Water of Leith - old boat yard and station near Junction Bridge, Leith

View from Junction Bridge, Leith

Leith

Thank you to John Stewart for telling me about this photograph, and to Walter Lyle Hume for providing a copy of the photo.

This view looks upstream, to the NW from the old Junction Bridge which took Great Junction Street over the Water of Leith and the railway.

There are:

- LEFT: a ship yard (which one?)

- RIGHT: Great Junction Street station

- AHEAD: Mills at Bonnington. (Is that the clock tower of Chancelot Mill?

Further Comments

Please email me if you know anything more about this photo, or if you can suggest when it might have been taken.

Thank you. - Peter Stubbs, July 27, 2009

Acknowledgements:

John Stewart , Edinburgh, Oct 26, 2009 + Walter Lyle Hume, Cowes, Isle of Wight, Oct 27, 2009

Recollections

John Stevenson

Trinity, Edinburgh

Boatyard

George Brown & Sons'

Thank you to John Stevenson for sending me more details about the boatyard.

John wrote:

"The boatyard on the left of this photo was owned, from at least 1920 to around mid/late-1950s, by George Brown & Sons, Engineers, Shore, Leith. The boatyard was entered from Ballantyne Road / West Bowling Green Street

George Brown & Sons are still based at Shore, Leith.

The boatyard built ships' lifeboats and repaired all sorts of small craft, especially yachts. Note the slip.

In the 1950s, the trend was to build steel/aluminium lifeboats, so they lost most of their work and the boatyard became purely a repair yard.

My grandparents lived at 19/21 Ferry Road (to the right as you look at the photo). As a boy, I used to watch, over the garden wall, the workman 'slipping' the boats

My Father's cousin, David Stevenson, ship carpenter at Ramage & Ferguson, and part time footballer with Hibernian FC, used to 'moonlight' there of an evening or weekend !!!

In the 1930s, part of the yard was also occupied by, I think, Skivington & Caithness, boat builders."

John Stevenson, Trinity, Edinburgh: July 28, 2009