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Mellow 80s Mixtape #1
RECORDER: Panasonic SG-HM09A
TAPE: Maxell UR90 Type I Normal Bias (90 min)SIDE A:
True - Spandau Ballet
No One Is to Blame - Howard Jones
Wouldn't It Be Good - Nik Kershaw
Only The Lonely - The Motels
Running Up The Hill - Kate Bush
Missing You - John Waite
Drive - The Cars
Hold Me Now - Thompson Twins
Don't You (Forget About Me) - Simple Minds
Here Comes the Rain - EurythmicsSIDE B:
More Than This - Roxy Music
Voices Carry - Til Tuesday
Bette Davis Eyes - Kim Carnes
Eyes Without a Face - Billy Idol
A Little Respect - Erasure
Shattered Dreams - Johnny Hates Jazz
If You Leave - Orchesteral Manoeuvres in the Dark
Edge of Seventeen - Stevie Nicks
Love Is A Battlefield - Pat Benatar
Valerie - Steve Winwood -
Mellow 80s Mixtape #1
RECORDER: Panasonic SG-HM09A
TAPE: Maxell UR90 Type I Normal Bias (90 min)SIDE A:
True - Spandau Ballet
No One Is to Blame - Howard Jones
Wouldn't It Be Good - Nik Kershaw
Only The Lonely - The Motels
Running Up The Hill - Kate Bush
Missing You - John Waite
Drive - The Cars
Hold Me Now - Thompson Twins
Don't You (Forget About Me) - Simple Minds
Here Comes the Rain - EurythmicsSIDE B:
More Than This - Roxy Music
Voices Carry - Til Tuesday
Bette Davis Eyes - Kim Carnes
Eyes Without a Face - Billy Idol
A Little Respect - Erasure
Shattered Dreams - Johnny Hates Jazz
If You Leave - Orchesteral Manoeuvres in the Dark
Edge of Seventeen - Stevie Nicks
Love Is A Battlefield - Pat Benatar
Valerie - Steve Winwood -
Mellow 80s Mixtape #1
RECORDER: Panasonic SG-HM09A
TAPE: Maxell UR90 Type I Normal Bias (90 min)SIDE A:
True - Spandau Ballet
No One Is to Blame - Howard Jones
Wouldn't It Be Good - Nik Kershaw
Only The Lonely - The Motels
Running Up The Hill - Kate Bush
Missing You - John Waite
Drive - The Cars
Hold Me Now - Thompson Twins
Don't You (Forget About Me) - Simple Minds
Here Comes the Rain - EurythmicsSIDE B:
More Than This - Roxy Music
Voices Carry - Til Tuesday
Bette Davis Eyes - Kim Carnes
Eyes Without a Face - Billy Idol
A Little Respect - Erasure
Shattered Dreams - Johnny Hates Jazz
If You Leave - Orchesteral Manoeuvres in the Dark
Edge of Seventeen - Stevie Nicks
Love Is A Battlefield - Pat Benatar
Valerie - Steve Winwood -
Mellow 80s Mixtape #1
RECORDER: Panasonic SG-HM09A
TAPE: Maxell UR90 Type I Normal Bias (90 min)SIDE A:
True - Spandau Ballet
No One Is to Blame - Howard Jones
Wouldn't It Be Good - Nik Kershaw
Only The Lonely - The Motels
Running Up The Hill - Kate Bush
Missing You - John Waite
Drive - The Cars
Hold Me Now - Thompson Twins
Don't You (Forget About Me) - Simple Minds
Here Comes the Rain - EurythmicsSIDE B:
More Than This - Roxy Music
Voices Carry - Til Tuesday
Bette Davis Eyes - Kim Carnes
Eyes Without a Face - Billy Idol
A Little Respect - Erasure
Shattered Dreams - Johnny Hates Jazz
If You Leave - Orchesteral Manoeuvres in the Dark
Edge of Seventeen - Stevie Nicks
Love Is A Battlefield - Pat Benatar
Valerie - Steve Winwood -
🐾 Lillys Tagebuch – 12.05.2026 🐾
Also ehrlich… was war denn heute bitte mit dem Wetter los? 🌧️🌬️☀️
Am Vormittag dachte ich noch, die Welt geht unter. Mitten am Tag wurde es plötzlich dunkel, der Wind heulte draußen ums Haus und der Regen klatschte gegen die Fenster. Keine fünf Minuten später wieder Sonne. Dann wieder Sturm. Dann Regen. Dann Sonne. Ich sage euch: Selbst ich als hochintelligente Wohnungskatze konnte da keinen vernünftigen Wetterplan mehr erkennen. 😼Eins war jedenfalls klar: Heute bleibt man besser drin. Und genau das haben wir gemacht. Meine Zweibeiner und ich haben es uns gemütlich gemacht. Naja… zumindest ICH habe es mir gemütlich gemacht. Meine Zweibeiner hingegen kamen wieder auf die grandiose Idee, hier drinnen „Sport“ zu machen. 🤨
Da wurde gerollt, gestöhnt, geschnauft und mit Armen und Beinen herumgefuchtelt, als würden sie gegen unsichtbare Mäuse kämpfen. Besonders dieses seltsame schwarze Roll-Ding… angeblich ein „Bauchroller“. Also ich weiß ja nicht. Für mich sieht das eher aus wie ein kaputtes Katzenrad ohne Sinn und Verstand. Aber gut – Menschen brauchen offenbar komplizierte Geräte, um sich anzustrengen. 😹
Ich hingegen habe das Ganze aus sicherer Entfernung beobachtet. Elegant. Ruhig. Würdevoll.
Während meine Zweibeiner schwitzend über den Boden rollten, saß ich vollkommen entspannt auf meiner Matte und dachte mir nur:
„Tja… wahre Fitness bedeutet eben, in einer einzigen Sekunde vom Sofa auf den Kratzbaum springen zu können.“ 🐈✨Außerdem bin ich mir ziemlich sicher, dass keiner von beiden jemals meine sportlichen Höchstleistungen erreichen wird. Nicht einmal annähernd. Können sie im Sprint über den Flur rutschen und dabei punktgenau eine Stoffmaus erwischen? Eben. 😼
Ansonsten verlief mein Tag sehr zufriedenstellend. Keine besonderen Vorkommnisse. Keine Eindringlinge. Keine dramatischen Ereignisse. Nur die üblichen wichtigen Aufgaben einer verantwortungsvollen Wohnungskatze:
Wohnungswache 🏠
Kontrollgänge 👀
Toben 🐾
Spielen 🎾
Fressen 🍽️
Dösen 😴
Schlafen 💤
Und natürlich intensives Nachdenken über das Leben.Besonders faszinierend fand ich heute wieder die Vögel draußen. Trotz Regen flatterten sie fröhlich herum und nahmen sogar ein Bad in der Wasserschale neben dem Vogelhaus. Also wirklich… freiwillig nass werden? Das verstehe ich nicht. Ich bekomme ja schon schlechte Laune, wenn meine Pfote versehentlich in einen Wassertropfen tritt. 🌧️🐦
Nun werde ich mich wieder meinem wohlverdienten Abendprogramm widmen: zusammengerollt liegen und dabei so tun, als würde ich schlafen, obwohl ich natürlich alles mitbekomme. 😸
Eure Lilly 🐾
-
🐾 Lillys Tagebuch – 12.05.2026 🐾
Also ehrlich… was war denn heute bitte mit dem Wetter los? 🌧️🌬️☀️
Am Vormittag dachte ich noch, die Welt geht unter. Mitten am Tag wurde es plötzlich dunkel, der Wind heulte draußen ums Haus und der Regen klatschte gegen die Fenster. Keine fünf Minuten später wieder Sonne. Dann wieder Sturm. Dann Regen. Dann Sonne. Ich sage euch: Selbst ich als hochintelligente Wohnungskatze konnte da keinen vernünftigen Wetterplan mehr erkennen. 😼Eins war jedenfalls klar: Heute bleibt man besser drin. Und genau das haben wir gemacht. Meine Zweibeiner und ich haben es uns gemütlich gemacht. Naja… zumindest ICH habe es mir gemütlich gemacht. Meine Zweibeiner hingegen kamen wieder auf die grandiose Idee, hier drinnen „Sport“ zu machen. 🤨
Da wurde gerollt, gestöhnt, geschnauft und mit Armen und Beinen herumgefuchtelt, als würden sie gegen unsichtbare Mäuse kämpfen. Besonders dieses seltsame schwarze Roll-Ding… angeblich ein „Bauchroller“. Also ich weiß ja nicht. Für mich sieht das eher aus wie ein kaputtes Katzenrad ohne Sinn und Verstand. Aber gut – Menschen brauchen offenbar komplizierte Geräte, um sich anzustrengen. 😹
Ich hingegen habe das Ganze aus sicherer Entfernung beobachtet. Elegant. Ruhig. Würdevoll.
