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598 results for “msanders”
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Teenage old-man-candy obsession re-realized serendipitously tonight. Chewy chocolate Riesen FTW! Tasting is time traveling. #candie #riesen #caramel #nottoosweet #chewy
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This time of year (after all the year end wrap up posts) I feel like such an inferior reader. Then I realize I can't 'read' via audio book. I have a hard enough time listening to podcasts. Folks who devour books seem to do so by listening to them. I don't wanna poo poo either way of reading, but recognize there are two distinct paces.
#reading #pageturning #seeing #audiobooks #analogbooks #paperbacks #hardcovers
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This time of year (after all the year end wrap up posts) I feel like such an inferior reader. Then I realize I can't 'read' via audio book. I have a hard enough time listening to podcasts. Folks who devour books seem to do so by listening to them. I don't wanna poo poo either way of reading, but recognize their are two distinct paces.
#reading #pageturning #seeing #audiobooks #analogbooks #paperbacks #hardcovers
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This time of year (after all the year end wrap up posts) I feel like such an inferior reader. Then I realize I can't 'read' via audio book. I have a hard enough time listening to podcasts. Folks who devour books seem to do so by listening to them. I don't wanna poo poo either way of reading, but recognize there are two distinct paces.
#reading #pageturning #seeing #audiobooks #analogbooks #paperbacks #hardcovers
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This time of year (after all the year end wrap up posts) I feel like such an inferior reader. Then I realize I can't 'read' via audio book. I have a hard enough time listening to podcasts. Folks who devour books seem to do so by listening to them. I don't wanna poo poo either way of reading, but recognize their are two distinct paces.
#reading #pageturning #seeing #audiobooks #analogbooks #paperbacks #hardcovers
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I needed to know this exists! https://detroiters.fandom.com/wiki/Detroiters_Wiki #detroiters #cramblinduvet #comedy #imissthis #cancelledtoosoon
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A little late, but Leo loves laundry. #caturday #catstodon #browntabby
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A little late, but Leo loves laundry. #caturday #catstodon #browntabby
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A little late, but Leo loves laundry. #caturday #catstodon #browntabby
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A little late, but Leo loves laundry. #caturday #catstodon #browntabby
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This guy turns 1 today 🎉🎉🎉! If you see him wish him a happy birthday. We love you buddy! #catstodon #cats #LadiesLoveCoolLeo #catprortrait #tabby #browntabby
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This guy turns 1 today 🎉🎉🎉! If you see him wish him a happy birthday. We love you buddy! #catstodon #cats #LadiesLoveCoolLeo #catprortrait #tabby #browntabby
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This guy turns 1 today 🎉🎉🎉! If you see him wish him a happy birthday. We love you buddy! #catstodon #cats #LadiesLoveCoolLeo #catprortrait #tabby #browntabby
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A friend shared the gaming computer he built for his kid. This reminded me of my Dad’s devotion the building Heathkit computers from com kits and components he bought from their catalog. Which leads me to my first love: the Heathkit Hero 1 robot. I campaigned for months when I was 12 for getting one of these. Alas after months my interest turned elsewhere and I never owned a Hero. #heathkit #heathkitcatalog #computerkit #robotkit #hero1robot
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A friend shared the gaming computer he built for his kid. This reminded me of my Dad’s devotion the building Heathkit computers from com kits and components he bought from their catalog. Which leads me to my first love: the Heathkit Hero 1 robot. I campaigned for months when I was 12 for getting one of these. Alas after months my interest turned elsewhere and I never owned a Hero. #heathkit #heathkitcatalog #computerkit #robotkit #hero1robot
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A friend shared the gaming computer he built for his kid. This reminded me of my Dad’s devotion the building Heathkit computers from com kits and components he bought from their catalog. Which leads me to my first love: the Heathkit Hero 1 robot. I campaigned for months when I was 12 for getting one of these. Alas after months my interest turned elsewhere and I never owned a Hero. #heathkit #heathkitcatalog #computerkit #robotkit #hero1robot
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A friend shared the gaming computer he built for his kid. This reminded me of my Dad’s devotion the building Heathkit computers from com kits and components he bought from their catalog. Which leads me to my first love: the Heathkit Hero 1 robot. I campaigned for months when I was 12 for getting one of these. Alas after months my interest turned elsewhere and I never owned a Hero. #heathkit #heathkitcatalog #computerkit #robotkit #hero1robot
