home.social

#fisherrow — Public Fediverse posts

Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #fisherrow, aggregated by home.social.

  1. The Innocent: the thread about Scotland’s oldest railway tunnel and how it revolutionised the city

    Writing on the topic of the Scotland Street Tunnel, it’s hard not to stumble into the rabbit hole of railway tunnels and look at another, older, rope-worked incline tunnel in Edinburgh – that of St Leonard’s – better known these days by the moniker The Innocent.

    At 560 yards, it’s just a little over half the length of Scotland Street and its 1-in-30 gradient is a little less severe than the latter’s 1-in-27. It’s also less roomy, with a 19½ x 14¾ feet cross section vs. 24 x 24 feet. Like Scotland Street, it was worked by gravity downhill and by a static steam engine at the top of the incline to haul waggons uphill by rope. It has a reasonable claim to be Scotland’s oldest railway tunnel – Dundee’s 330 yard long Law Tunnel was completed over a year before it, but traffic started running through the Innocent a few months before that on the Dundee & Newtyle Railway.

    Bartholomew Post Office Map, 1865, showing the Innocent Tunnel and St Leonard’s Station to the left. The colours represent municipal electoral wards. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

    First things first – the formal name for the railway was the Edinburgh & Dalkeith Railway so what’s with it being known as the Innocent Railway ? One frequently repeated explanation is that nobody died, or was seriously injured, during the railway’s operational life. Let’s clear that up now – people did die and others were injured on this railway (more on that later), so that’s not where the name comes from. Rather, it comes from how “innocently” backwards the railway, with its plodding horse-hauled traction and ramshackle facilities seemed compared to the rival steam-powered “whizzing, whistling, sorting, buffing and blowing railways and having one’s imagination exasperated by their frantic speed“. It was in Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal of January 1846 where the name first appeared in print, as a gentle nickname. By this time the railway was 15 years old but already belonged firmly to a previous generation and had recently purchased by the bigger and more modern North British Railway.

    Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal, No. 105, January 1846

    Oddly, even Chambers gets it wrong, sayings “[it] never breaks bones” and “a friend of ours calls it ‘The Innocent Railway’, as being so peculiar for its indestructive character“. Tell that to the young woman who fell between two waggons on Saturday 3rd March 1838 and had her skull fatally crushed! Or to the passengers of the Portobello stagecoach who, on Monday 10th August 1840, had an empty train of waggons collide with their conveyance on a level crossing, injuring a number of them.

    FATAL ACCIDENT – Caledonian Mercury – 5th March 1838

    Construction wasn’t incident free either. Initial borings of the tunnel commenced at Duddingston in July 1827 and appear to have proceeded steadily and without hitch until February 1829 when a workman was killed and 8 received a variety of injuries – many serious – when 8 yards of masonry archwork, 30 tons of stone blocks, collapsed on them. Robert Inglis lost his life, leaving a widow and two young children; Robert Mercer had his right leg amputated by Mr Liston at the Royal Infirmary; James Gilmour suffered fractured ribs. So the Innocent may have had a lesser rate of incident than its competitors, but it’s evidently not true that there were none and that no serious injuries were incurred or lives lost during its operations. However they were obviously proud of their safety record, as its called out in an 1832 advert:

    “Without the slightest semblance of accident”, The Scotsman – 1st September 1832

    The Innocent opened for business in 1831 and the Edinburgh Evening Courant reported in August that year that it was then “in full operation” with trains of waggons “re-issuing twelve to fifteen tons of coals, with the speed of a mail coach” as they came out of the tunnel on the haulage rope.

    Coal was the reason the railway was built – to bring the black riches from the Midlothian pits around Millerhill, Sheriffhall and south of Dalkeith, and from a branch to Cowpits in East Lothian, into the city of Edinburgh, at a depot in St. Leonards. A further branch extended to the harbour at Fisherrow for import or export of coal – this harbour soon proved not to be a useful destination and so the route was extended on a new branch to the Port of Leith. To the south, the Marquess of Lothian would build an extension across the South Esk river as far as his pits at Arniston at significant personal expense and the Duke of Buccleuch took a branch from Dalkeith to his pits around Smeaton.