Während meine Zweibeiner schwitzend über den Boden rollten, saß ich vollkommen entspannt auf meiner Matte und dachte mir nur:
„Tja… wahre Fitness bedeutet eben, in einer einzigen Sekunde vom Sofa auf den Kratzbaum springen zu können.“ 🐈✨Außerdem bin ich mir ziemlich sicher, dass keiner von beiden jemals meine sportlichen Höchstleistungen erreichen wird. Nicht einmal annähernd. Können sie im Sprint über den Flur rutschen und dabei punktgenau eine Stoffmaus erwischen? Eben. 😼
Ansonsten verlief mein Tag sehr zufriedenstellend. Keine besonderen Vorkommnisse. Keine Eindringlinge. Keine dramatischen Ereignisse. Nur die üblichen wichtigen Aufgaben einer verantwortungsvollen Wohnungskatze:
Wohnungswache 🏠
Kontrollgänge 👀
Toben 🐾
Spielen 🎾
Fressen 🍽️
Dösen 😴
Schlafen 💤
Und natürlich intensives Nachdenken über das Leben.Besonders faszinierend fand ich heute wieder die Vögel draußen. Trotz Regen flatterten sie fröhlich herum und nahmen sogar ein Bad in der Wasserschale neben dem Vogelhaus. Also wirklich… freiwillig nass werden? Das verstehe ich nicht. Ich bekomme ja schon schlechte Laune, wenn meine Pfote versehentlich in einen Wassertropfen tritt. 🌧️🐦
Nun werde ich mich wieder meinem wohlverdienten Abendprogramm widmen: zusammengerollt liegen und dabei so tun, als würde ich schlafen, obwohl ich natürlich alles mitbekomme. 😸
Eure Lilly 🐾
-
🐾 Lillys Tagebuch – 12.05.2026 🐾
Also ehrlich… was war denn heute bitte mit dem Wetter los? 🌧️🌬️☀️
Am Vormittag dachte ich noch, die Welt geht unter. Mitten am Tag wurde es plötzlich dunkel, der Wind heulte draußen ums Haus und der Regen klatschte gegen die Fenster. Keine fünf Minuten später wieder Sonne. Dann wieder Sturm. Dann Regen. Dann Sonne. Ich sage euch: Selbst ich als hochintelligente Wohnungskatze konnte da keinen vernünftigen Wetterplan mehr erkennen. 😼Eins war jedenfalls klar: Heute bleibt man besser drin. Und genau das haben wir gemacht. Meine Zweibeiner und ich haben es uns gemütlich gemacht. Naja… zumindest ICH habe es mir gemütlich gemacht. Meine Zweibeiner hingegen kamen wieder auf die grandiose Idee, hier drinnen „Sport“ zu machen. 🤨
Da wurde gerollt, gestöhnt, geschnauft und mit Armen und Beinen herumgefuchtelt, als würden sie gegen unsichtbare Mäuse kämpfen. Besonders dieses seltsame schwarze Roll-Ding… angeblich ein „Bauchroller“. Also ich weiß ja nicht. Für mich sieht das eher aus wie ein kaputtes Katzenrad ohne Sinn und Verstand. Aber gut – Menschen brauchen offenbar komplizierte Geräte, um sich anzustrengen. 😹
Ich hingegen habe das Ganze aus sicherer Entfernung beobachtet. Elegant. Ruhig. Würdevoll.
Während meine Zweibeiner schwitzend über den Boden rollten, saß ich vollkommen entspannt auf meiner Matte und dachte mir nur:
„Tja… wahre Fitness bedeutet eben, in einer einzigen Sekunde vom Sofa auf den Kratzbaum springen zu können.“ 🐈✨Außerdem bin ich mir ziemlich sicher, dass keiner von beiden jemals meine sportlichen Höchstleistungen erreichen wird. Nicht einmal annähernd. Können sie im Sprint über den Flur rutschen und dabei punktgenau eine Stoffmaus erwischen? Eben. 😼
Ansonsten verlief mein Tag sehr zufriedenstellend. Keine besonderen Vorkommnisse. Keine Eindringlinge. Keine dramatischen Ereignisse. Nur die üblichen wichtigen Aufgaben einer verantwortungsvollen Wohnungskatze:
Wohnungswache 🏠
Kontrollgänge 👀
Toben 🐾
Spielen 🎾
Fressen 🍽️
Dösen 😴
Schlafen 💤
Und natürlich intensives Nachdenken über das Leben.Besonders faszinierend fand ich heute wieder die Vögel draußen. Trotz Regen flatterten sie fröhlich herum und nahmen sogar ein Bad in der Wasserschale neben dem Vogelhaus. Also wirklich… freiwillig nass werden? Das verstehe ich nicht. Ich bekomme ja schon schlechte Laune, wenn meine Pfote versehentlich in einen Wassertropfen tritt. 🌧️🐦
Nun werde ich mich wieder meinem wohlverdienten Abendprogramm widmen: zusammengerollt liegen und dabei so tun, als würde ich schlafen, obwohl ich natürlich alles mitbekomme. 😸
Eure Lilly 🐾
-
🐾 Lillys Tagebuch – 12.05.2026 🐾
Also ehrlich… was war denn heute bitte mit dem Wetter los? 🌧️🌬️☀️
Am Vormittag dachte ich noch, die Welt geht unter. Mitten am Tag wurde es plötzlich dunkel, der Wind heulte draußen ums Haus und der Regen klatschte gegen die Fenster. Keine fünf Minuten später wieder Sonne. Dann wieder Sturm. Dann Regen. Dann Sonne. Ich sage euch: Selbst ich als hochintelligente Wohnungskatze konnte da keinen vernünftigen Wetterplan mehr erkennen. 😼Eins war jedenfalls klar: Heute bleibt man besser drin. Und genau das haben wir gemacht. Meine Zweibeiner und ich haben es uns gemütlich gemacht. Naja… zumindest ICH habe es mir gemütlich gemacht. Meine Zweibeiner hingegen kamen wieder auf die grandiose Idee, hier drinnen „Sport“ zu machen. 🤨
Da wurde gerollt, gestöhnt, geschnauft und mit Armen und Beinen herumgefuchtelt, als würden sie gegen unsichtbare Mäuse kämpfen. Besonders dieses seltsame schwarze Roll-Ding… angeblich ein „Bauchroller“. Also ich weiß ja nicht. Für mich sieht das eher aus wie ein kaputtes Katzenrad ohne Sinn und Verstand. Aber gut – Menschen brauchen offenbar komplizierte Geräte, um sich anzustrengen. 😹
Ich hingegen habe das Ganze aus sicherer Entfernung beobachtet. Elegant. Ruhig. Würdevoll.