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After a week of posting on IG/FB specific reasons for quitting commercial social media and then articulating options to replace plus my criteria for why I recommend Mastodon as a responsible replacement, I am now moving on to creating an online starter pack for how to join, use, and enjoy Mastodon. The best social communities are those built together with connections old and new. Bring a friend (or more!) to Mastodon! #DumpFacebook #DumpInstagram #SwitchToMastodon
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After a week of posting on IG/FB specific reasons for quitting commercial social media and then articulating options to replace plus my criteria for why I recommend Mastodon as a responsible replacement, I am now moving on to creating an online starter pack for how to join, use, and enjoy Mastodon. The best social communities are those built together with connections old and new. Bring a friend (or more!) to Mastodon! #DumpFacebook #DumpInstagram #SwitchToMastodon
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After a week of posting on IG/FB specific reasons for quitting commercial social media and then articulating options to replace plus my criteria for why I recommend Mastodon as a responsible replacement, I am now moving on to creating an online starter pack for how to join, use, and enjoy Mastodon. The best social communities are those built together with connections old and new. Bring a friend (or more!) to Mastodon! #DumpFacebook #DumpInstagram #SwitchToMastodon
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After a week of posting on IG/FB specific reasons for quitting commercial social media and then articulating options to replace plus my criteria for why I recommend Mastodon as a responsible replacement, I am now moving on to creating an online starter pack for how to join, use, and enjoy Mastodon. The best social communities are those built together with connections old and new. Bring a friend (or more!) to Mastodon! #DumpFacebook #DumpInstagram #SwitchToMastodon
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Take the “High Line”: the thread about Leith’s unbuilt park through the rooftops
I found something very interesting hidden away in a cardboard file in a corner of Leith Library. The title – City of Edinburgh, Leith Local Plan, Draft Final Report, April 1975. Volume Two. Schedules and Appendices. – was so snappy that I couldn’t help but start reading it. This was the plan for a £90 million redevelopment and rejuvenation of Leith, which by this time was suffering badly from industrial decline, urban depopulation, poor housing stock and a general lack of public amenities. As part of this plan it was proposed that the Edinburgh Corporation as it then was (after 1975 it was Edinburgh District Council) would purchase the abandoned trackbed of the Caledonian Railway which ran from Pilrig Park to Seafield via Restalrig, over Leith Walk and Easter Road. This would be converted into a landscaped walkway through the area, what nowadays we might term a linear park.
Line of the Pilrig to Seafield section of the Caledonian Railway, traced over a 1971 OS land use survey map on a 6-inch to the mile base map, 1966 survey. CC-by-NC-SA via National Library of ScotlandThis section of railway, formally known as the Leith New Lines, was one of the last to be built in the city and did not open until 1903. Its purpose was to give the Caley access from its existing line into Leith Docks from the west to the expanding eastern portion of the docklands. It would cut its way through the dense industrial heartlands of Leith and Bonnington, serving these with large and convenient new goods stations.
Ordnance Survey 6-inch scale map of Leith, 1906. The North British Railway is highlighted blue, the Caledonian Railway in red and the Leith New Lines in green. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of ScotlandOn paper this was a sound proposal but by this time the best potential routes through Leith were already well built on, therefore it had to take a winding and circuitous route requiring substantial and expensive engineering. There were numerous cuttings and viaducts required plus skew girder bridges over thoroughfares at Bonnington Toll, Leith Walk and Easter Road. As if that wasn’t enough, it also had to cross three different North British Railway lines, the Water of Leith and cut beneath Ferry Road.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/127340508@N05/40040319893/
This railway never fulfilled its potential, a planned passenger service was never introduced and its twin tracks soon singled. The western section between Newhaven and Bonnington closed in 1965. In 1968 the low bridge over Bonnington Toll was removed and the goods station off Leith Walk at Stead’s Place (Leith Walk West) was closed. For a few years the eastern section at Seafield lingered on giving access to the Leith East goods yard at Salamander Street but this too closed in 1973, making the entire line redundant. British Rail gave notice at this point that it intended to demolish its monumental girder bridges over Leith Walk and Easter Road plus a smaller one over Halmyre Street to reduce their maintenance burden.