    The 1825 survey of the route by its engineer, James Jardine, highlighted for clarity. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

    In the mid-1820s, coal could come into Edinburgh either from Lanarkshire – by the Union Canal – from Fife or Northumberland – through the Port of Leith – or locally from East and Midlothian – by cart. However, the winter weather frequently strangled supplies by all 3 of these channels and as a result the growing city frequently suffered from winter fuel shortages, as deliveries dwindled and prices increased. What was needed was a more reliable and cheaper way to bring local coal into the city – a railway was thought to be such a way. Interested gentlemen issued a prospectus for the Mid Lothian Railway from Newbattle to Edinburgh in the winter of 1824. They forecast the best Midlothian coal could be sold in Edinburgh at 8s per ton if brought in by the railway, 40% cheaper when compared with the then market rate of 11s 6d per ton. It was therefore unsurprising that the Lothian “Coal Lords” were all early supporters – Archibald Primrose, 4th Earl of Rosebery; Walter Montagu Douglas Scott, 5th Duke of Buccleuch; Sir John Hope of Pinkie, 11th Baronet; Francis Wemyss Charteris Douglas, 8th Earl of Wemyss & 4th Earl of March; and John Kerr, 7th Marquess of Lothian.

    The Mid Lothian Railway soon became the Edinburgh & Dalkeith Railway of the above map. It re-used some of the trackbed of an even older horse-drawn railway, the Edmonstone Waggonway, which had opened for bsiness in August 1818. This line connected pits at Millerhill with a depot at Little France on the lands of Lt. Col. John Wauchope of Edmonstone & Niddrie Marischal. The Innocent threatened Wauchope’s older route and he successfully objected to its 1825 Parliamentary Bill. When a second Bill succeeded in 1826 he changed his mind and came to an agreement with the promoters. This allowed the use of some of his existing trackbed, to have his pits connected to the new railway and also to be paid a share of all the coal being carried across his lands. As a result, the Edmonstone Waggonway was surplus to requirements and was gone by 1831 when the Innocent commenced operations. Edmonstone Coal was soon being advertised for sale at St. Leonards, “direct from the pit head“.

    Looking up the “Innocent Tunnel” in 2009, with the modern cycle path laid down its centre. CC-by-NC 2.0, Peter Reed via Flickr

    The Innocent found itself a roaring success and was soon carrying over 300 tons of coal a day, all of it (except through the tunnel) by horse power alone. The colliers all provided their own horses and waggons, relieving the railway of having to oversee this aspect of operations. In 1836, a newspaper as far off as the Londonderry Standard reported that “the immense load” of a train weighing 54 tons was moved a distance of 6 miles by just 2 horses.

    A Waggonway – at Tanfield on Tyneside. The horse provided the means to move the waggon on the level or uphill. Going downhill it was tethered at the rear and the waggonman would control the speed of descent using the large wooden brake lever. The Coal Waggon – Northumberland Archives Ref. ZMD 78/14

    But it wasn’t just a case of bringing the coal into the city, the railway also promised to revolutionise how the city’s fuel supply was sold and distributed. At this time, people bought their coal from a preferred merchant and would specify the quality and origin, which depended on the particular pit and seam it was cut from. Some coals produced more light, some more heat, some burned with less smoke, some were cheaper, etc. These were sold like brands, e.g. the Marquess of Lothian’s Great Main Coal or Sir John Hope’s Craighall Jewel Coal, but customers were reliant on the Carters to deliver it to them and had to trust that they were getting what they had paid for. The railway would break the stranglehold of the Carters, who were widely thought to be overpriced and dishonest, selling coal of dubious quality and volumes on the side, and selling direct to the public.