Während meine Zweibeiner schwitzend über den Boden rollten, saß ich vollkommen entspannt auf meiner Matte und dachte mir nur:
„Tja… wahre Fitness bedeutet eben, in einer einzigen Sekunde vom Sofa auf den Kratzbaum springen zu können.“ 🐈✨Außerdem bin ich mir ziemlich sicher, dass keiner von beiden jemals meine sportlichen Höchstleistungen erreichen wird. Nicht einmal annähernd. Können sie im Sprint über den Flur rutschen und dabei punktgenau eine Stoffmaus erwischen? Eben. 😼
Ansonsten verlief mein Tag sehr zufriedenstellend. Keine besonderen Vorkommnisse. Keine Eindringlinge. Keine dramatischen Ereignisse. Nur die üblichen wichtigen Aufgaben einer verantwortungsvollen Wohnungskatze:
Wohnungswache 🏠
Kontrollgänge 👀
Toben 🐾
Spielen 🎾
Fressen 🍽️
Dösen 😴
Schlafen 💤
Und natürlich intensives Nachdenken über das Leben.Besonders faszinierend fand ich heute wieder die Vögel draußen. Trotz Regen flatterten sie fröhlich herum und nahmen sogar ein Bad in der Wasserschale neben dem Vogelhaus. Also wirklich… freiwillig nass werden? Das verstehe ich nicht. Ich bekomme ja schon schlechte Laune, wenn meine Pfote versehentlich in einen Wassertropfen tritt. 🌧️🐦
Nun werde ich mich wieder meinem wohlverdienten Abendprogramm widmen: zusammengerollt liegen und dabei so tun, als würde ich schlafen, obwohl ich natürlich alles mitbekomme. 😸
Eure Lilly 🐾
-
🐾 Lillys Tagebuch – 12.05.2026 🐾
Also ehrlich… was war denn heute bitte mit dem Wetter los? 🌧️🌬️☀️
Am Vormittag dachte ich noch, die Welt geht unter. Mitten am Tag wurde es plötzlich dunkel, der Wind heulte draußen ums Haus und der Regen klatschte gegen die Fenster. Keine fünf Minuten später wieder Sonne. Dann wieder Sturm. Dann Regen. Dann Sonne. Ich sage euch: Selbst ich als hochintelligente Wohnungskatze konnte da keinen vernünftigen Wetterplan mehr erkennen. 😼Eins war jedenfalls klar: Heute bleibt man besser drin. Und genau das haben wir gemacht. Meine Zweibeiner und ich haben es uns gemütlich gemacht. Naja… zumindest ICH habe es mir gemütlich gemacht. Meine Zweibeiner hingegen kamen wieder auf die grandiose Idee, hier drinnen „Sport“ zu machen. 🤨
Da wurde gerollt, gestöhnt, geschnauft und mit Armen und Beinen herumgefuchtelt, als würden sie gegen unsichtbare Mäuse kämpfen. Besonders dieses seltsame schwarze Roll-Ding… angeblich ein „Bauchroller“. Also ich weiß ja nicht. Für mich sieht das eher aus wie ein kaputtes Katzenrad ohne Sinn und Verstand. Aber gut – Menschen brauchen offenbar komplizierte Geräte, um sich anzustrengen. 😹
Ich hingegen habe das Ganze aus sicherer Entfernung beobachtet. Elegant. Ruhig. Würdevoll.
Während meine Zweibeiner schwitzend über den Boden rollten, saß ich vollkommen entspannt auf meiner Matte und dachte mir nur:
„Tja… wahre Fitness bedeutet eben, in einer einzigen Sekunde vom Sofa auf den Kratzbaum springen zu können.“ 🐈✨Außerdem bin ich mir ziemlich sicher, dass keiner von beiden jemals meine sportlichen Höchstleistungen erreichen wird. Nicht einmal annähernd. Können sie im Sprint über den Flur rutschen und dabei punktgenau eine Stoffmaus erwischen? Eben. 😼
Ansonsten verlief mein Tag sehr zufriedenstellend. Keine besonderen Vorkommnisse. Keine Eindringlinge. Keine dramatischen Ereignisse. Nur die üblichen wichtigen Aufgaben einer verantwortungsvollen Wohnungskatze:
Wohnungswache 🏠
Kontrollgänge 👀
Toben 🐾
Spielen 🎾
Fressen 🍽️
Dösen 😴
Schlafen 💤
Und natürlich intensives Nachdenken über das Leben.Besonders faszinierend fand ich heute wieder die Vögel draußen. Trotz Regen flatterten sie fröhlich herum und nahmen sogar ein Bad in der Wasserschale neben dem Vogelhaus. Also wirklich… freiwillig nass werden? Das verstehe ich nicht. Ich bekomme ja schon schlechte Laune, wenn meine Pfote versehentlich in einen Wassertropfen tritt. 🌧️🐦
Nun werde ich mich wieder meinem wohlverdienten Abendprogramm widmen: zusammengerollt liegen und dabei so tun, als würde ich schlafen, obwohl ich natürlich alles mitbekomme. 😸
Eure Lilly 🐾
-
Just got one of my more involved Home Assistant integrations online. We added a pressure transducer to monitor the water pressure for our pressure tank (where the well pump comes in). We have an Olimex PoE ESP32 there already and I decided to custom design and fabricate a PCB (first time ever) as a hat for an ADS1115 ADC and connectors.
It works! So we can now monitor our water pressure in excruciating real time precision. Just because.
-
Just got one of my more involved Home Assistant integrations online. We added a pressure transducer to monitor the water pressure for our pressure tank (where the well pump comes in). We have an Olimex PoE ESP32 there already and I decided to custom design and fabricate a PCB (first time ever) as a hat for an ADS1115 ADC and connectors.
It works! So we can now monitor our water pressure in excruciating real time precision. Just because.
-
Just got one of my more involved Home Assistant integrations online. We added a pressure transducer to monitor the water pressure for our pressure tank (where the well pump comes in). We have an Olimex PoE ESP32 there already and I decided to custom design and fabricate a PCB (first time ever) as a hat for an ADS1115 ADC and connectors.
It works! So we can now monitor our water pressure in excruciating real time precision. Just because.
-
Just got one of my more involved Home Assistant integrations online. We added a pressure transducer to monitor the water pressure for our pressure tank (where the well pump comes in). We have an Olimex PoE ESP32 there already and I decided to custom design and fabricate a PCB (first time ever) as a hat for an ADS1115 ADC and connectors.
It works! So we can now monitor our water pressure in excruciating real time precision. Just because.
-
Just got one of my more involved Home Assistant integrations online. We added a pressure transducer to monitor the water pressure for our pressure tank (where the well pump comes in). We have an Olimex PoE ESP32 there already and I decided to custom design and fabricate a PCB (first time ever) as a hat for an ADS1115 ADC and connectors.
It works! So we can now monitor our water pressure in excruciating real time precision. Just because.
-
π
Voilà comment Darren a fait son premier long-métrage, qui a pour seul et unique intérêt de préfigurer les obsessions qu'il mettra à profit quelque temps plus tard, vous savez, quand il fera des films. -
π
Voilà comment Darren a fait son premier long-métrage, qui a pour seul et unique intérêt de préfigurer les obsessions qu'il mettra à profit quelque temps plus tard, vous savez, quand il fera des films. -
π
Voilà comment Darren a fait son premier long-métrage, qui a pour seul et unique intérêt de préfigurer les obsessions qu'il mettra à profit quelque temps plus tard, vous savez, quand il fera des films. -
Prusament PETG Matte Black doesn't seem to age well. Just opened a year-old, vacuum-sealed spool that I had stored away. Despite drying it for five hours, the extrusion was almost foam-like. 🤔
I had fantastic printing results when I first bought these spools, so something must have changed with the material over the past year.
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Another pretty large zellij mosaic with a big fat 24-pointed star pattern at its centre. Pretty radial.
#maths #geometric #islamicart #adobeillustrator #islamicgeometricpatterns
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Watch at: https://youtu.be/ZyKDxwrNB4k
Play at: https://www.desmos.com/calculator/vpxbmw9yu5#youtube #youtuber #youtubechannel #desmos #desmosart #desmosanimation #animation #animated #animator #animation2d #2d #2danimation #art #artist #artists #artistsonmastodon #halloween #halloween2025 #halloweenart #pumpkin #jackolantern #math #mathart #maths #mathematics #spooky #spookyseason #spookyart #scary #graph #nerd #geek
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København: the thread about the mysterious disappearance of an enigmatic, Leith-built sailing ship
This beautiful ship is the København. She plied the world’s oceans training young men and boys to become sailors, moving cargoes from port to port until one day, some seven years after leaving her builders in Leith, she disappeared and was never seen or heard from ever again. Her fate remains a mystery to this day.