Easter Road #NowAndThen image overlay showing the Caledonian Railway bridge in 1974 and the modern Google Streetview background. Original from Edinphoto. This bridge was removed between January and February 1980.The 1975 path scheme saw the opportunity to purchase the route from British Rail before they proceeded with demolition and proposed to replace these large, expensive structures with lightweight footbridges and to retain the smaller bridge over Halmyre Street. This would give an elevated walkway from Pilrig Park, across the arches of the viaducts at Jane Street, Manderston Street and Gordon Street and from there along the embankments and cuttings all the way to Seafield.
Cover, City of Edinburgh, Leith Local Plan, Draft Final Report, April 1975. Volume Two. Schedules and Appendices.Proposal diagram for the Leith Walk Sawmills and Caley railway yard land off of Pilrig Park.The bridges at Easter Road and Manderston Street would be removed in early 1980, with that over Leith Walk following in September that year.
It have assumed that because the bridge over Halmyre Street was to be retained that the viaduct between there and Easter Road, which cut its way rudely through the back greens between Gordon Street and Thorntree Street would have been kept too.
1929 aerial photo showing the trackbed of the Leith New Lines between Easter Road (bottom right) heading west towards Leith Walk (top left). The large roof to the top right of the photo is Leith Central Station. That building along with the tenements along the line of Manderston and Gordon Streets have since been demolished. The large white roof belongs to the Capitol cinema, until recently a bingo hall. SPW027351 via Britain from Above.This ambitious urban realm scheme of course never came to pass. By the time an updated version of the Final Plan was published in 1980 it had been quietly dropped. One assumes this was because of the disruption caused to local government when the old unitary Corporation of the City of Edinburgh was replaced in 1975 and split up into the two-tier system of Edinburgh District Council and a combined Lothian Regional Council. Instead there was a cut back scheme to purchase the trackbed between Seafield and Easter Road and to landscape it as a pathway with funding from the Scottish Development Agency (SDA). While this at least did come to pass, the word “landscape” is doing a lot of heavy lifting and in reality this path was really just a strip of compressed dirt covered in dog mess and rubbish, with obstructive barriers to try and stop you cycling it without getting off and pushing. This would not be remedied until around 2010 when it was properly surface, the barriers were removed, new access points were added and lighting was provided.
Excerpt from 1980 report.Item 26 on the above list, the railway embankment through Pilrig Park, did also ended up being achieved although the link through to Leith Walk never happened. The viaduct from Pilrig Park to Leith Walk remains fence off, although recent redevelopment on the site of the former Leith Walk West goods yard means there is now a rather roundabout connection some 45 years later through an access road.
Looking along the viaduct above Jane Street towards Leith Walk on a very grey day in 2021. Photo © SelfItem 27, the second walkway which was planned in both 1975 and 1980, along the old North British Railway trackbed alongside the Water of Leith, from Coburg Street to Warriston, would come to pass. This opened in June 1982, making it the first old railway track to formally be converted to a foot and cycle path in Edinburgh, and the first of many more miles to come.
Line of the Coburg Street to Wariston section of the North British Railway, traced over a 1971 OS land use survey map on a 6-inch to the mile base map, 1966 survey. CC-by-NC-SA via National Library of ScotlandThe opportunity to do something between Pilrig Park and Easter Road is one that has never been properly grasped. In more recent times (although over 10 years ago now!) there was a semi-serious attempt to drum up interest in reviving the idea, with a connection between Pilrig Park and Halmyre Street achieved by building a show-piece timber and cable bridge across Leith Walk. How serious this actually was I do not know, I don’t recall any funding ever being in place even for planning, and providing level access to street level at the Thorntree Street end remains a difficult proposition. Even if it had been approved, like other schemes such as the section of Railway between Powderhall and Meadowbank, there’s a very good chance that it would still find itself in development limbo.
