down to the platforms, though these have now been removed.

After the railway line closed the station building was used as premises for a joinery business, a taxi firm and then lay derelict for a while. It has now been restored and is a business centre renting out desk space.

On my walk today I scrambled up the slope under the station building and past the ruins of a brick hut that is now the depository for hundreds of discarded, empty beer cans. Then I went on up to one of the stone supports for the building and there I left a Skulferatu in one of the hollows.