Final fitting out in dry dock at Leith, dated 1921. This was probably to give her bottom a final inspection and coat of paint before handing over to her owners, as described in the Edinburgh Evening News in September of that year. © Edinburgh City LibrariesDespite appearances, the København was a creation of the 20th century; a five-masted Danish sailing barque and one of the largest sailing vessels ever built. Her primary duty was the training of officer cadets for the merchant marine. There is a tradition in a number of European countries, continued to this day, of carrying out such maritime education on purpose-built sailing vessels. To help pay her running costs she also served as a general cargo ship, long after steam had displaced sail as the primary motive power at sea. The early history of this ship is slightly confusing. She was part of an order for the Leith yard of Ramage and Ferguson by A/S Det Ostasiatiske Kompagni (the East Asiatic Company) of Copenhagen in 1913 for three large sailing barques with auxiliary motor power. This particular København, yard number 242, was to have have four masts but war intervened before she could be completed. After lying incomplete for 2 years her hull was purchased by the British Admiralty in 1916 and quickly completed as an oil storage hulk, named Black Dragon and towed to Gibraltar. Sold in 1922 to the Shell oil company, she remained in service there until 1960.
The modelmakers loft at Ramage and Fergusons in 1906. The three vessels being worked on are all large steam yachts of the type the yard was renowned for. © Edinburgh City LibrariesAfter the war Det Ostasiatiske Kompagni ordered a replacement ship of the same name from Ramage and Ferguson. This new København – yard number 256 – would have not four but five masts, displaced 3,960 tons gross, was 130m long (426½ feet), 15m wide (49⅓ feet) and had a draught of 8.2m (27 feet). Those masts were nearly 58 metres tall (190 feet) and could spread 5,200 square metres (56,000 square feet) of American cotton sails. For times when the wind was lacking or for manoeuvring in harbour she had a 4-cylinder, 650hp diesel engine specially imported from Denmark which could propel her at 6 knots. She could carry 5,200 deadweight tons of cargo or 8,100 cubic metres (288,500 cubic feet) of grain. On account of her size and towering masts she gathered much local attention; taking a walk to observe progress became the done thing to do about the burgh. She was launched – mastless – on March 24th 1921, watched by a large crowd that had assembled to see her huge white hull slide into the dock basin.
The launch of the second København, contemporary newspaper photograph from the Daily RecordThe Great Dane, as the British press came to call her, was the largest sailing vessel ever built in the United Kingdom (excluding Brunel’s sail-assisted steamship Great Eastern. Two other Clyde-built ships were marginally longer, but København had a greater displacement.) She was the last of only seven 5-masted barques that have ever been built and ranks in the top 20 largest sailing ships – by length and displacement – ever built.
After launch and fitting out at Leith Docks, 1921. The masts are stepped but there remains much work to be done © Edinburgh City LibrariesShe was fitted with a generator to power electric lighting throughout and a wireless (radio) set with a 400 mile range. Her regular complement was 26 officers and men along with somewhere between 45 and 60 cadets, aged between 14 and 20. In addition to her master, her crew included 4 mates, a doctor, 2 engineers, 3 cooks, 2 boatswains, a carpenter, a sailmaker and a wireless operator. At the the rear – the “poop” – of the ship, was her main saloon, captain’s and officers quarters, staterooms, wireless room and infirmary. The rest of the crew and the cadets were accommodated in a deckhouse amidships. At her figurehead she had a sculpture of the 12th century Danish warrior bishop and founding father of the nation, Absalon.
Close-up detail of the proud figurehead of Absalon on the prowShe left Leith for her trials in the Firth of Forth on September 28th 1921 under the command of Commander Niels Juel-Brockdorff of the Royal Danish Navy. Again large crowds assembled to watch the spectacle; it took four tugs to tow her out from the shipyard stern first before turning her around so that she could begin to move under her own power.
The København was brought carefully down the harbour, and the spectators had an opportunity of seeing to great advantage the graceful lines of the ship, its fine figurehead, and other decorative effects. Flags were fluttering gaily from the mastheads, and altogether an exceedingly pretty picture was presented as it passed down between the piers, its size contrasting strikingly with that of the attendant tugs.
Report on the departure in The Scotsman, 29th September 1921After trials she headed straight to sea and on to a welcome in her home port of Copenhagen before embarking on a circumnavigation of the globe during which time she sailed 38,326 miles, not returning home until 7th November the following year. The ship was now gone from Edinburgh and Leith, but not forgotten. For the next few months one of the most popular shows at the Synod Hall on Castle Terrace starred the København as a feature in Poole’s Myriorama; a panoramic picture and special effect show.
Painting of the København at sea by Peder Christian Pedersen. CC-by-SA 4.0 HesekielIn October 1925 she came close to catastrophe when she caught fire in the English Channel en route for Melbourne from Danzig with a cargo of timber. The fire started in the cabins at the rear of the ship, destroying much of her fine wooden fittings, but she was able to to put safely into Plymouth. After repairs she was able to carry her load to Australia without further ado. In 1927, en route from Liverpool to Chile via the Panama Canal, she lost a propeller blade on the Pacific coast of South America and had to put into Calloa in Peru to repair.
København in dry dock in Australia, photo from the Edwardes Collection of the State Library of South AustraliaOn September 21st 1928, the ship departed the Danish port of Nørresundby under the command of Captain Hans Anderson carrying a shipload of chalk and cement for Argentina. It would prove to be her final departure from home. Arriving safely in Buenos Aires on November 17th 1928, she then waited in that port for 4 weeks for an onward cargo for Australia. None was forthcoming and so the captain decided to leave empty for Melbourne, where he could load with wheat, and departed on December 14th. Depending on the source there were either 60 or 70 souls aboard, including 45 cadets, on a trip that was expected to take around 45 days. Eight days later she passed the Norwegian steamer William Blumer some 900 miles to the west of the islands of Tristan da Cunha and the two ships exchanged signals, København indicated that all was well and the cadets were preparing to celebrate Christmas as they passed south of the Cape of Good Hope. This proved to be the last time she was ever seen or heard from ever again.
The last voyage of the København (approximate) showing the route east from the River Plate, across the South Atlantic and southern Indian Ocean to Australia.However there was no immediate cause for concern. Captain Anderson had a reputation for taking a “minimalist” approach to using his radio and sailing journeys could easily take far longer than scheduled if the winds were unfavourable. Thus when København did not arrive in Melbourne on schedule nobody raised any alarm. By February 1929, the East Asiatic Company was sufficiently concerned to begin making enquiries with Lloyd’s of London for any information concerning their now long overdue vessel, but it was not until early April 1929 that they finally raised the alarm. The British Admiralty were approached for assistance and the search and rescue operation which now followed has been called “the longest, farthest reaching and most costly in the history of maritime service“. The Admiralty spread the word amongst British shipping and arranged for the Liverpool firm of Alfred Holt and Company to diverted their steamer Deucalion from Cape Town to make a search of potential landfall in southern latitudes on which the missing Dane could either have become bound or wrecked upon. These were the remote Price Edward Islands, the Crozet Islands and Kerguellen. The Admiralty also lent an experienced navigator, a high-powered wireless set and two operators to man it. The East Asiatic Company dispatched their own motor vessel, Mexico, to make her own search.
København , photo from the Edwardes Collection of the State Library of South AustraliaIn May, news was received from the searching steamer Halesius out of Tristan da Cunha that an English preacher on that island, Philip Lindsay, claimed that he and others on the island had sighted, on January 21st, a five masted sailing ship with a white band round its hull approaching the islands. This apparition came from the south and her first two masts were seen to be broken. It then disappeared from their view towards a part of the island that was inaccessible. Objects were later found washed up on the shore but they could not conclusively be proved to have come from København. Lindsay told The Times:
The sea was rough for our boats and we could do nothing but watch her gradually crawl past and run inside the reefs to the west of the island. She was certainly in distress. She was using only one small jib [sail], and her stern was very low in the water. I estimated that she was within a quarter mile of the shore when we last saw her.