Renderings by Biomorphis of their engineered timber and cable bridge structure they proposed over Leith Walk.But if you happen to find yourself walking along past the garages which occupy the Manderston and Gordon Street arches, it’s easy to forget that there’s actually a railway station platform up there above your head, one which was built over 120 years ago but never actually opened. Although some lucky souls in the path have at least had the chance to get off a train there and head down its stairs to street level…
Note 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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NO AI TRAINING: Any use of the contents of this website to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.
#Lochend #Logan #Restalrig #StMargaret -
The Palace at the Foot of the Walk: the thread about the many lives of an early cinema
The Foot of the Walk pub in Leith has been in the news recently as its owner has put it on the market for sale, to much local indignation. These premises first opened on 1st January 1913 as The Palace cinema (in reference to the term “Picture Palace“, which was in use at the time to differentiate the upper end of the cinema market from the lower), showing a programme of illustrated nursery rhymes, a film about a gang of horse thieves and other “pictures of a humorous kind, which were greatly appreciated“. The cinema, as built, had a proscenium 32 feet wide by 22 feet high which gave it the largest screen in all of Edinburgh or Leith. It had a capacity for 2,000; 900 in the pit, 650 in the pit stalls and 450 in the upper gallery and a feature was that both the roof and balcony were cantilevered, with no supporting pillars to get in the way of the view of the screen. Great attention was paid to fire safety; the Brackliss Motiograph projector was installed behind the auditorium, within fireproof walls, there were 8 emergency exits from the auditorium and lighting was electric, rather than gas.
“Palace Buildings & Foot of Leith Walk”, James Valentine picture postcard, 1913. The round tower over the entrance is long gone. © Edinburgh City LibrariesIt cost the Leith Public Hall & Property Co. around £20,000 to build (around £1.8 million in 2023) and was part of a syndicate of cinemas controlled by theatre impresario Robert Colburn (“RC”) Buchanan; a man described by Scottish Cinema journal at that time as being gifted to the trade “by the gods“. Buchanan was for a time the managing director of the Gaiety theatre in Leith, which stood on th opposite side of Constitution Street from The Palace. The latter site had long been the premises of Bell, Rannie & Co., one of Leith’s longest established wine merchants, where brothers Robert and John Cockburn served their apprenticeships.
The Foot of the Walk in 1891, looking towards Bell, Rannie & Co.’s vaults and house in the centre distance. The buildings on the right were replaced by Leith Central Station in 1903, those on the left remain, now the British Heart Foundation shop. © Edinburgh City LibrariesA fire at Bell, Rannie & Co.’s George Street shop in 1910 led to the sale of their Constitution Street warehouse and offices. It was briefly thereafter occupied by the Rev. John Findlater and the Leith Methodist Church, which had recently become homeless after its church across the road was demolished to allow the construction of Leith Central Station. Shortly after this, it too was cleared, to make way for the cinema which was built on top of Bell & Rannie’s old vaults.
Sale of Bell, Rannie & Co. vaults etc. at 171-173 constitution street, The Scotsman- 5th February 1910The cinema was surrounded at ground floor level with shop units on both Constitution and Duke Streets and at this time the opportunity was taken for the former street to be widened and a corresponding portion of the latter narrowed, to improve the road layout at the Foot of the Walk. Upstairs, on the Duke Street side, there was a hall that was long occupied by the Leith Central Snooker Club.
The Foot of the Walk in Ordnance Survey Maps of 1849 (left) and 1944 (right). Move the slide to compare how the plot of the Palace Cinema was changed from that of Bell & Rannie by widening Constitution Street and narrowing Duke Street correspondingly. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of ScotlandOne thing that wasn’t included in the demolition and rebuilding was an adjoining bonded warehouse, the property of Cockburn & Campbell, wine merchants at 15 Duke Street. This sad looking, long-abandoned old building is actually one of the oldest in this part of Leith – dating from at least 1804!
