Skulferatu #125 - The Banana Flats (Cables Wynd House), Cables Wynd, Leith, Edinburgh

Ah, I do love a bit of Brutalism, that is as in the architectural movement rather than some sort of savage violence.  I know it is not everyone’s cup of tea, but for me I find there is a sort of Sci-Fi utopian appeal to it.  Even now, some of the buildings in that style look like something from the future.  So, being in the mood for a look at some heavy concrete, I took a walk through Leith to probably the most famous Brutalist building in Scotland, Cables Wynd House, locally known as the Banana Flats. 

 

View down to Cables Wynd House

 

Concrete and cloudy skies

 

View along Cables Wynd House

 

Big Brother is watching you

 

The Banana Flats is one of those buildings that I remember having a certain mythology around it in the 1980s.  It was a place where some of my teenage acquaintances ended up being housed after being made homeless, having escaped violent and/or dysfunctional families.  Bumping into them in the pub on a Friday or Saturday night, they would regale me with tales of drug dealing, suicide, prostitution, and strange and bizarre happenings around the building.  And though I listened with fascination to their tales, I grew to be terrified of the place, thinking of it as some Sodom and Gomorrah, and hurrying past it if I was out in that area.   Then one drunken night I ended up at a party there, and it wasn’t that bad.  Fair enough, some kid did try to threaten me into giving him money as I was leaving, but he was about twelve and gave up when I just ignored him.

 

Cables Wynd House

 

Concrete in blue

 

BEWAR

 

Though the building has had, and still has, a bit of a reputation, it was built with the ideal of improving the quality of life for many of those living in substandard housing around Leith.  Between the 1950s and 1970s, there was a huge slum clearance project in Leith that resulted in the construction of several large public housing schemes. Cables Wynd House was part of this project and was completed in 1965.  The building is of a Brutalist design and was designed by Alison & Hutchison & Partners.  The design was influenced by the ideas of the architect, Le Corbusier and his utopian concept of the ‘Ville Radieuse’ or the Vertical City.  This being a city of high density housing in skyscrapers, located in a parkland area with shops, leisure, and cultural amenities as part of the development.

 

South tower of Cables Wynd House

 

Cables Wynd House

 

Concrete tower

 

The Banana Flats curve

 

The Banana Flats curve

 

The Banana Flats curve

 

The Banana Flats from Henderson Street

 

Constructed of concrete, Cables Wynd House has a distinctive curve, that has resulted in its nickname of the ‘Banana Flats’.  At the time of its construction, it was the largest block of flats in Edinburgh being ten storeys high with 212 flats, the majority of these having two bedrooms. Cables Wynd House was regarded as being innovative in its design with features such as heated floors, lifts, refuse chutes, and a concierge.  It was also built with external access decks to recreate the sense of community that had existed in the neighbourhood it replaced, and has a North-South orientation to give as much natural light into the flats as possible.

 

Originally seen as a desirable place to live, things changed in the 1980s when the building, and surrounding area, gained a reputation for drugs and violence.  Things have improved, but Cables Wynd House, though seen as iconic by many, is still plagued by problems, and is regarded as the most deprived part of Edinburgh.   

 

The building gained fame as being the home of the character Simon ‘Sick Boy’ Williamson in Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh, and was featured in the film. It has also been used in the BBC television dramas Wedding Belles and Guilt.  

 

The Banana Flats

 

Model of Cables Wynd House showing the curve

 

In 2017 Cables Wynd House became a Category A Listed Building, for demonstrating ‘a culmination of contemporary architectural theories, bearing a close resemblance to Le Corbusier's Unité d'Habitation model housing and other notable near-contemporary English schemes’, as well as being ‘both a positive and negative architectural icon, representing a period of great social reconstruction in Scotland’s cities.’

 

After taking a walk around Cables Wynd House, on a typical Scottish day of rain, sunshine and then rain again, I left the Skulferatu that had accompanied me on a cobwebby ledge by the Dry Mains Riser.

 

Skulferatu #125

 

Dry Riser Inlet

 

Skulferatu #125 on a cobwebby ledge

 

Skulferatu #125 on a cobwebby ledge

 

Map showing the location of Skulferatu #125

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are -

 

Latitude 55.973143

Longitude -3.17431

 

what3words: wells.reap.over

 

I used the following sources for information on the Banana Flats –

 

Brutalist Britain (Second Edition)

By David Navarro & Martyna Sobecka

2022

 

Historic Environment Scotland - Cables Wynd House, Cables Wynd, Leith, Edinburgh

 

 

Edinburgh Evening News - People of Edinburgh's most deprived area speak about life near the Banana Flats 

Skulferatu #122 - Wallace's Cave, Roslin, Midlothian

 

‘Mud, mud, glorious mud

Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood

So follow me, follow

Down to the hollow

And there let us wallow in glorious mud…’

 

The chorus to Flanders and Swann’s Hippopotamus Song is what came to mind as I took a walk along the paths of Roslin Glen.  Though I was out on what was a pleasant and sunny day, the night before it had poured and poured, and the narrow paths leading around the gorge were thick, squelching mud. To a chorus of bird song and the burbling of the river below, I slipped and slid my way through a mire of dirty brown ooze.  Not that I was complaining, I’ve always found that a walk through the woods makes me feel quite relaxed, no matter how manky it is.  It is probably something to do with the trees, their movement in the breeze and their calming aura.  Or maybe something to do with a primordial memory of the forests our ancestors once inhabited.  Whatever, a walk in the woods is always very calming.