Philip Lindsay, eyewitnessThe Halesius made a search of the rocky and unpopulated Gough Island to the south of Tristan, but found nothing and so carried on her way. The master of Halesius put his ship into Montevideo on June 22nd and caused a minor sensation when he was quoted by the press as having found the ship’s wreckage. He had, however, made no such claim and it was a reporting error that had mixed up facts. On the same day it was announced that the Australian steamer Junee, in Sydney, and the Norwegian motor ship Lars Risdahl, in Cape Town, had both been chartered by the East Asiatic Company to carry on the search in the Southern Ocean. They were also diverting the Mexico to Tristan to make a thorough investigation of her own, just in case.
The Halesius in her former guise as the Lord Cromer in 1912, whose sensational attribution to have located the København was unfounded. © National Museums Liverpool MCR/39/17The intensive search continued for the next two and a half months. The Mexico returned to Cape Town in the middle of July and her master spoke to the London Daily News. He told the reporter that it was his belief that the ship had washed up on the lonely desert coast of southwestern Africa and that he was refuelling before heading off on that particular search course. Every coastline and grid square was combed before the company reluctantly called off the operation on September 9th 1929, some nine months after the København had last been seen. She was officially declared missing by Lloyd’s of London on January 1st 1930. But as hope dwindled, interest in the disappearance was if anything even more widespread with the passing of time and lack of evidence.
Various theories for her imagined loss were advanced. Had she collided with ice floes and been abandoned by her crew? But ice was unlikely to have been encountered if she had passed Tristan da Cunha, so had she become lost and icebound in the Southern Ocean? Some said that the observers on Tristan were mistaken; they had not seen the København at all. No, the much more rational explanation was that they had seen the renowned South Atlantic ghost ship, the Phanton Barque. Did the København capsize in a sudden squall under her immense spread of canvas due to the lack of a heavy cargo in her hold to provide a low centre-of-gravity? This would certainly have given no time for lifeboats to be launched. Others said the ship had simply been swallowed by the ocean, it was well known amongst mariners who had sailed in the Southern Seas just how the mountainous seas and roaring winds could do such a thing. Yet others thought she would still be afloat, drifting aimlessly in the oceans, “a plaything of wind and current, a toy of unmerciful Neptune“, just waiting to be discovered.
Public interest inevitably began to wane but in April 1934 a Captain Soderlund, of the Finnish-flagged grain ship Lawhill which had just arrived in Adelaide, told newspapers that he had sighted wreckage from the København floating in the Great Australian Bight but had failed to retrieve it. Then in September 1934 the New York Times reported that a message in a bottle that had been picked up by a whaling ship on the Bonvel Islands. The message reputed that the ship had been blown into the Antarctic and the crew and boys put ashore on the ice, to watch their ship be driven by the winds to her destruction. It quickly transpired that the “diary” entries found in the bottle were copied out of a Spanish novel by a Danish journalist who passed them off as genuine.
We know our boys are dead, but it is terrible not to know how and why and where the tragedy happened. Perhaps, too, there are some who cherish a faint hope against their better judgement that some day they will come back
A statement from the parents of the lost cadets, reported in the Daily Herald, October 4th 1934On 11th December 1934 the Belfast Telegraph reported that a Norwegian yacht, the Ho Ho, and her four man crew had arrived in Montevideo after a year long voyage across the Atlantic to search up and down the coast of South America for any signs of the København. Only three days earlier it had been announced that Ramage & Ferguson had gone into voluntary liquidation after years of financial suffering in first the post-war shipbuilding recession and then the Great Depression. One of the last ships completed by them had been the Mercator, a three-masted sail training ship for the Belgian government.
Denmark still has a national sailing training ship, the Georg Stage. Somewhat appropriately, this 1935-built ship visited Leith Docks in April 2022 and tied up alongside Ocean Terminal: a shopping centre built on the site of the Ramage & Ferguson yard.
Georg Stage arriving at Leith in April 2022, with the former royal yacht Britannia and Ocean Terminal in the background © SelfNote to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.
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The thread about John Paul Jones; the Scottish-American “pirate” who tried to capture Edinburgh and Leith but lived to tell the tale
This thread was originally written and published in December 2019.
It was on a day like this, 240 years ago, with a west wind howling up the Firth of Forth, rattling the window panes and lifting the roof tiles, that Edinburgh and Leith were saved from sacking by the fledgling United States Navy. The year was 1779 and it was the middle of the War of Independence when a squadron of American ships of war appeared in the Firth. Their objective; to disrupt shipping, spread panic and “raise a contribution” to the American war effort of two hundred thousand pounds from the wallets of the good folk of Edinburgh and Leith. These ships were the 36-gun Bon Homme Richard, the 32-gun Pallas and the 12-gun Vengeance and in command was one John Paul Jones. To the Americans a great hero, a father to their naval service:
John Paul Jones by Charles Wilson PealeTo the British, a common pirate. Of course, they would say that, because he beat them at their own game, rattled the establishment to its core and made the mighty Royal Navy look rather impotent.
“Paul Jones the Pirate”, a contemporary British caricatureSo who was John Paul Jones? For a start, he wasn’t born as John Paul Jones or an American, he was actually from Kirkcudbrightshire. He was born in 1747 as plain John Paul to John Paul (senior), a gardener and Jean Mcduff. In 1760, John junior was apprenticed to a sea captain in Whitehaven and took to the seven seas on the merchant ship Friendship. He sailed the Atlantic trade route, mainly between Britain and the colony of Virginia where his older brother was settled.
The cottage in which John Paul was born in 1747, now the John Paul Jones Cottage Museum. Pic © johnpauljonesmuseum.comFor quite a few years John kept this up, working his way up the ranks to First Mate by 1768. At this point fate begins to intervene and steer his life on a new course. In Jamaica, he decides to abandon his ship and work his passage back to Scotland. Once home, he finds a new ship – the appropriately named John – and is taken on as lower mate. When the master and leading mates unexpectedly die of fever, he takes command and brings the ship and her cargo safely home. In gratitude, the owners raise him to master. So at the tender age of 23, John finds himself a ship’s master with 10 years experience under his belt; life has worked out well for him. But then some things start to go wrong. On only his seconnd voyage as master he has someone flogged for insubordination. This was a very common and non-noteworthy act for the time, sailors were kept in check with fairly equal proportions of corporal punishment, alcohol and the promise of the occasional pay packet.
But the flogged man has connections back in Scotland and when he died (from Yellow Fever), the blame for his death is laid at the feet of John. As a young captain from a humble family he has little influence himself over matters once he’s off his ship and finds himself thrown in the Tolbooth of Kirkcudbright to await his fate. But clearly he is not without any friends as he is bailed and given some quiet advice to get far away from Kirkcudbright before the law has its way. This was sensible advice, which was followed.
“The Old Tolbooth, Kirkcudbright” by Charles Oppenheimer © Manchester Art GalleryAs a result he quickly leaves Scotland for England and finds a new ship, the Betsy, and spends 18 successful months toing and froing in the Caribbean, before once again clashing with a subordinate crewmember. This time, he allegedly runs the man through with a sword in an argument over pay. He would claim this was self defence, but having fled from the law before he must have realised that he couldn’t go back and face any more music the music and so headed north to the Virginia colony in about 1772. He finds that his brother has died and so takes takes over his affairs there.