The Duke Street wing of The Palace in 1953. The number 19 tram to Tollcross passes by as someone steps into The Marksman public house (which is there to this day). On the first floor gable a painted sign can be read “The Palace, Continuous 6 – 10:30” and the old Cockburn’s warehouse is the dark, windowless building beyond.The Palace was designed around showing two programmes every night, at 7PM and 9PM, and so was laid out internally such that one audience could enter through the foyer while previous one exited through separate doors onto Duke and Constitution street, without any mutual disruption. The advert below shows the opening week’s programme, which described the venue as “a Lordly Picture House. The Largest. The Latest. The Best.“
The Palace – “A Lordly Picture House”, opening week programme. Evening News – 6th January 1913The opening feature – “A Race For An Inheritance” (A Drama rushing from sensation to sensation) – was a Gaumont film that had only recently been released.
Kinematograph Weekly – 7th November 1912This wasn’t the only “Palace” cinema in the neighbourhood, there was Pringle’s Picture Palace at the other end of The Walk on Elm Row and they were joined by the Empire Picture Palace on Henderson Street in 1917. Further afield there was the St. Bernard’s Picture Palace in Stockbridge, which opened in 1911, The Palace on Princes Street, which opened on Christmas Eve 1913 and the New Palace on the High Street that opened for talkies in 1929. The Leith Palace was wired for sound in September 1930 to allow it to join that latest cinema craze. In 1931 the Cimarron with Richard Dix and Irene Dunne was one of the first such pictures being shown. Alterations were made at this time by renowned cinema (and roadhouse!) architect Thomas Bowhill Gibson, whose work includes the Dominion in Morningside and former George / County in Portobello. These may have included removal of the tower over the entrance that is seen in the first picture on this page.
George cinema in Portobello, 1971, photograph by Kevin & Henry Wheelan. © Edinburgh City LibrariesThe Palace quietly prospered in the 1930s and 1940s, although eclipsed by newer and larger and more modern houses (such as The Capitol on Manderston Street and The State on Great Junction Street, it remained popular. However by the 1960s, like many smaller houses it was beginning to struggle to compete with television and closed without ceremony on December 31st 1966, 53 years to the day since it opened, showing The Trouble With Angels starring Rosalind Russell and Hayley Mills.
The Palace in the early-to-mid 1950s, taken looking down Constitution Street from the Foot of the Walk. Picture from “The last picture shows, Edinburgh : ninety years of cinema entertainment in Scotland’s capital city” by Brendon ThomasThe cinema went on the market and was purchased by new owners, Norwich Enterprises Ltd, trading as Palace Promotions. It was shortly thereafter converted to serve the new craze of bingo, still under the Palace name. A fire in 1968 destroyed most of the auditorium roof of the building on March 24th 1968, fortunately some hours after the 1,000 patrons who had been playing had gone home. It was repaired thereafter and soon back in business.
Palace Bingo Club, 1971, photograph by Kevin & Henry Wheelan, 1971. © Edinburgh City LibrariesIn 1978 the Bingo hall closed and was replaced by Cuemasters Snooker and Social Club and in turn the long established Leith Central Snooker Club upstairs closed in 1983. In 1992 a small church called “The Potters House” moved in to the latter space.
Potters House Christian Centre, Evening News, October 15th 1992The old cinema was refurbished and reopened as the Wetherspoon pub The Foot of the Walk on 27th June 2001. Few of the original features are visible inside, but if you use your imagination you can get a rough idea of the original layout. The upper balcony still exists, hidden away, with its seats, carpets and wall coverings as they were when the last film was shown in 1966. You can view pictures of it here on the excellent Scottish Cinemas website. After over 20 years of security in the guise of a cheap, cheerful and popular watering hole, its future is once again uncertain. In its life it has spent 53 years as a cinema, 12 years as a bingo hall, 23 years as a snooker hall and a further 23 as a public house; like many former cinemas it has now spent longer not being a cinema than the time it spent serving its intended purpose.
The Foot of the Walk, JD Wetherspoon promotional picture.As for the name “Foot of the Walk“? It’s a name for this locality that’s as old as postal directories are in Edinburgh and Leith, appearing in Peter Williamson’s first directories in the 1770s. And we can push it back 40 years more in the newspapers, an advert for one of the first houses built here appearing in the Caledonian Mercury on January 4th 1737.