 

In the woods at Roslin Glen

 

In the woods at Roslin Glen

 

In the woods at Roslin Glen

 

A frog

 

So, I sploshed my way along the path saying hello to a frog or two on my way, and then came to a set of very wet and slippy looking stone steps that led down the embankment of the gorge.  However, despite the way they looked, I found that grip on them was no problem, and it was easy to walk on down them.  They then led to a narrow, trodden earth path that brought me to the entrance of a cave.  This is Wallace’s Cave, named after William Wallace, you know the one, the guy with the painted blue face who looked a bit like Mel Gibson, though was probably slightly less antisemitic.

 

The reason the cave acquired its name is that there is a local legend that William Wallace hid from the English army here.  The story goes that Wallace and his followers had been in a battle against the English where they had been massively outnumbered and outmanoeuvred.  After being heavily defeated, they had then fled into the woods around Roslin with the English army in close pursuit.  Wallace and five of his companions then split off from the rest of his followers and made their way down to the cave.  There they hid for six days and nights while the English army scoured the woods for them, cutting down any man they found.  In the early morning of the seventh day, Wallace and his companions, who were now starving and half dead with hunger, left the cave and managed to make their way out of the woods and to a place of safety.

 

Stairs down the embankment to the cave

 

Stairs down to the cave

 

The cliffs above the cave

 

Entrance to the cave

 

Entrance to the cave

 

The cave is man made and dates from prehistoric times.  Carvings found outside the cave on the rock face and inside the cave itself, are believed to date from the Bronze Age.   However, when, and why the cave was carved out into the stone of the embankment is not known.  Whatever purpose and function the cave served for the prehistoric people who created it are now lost in the mists of time.

 

Inside the cave

 

Inside the cave

 

View out from the cave entrance

 

Inside the cave

 

Venturing inside the cave I found it to be quite a pleasant and sheltered space.  It was also quite dry; unlike many caves I’ve visited before.  In one of the recesses in the cave I found some of the plumpest, juiciest spiders I’ve seen in a long time.  They hung from the roof like luscious Gothic blackberries.  I imagine if Renfield had been locked up in this cave rather than the asylum, he would have plucked them from their webs and gobbled them up.  I was half tempted myself, and did wonder if maybe Wallace and his companions had munched on a few of them during their stay here.

A plump, juicy spider

 

Carvings outside the cave

 

Before leaving, I left the Skulferatu that had accompanied me on my walk on a mossy ledge by the entrance of the cave.

 

Skulferatu #122

 

Skulferatu #122 on a mossy ledge

 

Map showing location of Skulferatu #122

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are -

 

Latitude 55.856336

Longitude -3.151793

what3words: satellite.newlywed.drifting

 

I used the following sources for information on Wallace’s Cave –

 

Rutherglen Reformer - Friday 27 November 1885

 

Historic Environment Scotland - Wallace's Cave and rock carvings

 

Canmore - Wallace's Cave

 

Lyrics from ‘The Hippopotamus Song’ –

by Michael Flanders & Donald Swann, from the album ‘At the Drop of a Hat’

1960

Skulferatu #116 - Bilston Glen Viaduct, Loanhead, Midlothian

 

I do love wandering around bits of our industrial past, whether that be an old railway, a derelict factory, old mineworks or a repurposed power station.  On a stroll from Roslin to the outskirts of Edinburgh, I walked over a piece of our industrial heritage – Bilston Glen Viaduct, or as locals refer to it, the Bilston Climbing Frame.  Wandering down a steep and narrow path under the viaduct I could see why it had acquired that name with the criss-crossing of the iron lattice work underneath.

 

Bollards by the viaduct

 

Path across the viaduct

 

Wooded area of Bilston Glen

 

Underneath the viaduct

 

The criss-crossing iron lattice work underneath the viaduct

 

View of the viaduct

 

View of the viaduct from Bilston Glen

 

Bilston Glen Viaduct is an old iron railway bridge above the steep gorge of Bilston Glen. The Edinburgh, Loanhead and Roslin Railway used to run across it.  This railway carried coal and ironstone from mines at Penicuik, Roslin, Bilston, Loanhead and Gilmerton.  It also carried passengers to Roslin.

 

The viaduct was built in 1892, and replaced an earlier one built at the same spot in the 1870s.  It appears that there had been concerns about the earlier bridge due to movements of the ground caused by the mineworks.  Concerns were also raised about the design of that bridge, as it had been designed by Sir Thomas Bouch, the designer of the infamous Tay Bridge that had collapsed in 1879.

 

Bilston Glen Viaduct was built with a single deep wrought iron span supported on low piers with granite abutments at each end to support it.  The separate pieces of the bridge were all made in Glasgow and then brought out to the site where the bridge was then assembled.  As the viaduct is made of iron it expands and contracts in the heat.  On a hot summer’s day, it could be up to 2 ½ inches longer than it was on a cold winter’s day.  To avoid this damaging the supports, the bridge was fitted with expansion mountings.  These allow the bridge to move. 

 

 In 1969 the section of the railway that ran over the viaduct was closed.  In 1999 restoration work was carried out on the viaduct and it opened again as part of the walkway that follows the old railway line.

 

While wandering around under the viaduct, I left a Skulferatu in a gap in the granite stonework of the abutments supporting it.

 

Skulferatu #116

 

Skulferatu #116 in a gap in the granite stonework

 

Skulferatu #116 in a gap in the granite stonework

 

Map showing location of Skulferatu #116

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

 

Latitude 55.87089

Longitude -3.150976

 

what3words: herb.windmill.widen

 

I used the following sources for information on Bilston Glen Viaduct –

 

Tourist Information Board at site

 

Canmore

Bilston Viaduct | Canmore

 

Edinburgh and Lothians: Exploring the Lost Railways

Alasdair Wham

2006