John Paul Jones. Quick, perhaps too quick, with his sword.Perhaps it is to cover his tracks that in Virginia he changes his name to John Paul Jones, with American folk legend suggesting that it was in honour of statesman Willie Jones. JPJ takes to his new home and when war breaks out with Britian he signs up to fight for his adopted homeland against that of his birth. Whether this was opportunism or patriotism is not clear but in 1775 he is part of the newly formed Continental Navy. As an experienced sailor and officer, JPJ’s potential is recognised by founding father Richard Henry Lee and he is appointed First Lieutenant of the frigate Alfred. Like most US ships of this time it’s a converted merchantman, but the line between smaller naval and civilian ships at this time was rather blurry so it was not that uncommon.
“Continental Ship Alfred“, W. Nowland Van Powell, 1974It is apparently JPJ who had the honour of hoisting the Grand Union Flag – the first national flag of the United States, on a US ship, for the first time. He and the Alfred sail to the Caribbean and raid Nassau, but after this this point he takes a demotion to a smaller ship, the sloop Providence, as a step on the ladder to commanding a frigate of his own.
Providence, flying the Grand Old Union Flag. W. Nowland Van Powell, 1974Long story short, JPJ rapidly impresses his superiors with a combination of skill, aggression and good luck. By 1778 he is in charge of the new frigate Ranger. On February 14th, on the Ranger, he took a salute from a French naval squadron under La Motte Picquet in the Robuste at Quiberon Bay, the first official recognition of the young American state by a foreign government.
“First Recognition of the American Flag by a Foreign Government”, Edward Moran, 1898He is now sent to take the war to the British on the other side of the Atlantic but finds that his crew – and in particular his officers – are completely lacking, unwilling to take risks or to follow his orders. A raid on the sloop HMS Drake fails due to poor seamanship. A raid on Whitehaven, his old home port, fails due to a combination of poor weather and an uncooperative crew who decided to visit the pub instead of set fire to the shipping in the harbour.
“Launching of the White Haven Raid” by Charles Waterhouse © National Museum of the Marine CorpsJPJ next hatches a plot to kidnap the Earl of Selkirk for ransom from St. Mary’s Isle, but this scheme is foiled as the Earl is away; the Americans are instead cordially entertained by the Earl’s wife before leaving after helping themselves to some silverwear. (JPJ would later buy the loot back, at his own expense, and return it to the Selkirks).
“John Paul Jones seizing the silver plate of Lady Selkirk”, his crew depicted as pirates. A print from 1903.The effect on British morale and general public alarm was much significant. Here were American rebels acting with impunity, not just in British waters but also on the land! It was a national scandal. But the reality was that his raiding around the Solway proved fruitless and resulted in a crew who were restless from the lack of prize money. And so JPJ sails the Ranger back across the Irish Sea and finally catches up with his previous quarry, the sloop HMS Drake, off of Carrickfergus. A roughly equal fight on paper, he deploys a ruse to get the initial jump on Drake before bettering her with skilful gunnery. Five of the British crew, including their captain and the first lieutenant, were killed in the fight and after an hour the Drake surrendered. This was another national scandal for the Royal Navy in home waters at the hands of the young man from Kirkcudbright.
The surrender of the Drake, from “The Boys of 1812 and Other Heroes” by James Soley, 1887.JPJ has Drake sailed to Brest to be sold to the French as a prize. This was finally a great victory for him and the Continental Navy, but there was much acrimony between captain, second in command Lt. Simpson (who he tries and fails to have court-martialled) and the crew. In France, JPJ is given a bigger ship, the merchantman Duc de Duras, which has been gifted to the US Navy by a sympathiser. On conversion to a 40-gun warship he has her named Bonhomme Richard after Ben Franklin, who used the pseudonym “Poor Richard” to publish his almanac in Paris
Bonne Homme Richard in 1779 by F. MullerJPJ assembles a little fleet and prepares for war in Lorient in June 1779 but is forced back from his initial cruise by bad weather and in need of repairs. A second attempt is made in August; Bonhomme Richard, Pallas and Vengeance are accompanied by the French naval cutter Le Cerf and two privateers, Monsieur and Granville. Monsieur falls out with JPJ only days out of port and leaves the fleet – falling out with his subordinates is quickly becoming something of a hallmark for JPJ’s expeditions. But this time the Royal Navy are better prepared and locate and attempt to chase the Americans. He is able to lead them on a merry dance around the north of Scotland before shaking the pursuers off. On his way, despite ongoing squabbles with other officers, he is able to take 16 merchant ships as prizes.
And so it was on the 16th September 1779 that there is great alarm on both banks of the Forth when John Paul Jones and his three remaining ships (the others had returned to France by this time with the prizes), appeared in the Forth intent on sailing up it and doing as they pleased.
Looking down the Forth towards Inchkeith in the distance in 1791, by David Allan.A panic spreads through Edinburgh and Leith. The moneyed classes secure their goods and flee the city for their estates. The banks are locked up, the garrison barricade themselves in Edinburgh Castle, the church bells are rung and “neither a carriage nor a horse [was] to be seen“. Leith’s fortifications, the great Marian walls and the Cromwellian citadel are decrepit, having been partially slighted and then left to the elements and those intent on pilfering the masonry for building material. A more fundamental problem is that they were never designed to offer defence from seaward, but from landward. But the enterprising folk of Leith try to mount a defence of sorts as best they can. Three spare old cannon were retrieved from the Naval Victualling Yard on Constitution Street and manhandled along to the walls of the Citadel.
The remains of the citadel do at least provide something of a raised firing platform to cover the mouth of the harbour, but this battery was “extremely perilous to those who worked it“. Edinburgh sent down a couple more old cannon and gunners from the castle and these were posted near Newhaven with small arms were handed out to the Incorporated Trades of Leith. With this meagre defence, the town battened down the hatches and awaited its fate.
But the folk of Kirkcaldy, on the opposite shore of the Forth, take an alternative approach to defence. They follow their minister, the Reverend Robert Shirra, down to the sea and begin to pray for almighty intervention.
The Reverend Robert Shirra by George Watson. © Kirkcaldy GalleriesNow deer Lord, dinna ye think it a shame for ye to send this vile piret to rob our folk o Kirkcaldy; for ye ken they’re puir enow already, and hae naething to spaire
Shirra’s sermon against John Paul Jones (translated, “Now dear Lord, don’t you think it a shame for you to send this vile pirate to rob our folk of Kirkcaldy; for you know they are poor enough already and have nothing to spare”)And would you know the almighty happened to be listening? For no sooner had Kirkcaldy prayed for salvation than, in the words of John Paul Jones, “a very severe gale of wind came on, and being directly contrary obliged me to bear away after having in vain endeavoured for some time to withstand its violence“.
“Inchkeith on the Forth in a Fresh Gale”. Ships in Leith Roads would shelter in the lee of the island from a gale. John Gabriel Stedman, 1781. CC-by-SA National Galleries ScotlandAs the wind blew up, JPJ’s ships were not yet in the shelter of Leith Roads in the lee of Inchkeith island where they could ride out the storm, so despite being “in a cannon’s shot of the town” they were obliged to follow the wind back out to sea. In the process, the ship Friendship they had taken in prize was lost. The little fleet was blown straight out of the Firth and down the east coast. Edinburgh, Leith and Kirkcaldy have been saved!
A week later the Royal Navy finally encounters JPJ off Flamborough Head when he runs into a convoy of merchant ships under their protection and a somewhat scrappy and confused battle takes place. In the course of the action, the Bonhomme Richard is damaged so heavily that she will sink the next day, but JPJ in return manages to capture the British flagship HMS Serapis and takes her instead.
The Battle of Flamborough Head by Richard Paton, 1780. HMS Serapis is in the foreground with “Bonhomme Richard” behind.The outcome of the battle is still hotly debated; JPJ and the Americans can claim another embarrassing Royal Navy scalp, in sight of British soil and once again they have failed to stop JPJ. But the merchant convoy – the real prize – has slipped away unharmed. However that is a somewhat hollow strategic victory for the Royal Navy. Once Again, the Americans press have their hero and the British their villain.