“At the foot of the Walk of Leith”, Caledonian Mercury – 4th January 1737Note 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:
Travelers' Map is loading...
If you see this after your page is loaded completely, leafletJS files are missing.These threads © 2017-2026, Andy Arthur.
NO AI TRAINING: Any use of the contents of this website to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.
#Lochend #Logan #Restalrig #StMargaret -
Gibsons of Leith: the thread about the enterprising fish smokers who became pioneers of Scottish aviation
This thread was originally written and published in February 2023.
In a previous thread, we looked at the Edinburgh Aviation Craze of 1910, when a few local citizens dared to dream that they might fly in machines they had crafted from their own hands. One of those men was John Gibson, and this is his story. John was born in September 1856, the first child of Margaret Forrest and John Gibson of New Street, Fisherrow, the small harbour village just to the west of Musselburgh. John (senior) was a fish curer and town councillor, like his father before him, and the family lived in a house by the name of Gibson’s Land. The family moved to Liverpool in the 1860s, business at Fisherrow having been disrupted by the coming of the railways. John Junior went to sea as an apprentice aged 14, learning that trade across the globe on oceanic sailing ships.
In August 1875, when aged just 18, he found himself wrecked off Cape Horn after the on which he was serving had to be abandoned. The Albert Gallatin of Liverpool became uncontrollable after losing her rudder and was in danger of being wrecked on the rocky shore of the Ildefenso Islands to the south of Chile. The ship’s complement of 30 took to the boats; the first mate and 20 seamen in the larger and Captain Groves, his wife and two children, and five seamen including John in the smaller. The latter boat made it safely to Islas Hermite, where they spent 9 days, before setting off again in search of something from which to construct a sail. After 2 days fruitless rowing they landed on another island, where they were reduced to a diet of half a cracker and 3½ ounces of salt beef each per day and suffered badly from exposure. They were fortuitously rescued by the ship Syren of Boston after 18 days. The other 21 men were never seen again.
Islas Hermite, CC-by-SA 3.0, Jerzy StrzeleckiJohn Senior moved the family back to Scotland around this time, re-establishing his fish curing business in Leith, but his son fancied his chances and headed to Australia to prospect for Gold. Not striking it rich, he soon returned home and joined the family trade, dealing in smoked fish in Newhaven. In 1897 he set himself up as a dealer of machinery and soon took to repair work and it was not long before this extended to bicycles. He entered the cycle trade at 109 Leith Walk around 1905, this business soon took the name of the Caledonian Cycle Works. These premises had substantial workshops to the rear, under the Manderston Street railway arches, perfect space for Gibson to indulge in tinkering with bikes, cars and engines.
Plaque dedicated to John Gibson adjacent to his “Caledonian Cycle Works” at 109 Leith Walk, which now houses a Salvation Army shop. The date given for his birth does not match his birth certificate and as nice as it is to imagine the fact, he did not build Scotland’s first aircraft (although he did claim to!).Local newspaper adverts for the Caledonian Cycle Works in 1907It’s not exactly clear why, but in early 1909 John Gibson decided to get himself into the aircraft industry by building his own machines. Perhaps he was inspired by those two other bicycle repair shop proprietors; Orville and Wilbur Wright. Or perhaps it was the contemporary adventures of Scotland’s other aviation pioneers, which had been plastered all over the newspapers. The Barnwell brothers of Stirling – Frank and Harold – had been experimenting with gliders and had even tried to fit an internal combustion engine to one in 1905. In 1908, Lt. Laurence D. L. Gibbs made short, powered hops in a curious, swept-wing, “automatic stability” biplane called the Dunne D.4 in much secrecy in Glen Tilt near Blair Atholl. In July 1909, the Barnwells made the first powered flight in Scotland. Closer to home for Gibson there was a financial incentive to budding aviators too; in September 1909, the directors of the Marine Gardens amusement park in Portobello had offered a £500 prize, good for 1 year, for the first flight across the Firth of Forth by a Briton in a British-built plane, so long as it started from Marine Gardens. It was noted in April 1910 that Mr Charles Hubbard, an engineer living at Viewforth, was experimenting with a Bleriot-type monoplane of his own construction on Portobello Golf Course and had made a number of powered hops before it crashed.