John Paul Jones the Hero.John Paul Jones the CorsairHeroes and Villains; Two different portraits of John Paul Jones at Flamborough Head.After the battle, JPJ wants to head for France, but his subordinates insist they follow orders and head for the neutral Dutch island of Texel in the United Provinces. A tricky diplomatic incident ensues as they have lost the Continental Navy’s flags when Bonhomme Richard went down, and couldn’t fly the Royal Navy’s ensigns from the Serapis and so were technically operating under no flag. This allowes the British to claim that they were pirates. So, based on only a written description, (“colors should be white, red, and blue alternately to thirteen… [with a] blue field with thirteen stars… in the canton“) JPJ had his men run up a new – and rather unconventional – Continental Navy flag. The Dutch dutifully checked that the flag matched the description (they were very unlikely to know what the flag of an American warship should look like as they’d probably never seen one) and entered it with a sketch in their records to make it official.
The “John Paul Jones” or “Serapis” Flag.With its 8-pointed stars and irregular groupings of red/white/blue tricolour stripes, the “Serapis flag” is unique, the true work of a sailor handy with needle and thread and not someone versed in the rigid conventions of vexilology. John Paul Jones’ wacky flag was enough to save him from international charges of piracy and now takes pride of place on the coat of arms of the US warships that have taken his name.
Coat of Arms of the US Navy Destroyer John Paul Jones, featuring the “Serapis Flag” on the left and a likeness of JPJBack in Leith, plans were immediately drawn up for a new artillery fort to protect the port and the city of Edinburgh behind from the sea. These were drawn up by local celebrated architect James Craig – who laid out Edinburgh first New Town – despite him having no background in military engineering. The fort and the land on which it was built were provided “at the expense of the citizens of Edinburgh and Leith“. It was a fairly straightforward defensive structure, a half-moon battery of cannon facing out to sea, protected by a perimeter ditch, low masonry wall and a large earthen glacis heaped up infront of it to seeward. To the landward there is were a pair of blockhouse corner bastions to protect it from rear assaults. The Fort’s battery of guns covered the navigable channel of the approach to the Port of Leith.
One of Craig’s original drawings. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of ScotlandSo there you have it, the tale of the lad from Kirkcudbrightshire that the Royal Navy couldn’t sink, who tried to capture the Earl of Selkirk, who put the willies up the good folk of Edinburgh and Leith, who rocked the vexilogical world but who could not overcome a Kirk minister and the weather. Oh, and how this modern street on the site of Leith Fort got its name:
John Paul Jones View, Leith Fort council housing. © SelfNote to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.
If you have found this site useful, informative or amusing then you can help contribute towards its running costs by supporting me on ko-fi. This includes my commitment to keeping it 100% advert and AI free for all time coming, and in helping to find further unusual stories to bring you by acquiring books and paying for research.
Or please do just share this post on social media or amongst friends and like-minded people, sites like this thrive on being shared.Explore Threadinburgh by map:
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The thread about exploring Cromwell’s enigmatic Citadel of Leith
I was quite very excited to find this image in the Edinburgh City Libraries collection that I’d somehow missed before. It’s the “Gate of the Old Citadel of Leith“, an 1818 watercolour by the lawyer and prolific cityscape artist of Edinburgh, James Skene.
“Gate of the Old Citadel of Leith“, James Skene, 1818 © Edinburgh City LibrariesThe Citadel was part of Oliver Cromwell’s plan to subdue and control Scotland during his occupation of the country after the Battle of Dunbar in 1650.
It acted not just as a base for the occupying forces, but by protecting and controlling the Port of Leith it guarded the supply lines and meant the Army could be provisioned. Its construction was ordered in 1653, overseen by Cromwell’s man on the ground, General Monck, and was reluctantly financed by the city of Edinburgh to the tune of £60,000 Scots (£5,000). According to Nicoll’s Diary, construction began on May 26th 1656. The occupiers brought with them a printing press to churn out official declarations and propaganda and so it’s no coincidence that the first newspaper in Scotland is said to have been printed on an English press within the Citadel; “The Mercurius Caledonius – Comprising The Affairs now in Agitation in Scotland With A Survey of Forraign Intelligence“. It only ran for 12 issues from Dec 1660 – Jan 1661 and is not to be confused with the later Caledonian Mercury. It printed reports from Parliament, “Forraign Intelligence” and other stories sourced from the London papers. Monck also encouraged other English merchants and industrialists to set up in the safety of The Citadel and they introduced the craft of glassmaking, something Leith would later become famous for.
Mercurius Caledonius, edition of the first week of 1661.As I may have said many times before, as far as I am aware there are no surviving contemporary illustrations or plans of The Citadel and the earliest map showing it accurately in plan was not made until 50 years later, after it was abandoned as a fortification and encroached upon by the sea. Before we look further at Skene’s illustration, it’s worth getting an idea of the layout of the fortress.
The Citadel followed the classic 5-pointed “Star Fort” layout, with projecting, arrowhead-shaped bastions at each point of the star. These were fortifications explicitly engineered for the age of artillery; the corner bastions formed raised firing platforms to mount your defensive cannons. Gone were the tall, stone walls of medieval castles, in were carefully sculpted and aligned ditches and earthen mounds to resist cannon fire. John Naish’s 1709 survey and plan of Leith is the best reference to get an accurate survey of some of the walls and internal buildings. Note we can only see three sides and corners of the five walls; even at this stage he calls it the “Ruins of the Cittadell”. It can be seen from where he delineates the “high water mark on a raging full sea” that where the remaining walls and bastions should be has been reclaimed by the North Sea. The ditch that surrounds it all could be filled to a depth of 6 feet, and it can be seen on Naish’s map that a small pond has formed to the east of the walls.
Excerpt from John Naish’s 1709 survey and plan of “Leith, Surveyed May 28th 1709”. Crown Copyright, MPHH 1/32We also have a first-hand description of it during construction from the travelling English naturalist John Ray:
…one of the best fortifications that we ever beheld, passing fair and sumptuous. There are three forts [bastions] advanced above the rest and two platforms; the works around about are faced with freestone towards the ditch and are almost as high as the highest buildings within, and withal thick and substantial. Below are very pleasant, convenient and well-built houses for the governor, officers, and soldiers and for magazines and stores. There is also a good capacious chapel, the piazza, or void space within, as large as Trinity College, Cambridge, Great Court.
After the Stuart Restoration in 1660, The Citadel was abandoned as a military fortification. The contents of its chapel; its timber, seats, glass, masonry and even its steeple, were used in 1673 to refurbish that of Heriot’s Hospital. The City of Edinburgh were allowed to buy it back by King Charles II, so in effect they paid for it twice. Its walls were abandoned to the sea, or quarried out for building materials, and the modern buildings within them became something of a desirable place to live. John Skene’s delightful little sketch was made in 1818, a full 109 years after Naish’s map and 150 or more years after it was first built. But even in this time period, few other images of the subject matter were created and it remains a real rarity. So what does it show us of The Citadel, how does that relate to what we know of it and where was the artist positioned to sketch from. Let’s now find out, shall we?
Despite being a small watercolour, Skene has crammed a lot of interesting detail in there. The obvious thing is it shows a port (gateway). From this we can confirm that the gateway was surrounded with dressed masonry, the walls themselves were faced in stone and were likely filled with earth and rubble. It also gives us an idea of overall idea of the height of the walls and gateways as there are figures here for scale. If we suppose these are accurate, then the gateway might be 10-12 feet high and the walls 20-30 feet in total. The wall height of the contemporary Ayr Citadel is 25 feet, so this fits nicely.
The Citadel gateway, close-up.In the background of the image we can see limewashed buildings with pan-tiled roofs; standard, vernacular east coast Scottish style at this time. This building looks particularly tall, but if we work it out from the window spacing, it’s probably just 3 storeys plus an attic dormer. Skene often plays with the height of buildings and stretches them to make the scene look more dramatic. The chimneys are smoking, so these buildings are in use, most likely residential.
Pantile roofs and whitewashWe can also see that the blocks of buildings here don’t meet at right angles, given it was a five-sided fortification we would expect them to therefore be at about 72 degrees (give or take, as it was a slightly squished pentagon in plan). This distant range again looks to be 3 storeys with perhaps 2 in the attic dormer.
Pantile roofs and non-right anglesWe see can also see street lighting. From a previous thread on the topic we can be sure these are “train oil” (i.e. whale) lamps.
A lamp post.And a woman hangs out her washing to dry on the grassy slope that is all that remains of the former wall embankment.
Washing day.In the foreground, two men appear to be working stones. He in the red seems to have a regular block propped up and his partner in the blue looks like he’s trying to heave a slab off the ground. I wager they are reclaiming masonry from the collapsed walls; we know at both Leith and Ayr that this took place.
Working masonry.And just to the right of the two masons are two intriguing square posts. The Citadel was surrounded by a broad engineered ditch, which we can clearly see on Naish’s map, and it’s more than likely it would have had wooden trestle drawbridges across it. It’s nice to think that those posts may be part of that, they are after all aligned with the gateway.
Wooden posts in the waterIn the left midground we have yet more pantile roofed, whitewashed buildings. This range is two storeys and has curving, external stairs to the 1st floor. We know that there were at least two 2-storey blocks within the complex which would have been barracks quarters and stables and we can see evidence in maps of the late 18th and early 19th century that some of the buildings had external staircases.
Curving external stairs to the first floorAnd lastly, auld Leith wouldn’t be auld Leith without a forest of masts and rigging in the background. These are the ships of the port, crammed into the river basin beyond. There were no formal wet docks here at this time, everything tied up in the river mouth and alongside the quays of North and South Leith.
Masts and rigging of the Port of LeithSo to conclude an answer to the first question, we can see rather a lot. We can see that the fortifications were largely gone, but bits remained; we can see its buildings were actively occupied and in reasonably good repair at this time, and we get a good idea of the building style and some of its inner layout.
And on to the second part; where was Skene’s viewpoint from where he made his drawing? Well that’s easy of course because we know exactly where The Citadel’s port was as it’s still there! (Many people are amazed to find out that there’s a well preserved section of Cromwellian Fort wall hiding in plain sight at the end of a car park in Leith).
The surviving Citadel Port. The upper level of dressed masonry and the wall to the left are more modern © SelfAn 1804 Town Plan showing Leith by John Ainslie is roughly contemporary with Skene’s illustration. The gateway in the photograph above is marked S, and so Skene would have to have been outside (to the east or right of the S), looking inwards or west.
Ainslie’s 1804 Town plan of Edinburgh & Leith. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of ScotlandExcept there’s actually three problems with this hasty conclusion.
- Firstly, in Skene’s image we are looking into The Citadel from outside and there is no way for there to be ships and masts in the left background as that is dry land well away from the shoreline. Skene is a reliable and accurate illustrator, it’s not likely he just made a big mistake.
- Secondly, there was no range of buildings in the north of the inner courtyard of The Citadel; the buildings on the right of Skene’s image should not be there.
- Thirdly, and crucially, the arch in Skene’s picture is a plain, rounded arch and clearly doesn’t match the segmental profile of the one in the photo above; it is also finished plainer, missing the tracery.
So how can we be looking at the arch from outside The Citadel bearing all of this in mind? The answer is quite simple actually, we can’t be. We are looking at a different arch! – Until the early 19th century, there was the remains of another port; the western or St. Nicholas Port. It is clearly marked T on the map below, set into W, which is the remains of old walls.
Aitchison’s Town Plan of 1795. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of ScotlandSuddenly it all begins to fall into place. Skene is located on the shore, to the left of the above map, looking at the St. Nicholas Port. The stonemasons are working not on the shore but in the ditch outside the walls, and the washerwoman is hanging up her whites on the slope of that wall W. Beyond is the range of buildings marked X and on the map can see two small projections on those buildings, which I would suggest are the external stairways. Beyond X is the further range of buildings offset from them at an angle around 72 degrees. Skene is now looking directly towards the piers and quayside of the Port, shown on the map below, and so the masts and ships are now in the correct place.
Aitchison’s Town Plan of 1795. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of ScotlandLastly, we can corroborate all pf this with a further map, that by William Bell dated 1813, which shows the layout of buildings and land ownership in The Citadel at that time, and confirms two Citadel Ports again; you can see one marked on the left below the word “Property” of “Mr. Campbell’s Property” and the other on the right, to the right of “Citidal Green“. Bell’s map shows that at this time the whole area was being encroached upon by the building of the wet docks.
Bell’s Plan of the Regality of Canongate etc., 1813. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of ScotlandI’ve only ever seen one other illustration of the western port of the Citadel, which refers to it as “Oliver’s Mount” (i.e. Cromwell) on account of the mass of earth that had once formed the core of the wall rising above it. Confusingly it shows the passageway as bifurcating, which makes little defensive or engineering sense, and conflicts with Skene’s sketch. However, my understanding is at one time it may have been used as a cattle store and had been given a dividing wall internally. The artist of the below drawing may have been working off of a second-hand description and hence made it look like there were two separate passages, not one that had been divided.
“Oliver’s Mount” from Leith and its Antiquites by James Campbell Irons, 1898Another semi-contemporary image shows the “Cromwell House“, in which Cromwell most likely never stayed. It was probably built as a governor’s mansion and would have been a desirable property to take over after the fort was abandoned to residential use. The general style and scale of this building does not contradict Skene’s illustration. This building, also known as the “Governor’s House” was still standing in 1825 when it was advertised as for sale.
“Cromwell House” from the Story of Leith.A last piece of the puzzle and one which helps to tie everything nicely together can be found an etching by John Clerk of Eldin (who was a thoroughly good landscape draughtsman). It is something which is very easy to miss, but if we squint at “Leith from the West” we can see our gateway (highlighted blue) and the range of two-storey buildings with the curved, external staircases (red). The Leith Custom House is highlighted in yellow to help get our bearings. The full engraving is digitised in the National Galleries Scotland collection, you can zoom in on it and explore it at your leisure.
Excerpt of “Leith from the West” by John Clerk of Eldin. Move the slider to see the coloured highlightes. CC-BY-NC National Galleries Scotland.We can then take all of this evidence and add it on to Naish’s map to get a good idea of the layout and what the various features we can see on it actually were for.
Naish’s map, conceptual details of the Citadel filled in and annotated. Base map Crown Copyright, MPHH 1/32I know of know reconstruction plan or illustration of the Leith Citadel, but one does exist for another one of the Scottish Cromwellian citaels of this era, that of Ayr. This is similar in some respects to Leith as it was built on the shore of a port town, but was larger and had 6 instead of 5 corner bastions. The illustration below gives a reasonable impression of what Leith would have looked like though.
Ayr Citadel by Robert NelmesSurviving sections of the walls of Ayr also give us a good idea of what Leith might have looked like:
A bastion of Ayr Citadel. CC-by-SA 3.0 Rosser1954I find the Leith Citadel hugely enigmatic. It was a massive, dominant fortification that was totally unlike anything else in this part of the world. It was built at great expense and yet from a military point of view was abandoned within a few years of completion. It very briefly saw some military action in 1715 when Jacobites under Mackintosh of Borlum occupied it and had a standoff with government forces before retreating and briefly in 1780 some old cannons were mounted on its walls to counter the threat posed by John Paul Jones. I also find it remarkable that even though much of The Citadel survived so long and after its abandonment, so little was left by the way of record. We are lucky indeed to have the remaining gateway and a small section of wall, tucked away in a car park in North Leith.
The tantalising remaining fragment of the Citadel Wall. © SelfThe other great survivor of The Citadel is less obvious from the ground, but it you look at a map of streets in the area it is immediately obvious that there is a pentagonal arrangement, bounded by Cromwell Place, Couper Street, Coburg Street and Dock Street. This directly aligns with the orientation of the walls, ditches and internal structures as you can see on the below animated image transition of old maps of Leith on the modern streetscape and overlaid with a schematic of The Citadel.
Transition animation of the Citadel. NLS maps reproduced with the permission of the National Library of ScotlandNote to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.
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