Suitably inspired, Gibson’s first forays into aeroplanes were quarter-scale models, c. 10 feet long and certainly showing the influence of the Wright Brothers: being biplanes controlled by warping the wings and by a canard (a leading control surface rather than a tail), being powered by two propellers driven by chains from a single engine and by landing on skis. They were built both to hone and refine Gibson’s techniques and design, but also as demonstration pieces to be put on public show. In total he built nineteen different models, and the design of his craft evolved over this time.
An early variant Gibson aeroplane, before the Farman type. This one may be that described as being shown at the Leith Flower Show in Victoria Park in August 1910A subsequent model, from a photo submitted to Flight magazine by John Gibson in February 1912. It is beginning to look more like a Farman-type, but still retains features of the earlier craft above such as the chain-driven propellersThe definitive model moved up to half-scale, 15½ feet long and 12 feet in span, and adopted the layout of Henry Farman, a French aviation pioneer and a type which was very popular in the UK at that time. Again a canard biplane, it had movable ailerons on the wing-tips for control, a single, 7-cylinder rotary engine and the refinement of wheels with rubber suspension added to the landing skis. This was built specifically to exhibit in London and Berlin in March and April of 1910 respectively and was sponsored by the North British Rubber Company to exhibit their rubberised aircraft fabric. The structure was of ash wood, braced by piano wires.
The Gibson Farman-type half-scale biplane, at the company’s workshops in Manderston StreetEven before half-sized Farman model was completed, Gibson had already moved on to the construction of a full-sized version of it – Caledonia No. 1. In July 1910 it was ready and The Scotsman reported it to be 30 feet long and 28 feet in span, with a loaded weight of 700 lbs. It was powered by a 3-cylinder, water-cooled engine of 30 hp, driving a 2-bladed propeller of 6 feet 8 inches at 1,100 rpm. The pilot sat on the lower wing, with the engine to his back and the radiators on either side. In contrast to the model, the vertical tails were mounted one above the other, rather than side-by-side. Construction was of silver spruce, with elm skids, and again it was covered in North British rubberised fabric. The aircraft could be disassembled for transport, and a photo of it exists in a field outside Edinburgh being put back together again. Gibson told the press that the only part of his machine that was not built in Scotland was its engine. He had intended to enter the machine into the Royal Aero Club’s inaugural Scottish flying meeting at Lanark Racecourse in August of that year, but the proprietors were wary of the public relations disasters experienced by other events as a result of amateur flyers who could not convince their homespun machines to take off and barred all but experienced pilots in proven aircraft. Gibson was disappointed to be excluded from the Lanark meet, but this was probably for the best as No. 1 refused to take off.
Gibson’s Caledonia No. 1, probably at Balerno. Photograph donated by John Gibson’s son G. T. Gibson to the National Museums of Scotland and on display at the East Fortune Museum of FlightUndeterred, the machine was rebuilt as Caledonia No. 2, and in August it is reputed to have managed to make some short, controlled hops at Buteland Farm, outside Balerno, with Gibson’s 30 year old son – John G. Gibson (the G was for Gibson!) – at the controls. The main visual changes to No. 2 were the twin canards at the front and the curved supporting skids between them and the wheels (which protected the plane in the event of it nosing-over on take off and landing).
Caledonia No. 2, from photos submitted by John Gibson in August 1910, before it had managed a controlled flight. His son, John G., is at the controls.Gibson undertook some of the flying himself, but as injured in a crash and broke his leg. Thereafter he deferred most of the flight testing to his son – John G. There are mentions online of testing being undertaken on Leith Links, but I can find no references to substantiate this, and as far as I’m aware Buteland Farm was used as their test ground. The Gibsons now had a working aircraft and began soliciting for orders, charging £450 for a complete machine. Full-page spread adverts were placed in the Edinburgh and Leith post office directories:
Gibson’s Aeroplanes advert from 1910-11, from the Edinburgh & Leith Post Office Directory.Planes, Tails, Ailerons, supplied on receipt of measurements and other details on very short notice.
Advert for Gibson’s Aeroplanes, 1910-11
Best materials only used. Your orders solicited for Scottish-built Planes.
Spare parts or complete machines.
Wood Spars cut any length, straight-grained and free from knots.
Aeroplane Fabric, all grades, at factory prices.
We make Aluminium castings from customer’s patterns or drawings. Wood patterns made to order.
We undertake Aeroplane repairs.Nine more machines were built by the company in the next few years, most for sale to private customers. In September 1911, Gibson reported to the press that one of his machines – Caledonia No. 11 – had accidentally but successfully performed a “somersault” in the air when being flown at Cramond by Gordon T. Cooper, the son of the secretary of the Edinburgh Aeronautical Association. In November of that year, one of the Gibson machines was included in the display of the Scottish Aeronautical Society at the National Exhibition, at Kelvingrove in Glasgow.
An American Farman biplane in flight in 1910, with a passenger clinging on to a strut next to the pilot.Of the 11 full-size machines built by the Gibsons, four were written off in crashes, one was destroyed in a fire when on display at an exhibition in Brussels and another met the same fate in the Manderston Street workshop. Progress seems then to have stalled, this is perhaps because John G. had graduated from Edinburgh University as a prize-winner and passed an entry exam to the Indian Civil Service, which gained him a prestigious appointment in London with the HM Office of Works. A larger machine was designed in 1913 and was said to be under construction the following year when the outbreak of war saw it being cancelled. This event saw John G. join the Royal Engineers, and he was twice wounded during the conflict. Post-war he took a civil service job attached to the Air Ministry.
Wooden propeller from a Gibson aeroplane at the National Museums of Scotland Museum of Flight at East Fortune. Given the date, and the size, this may have been fitted to the Farman-type half scale model.During the war, the Caledonian Cycles business was relocated to Dalry Road and the Leith Walk premises and its workshops became the Caledonian Motor Works, with additional workshop premises being taken on Sloan Street and Jameson Place nearby. Business became focussed on providing bodies for lorries and post-war the company would become a principal agent in Scotland for Leyland lorries and buses, with premises taken in King Street, Aberdeen to serve the north-east of Scotland. Later they would become an agent for Morris Commercial Vehicles.
John Gibson (senior) died aged 79, at his home at 19 Pilrig Street in Leith on August 7th 1935. The Scottish newspapers mourned his passing and noted a surprising further string to his bow; he was an acknowledged authority on Egyptology and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquities. John G.’s younger brother – George Thomson Gibson – seems to have largely taken over the running of the company. George was a capable engineer – taking out his first patent for improvements to motorcycle frame joints in 1918. In the 1950s he took out a series of patents for improvements to refuse vehicles and these would become something of a company speciality.
1957 patent by George T. Gibson for a tipping refuse lorryAnother line of business was “Gibson Towers”, which they designed and built for themselves; mobile platforms for working at height. Still based in Leith, a pleasing throwback to their aviation heritage was the continued use of “Aero, Edinburgh” as the telegram address.
A 1956 advert for Gibson TowersGeorge T. died in Edinburgh in 1960 aged 69. John G. died in 1970, aged 80. The company continued for a while after the death of the Gibson brothers, being closed and wound-up in 1975.
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Important reporting on off-the-books measures that some schools take to keep kids with disabilities out of class, rather than putting in place more supports to include them.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/09/us/students-disabilities-informal-removal.html
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Important reporting on off-the-books measures that some schools take to keep kids with disabilities out of class, rather than putting in place more supports to include them.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/09/us/students-disabilities-informal-removal.html
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Important reporting on off-the-books measures that some schools take to keep kids with disabilities out of class, rather than putting in place more supports to include them.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/09/us/students-disabilities-informal-removal.html
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Important reporting on off-the-books measures that some schools take to keep kids with disabilities out of class, rather than putting in place more supports to include them.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/09/us/students-disabilities-informal-removal.html