    Banner of the Incorporated Trade of the Carters of Leith. © Edinburgh City Libraries

    The railway promised only to supply coal from named and trusted pits (those of the Lothian Coal Lords who backed it, naturally) and hand-picked a selected number of coal merchants to handle the trade from its St. Leonards depot. Neither the railway nor their merchants actually had any stores of coal of their own at the depot, these were the property of the customer’s chosen Collier so it came direct from their stocks. However the company employed a “Weigher“, Robert Gibb, whose job it was to ensure that the weight and type of coal that left the yard matched the customer order; signed and sealed.

    Notice in the Edinburgh & Leith Post Office Directory, 1832-33, explaining the operation of the Innocent’s coal sale operation to customers.

    oGibb soon proved that the Carters were indeed swindling customers and delivering inferior quality and underweight shipments, catching them red handed. He followed a Carter who had had accidentally left his paperwork behind at the depot and watched as a lady in Alva Street took delivery of the load. Making enquiries with her, he found that she had a receipt showing she had paid for 20cwt of the Duke of Hamilton’s Great Lanarkshire Coal from the canal, but he knew from his paperwork that the cart had delivered 18cwt of Sir John Hope’s Cowpits Coal from the railway: the Carter had swapped the paperwork over. The railway was quick to act and took out notices in the newspapers and the Post Office Directory to let it be known that their officers would be following and watching the Carters and that customers should only accept coals with a Weigher’s certificate signed and stamped by Gibb himself. They also let it be known that the dishonest Carter had been turned over to the Sheriff and that any others caught cheating would never again be allowed to transport railway coal.

    Caution to the Public Against Fraud in Coals – Edinburgh Evening Courant, 31st March 1832

    To add further checks against fraud, the Weigher’s certificate would be marked with the time of dispatch and customers were to reject any coal delivered more than an hour after that time. This meant it was unlikely that there had been time to adulterate the load. Customers were also instructed to under no circumstances to allow the carter to keep the certificate after delivery, in case he should try use it again. Any one suspecting foul play was invited to inspect the Weigher’s register at the St. Leonards yard. The Railway was thereby guaranteeing both the quality and weight of the coal received, “to secure to the consumer what he has hitherto been little accustomed to, a knowledge of what kind of coal he buys, and of what price he really pays for it“. And with that, the Innocent Railway had totally disrupted the Edinburgh coal market – forever and for the better. The system was soon further improved, by contracting the management of the sale and delivery of coal to one Michael Fox, one of the line’s original engineers. He promised that all deliveries would be made in his own carts, “always being of the best quality and full weight.

    Michael Fox’s advert for railway coal. The Scotsman – 1st September 1832

    The railway – or rather Michael Fox again – was also quick to catch on that people would pay to ride along the rails as passengers and that they would bring in additional revenue. Starting in June 1832, he put a carriage on the rails and advertised it at 6d per passenger thus introducing the passenger train to Edinburgh. This was his own initiative and a runaway success, the Railway ended up buying it off him in 1836. His service carried 150,000 passengers in its first year and brought in revenue of £4,000. As a passenger railway, per track mile, this made it busier than the steam-hauled Liverpool & Manchester Railway. By September that year, Fox was advertising a timetabled service between St. Leonards, Sheriffhall and Fisherrow, with inside and outside seats (9d and 6d respectively) and that he had winter-proofed the former to “render them dry and safe from the effects of the weather“.

    RAILWAY COACH – Edinburgh Evening Courant – 4th June 1832

    Michael Fox was obviously something of a serial entrepreneur – in 1835 he was advertising “swimmers’ specials”, trains from St. Leonards that would take bathers to Portobello or Seafield to take the waters. As far as I’m aware, nobody ever troubled to make an illustration of the Innocent Railway at work, so this double-decker horse-drawn rail carriage will have to do.

    Engraving of a horse-hauled railway carriage crossing a river

    oWhen the technically more advanced North British Railway pushed south from Edinburgh to Berwick, the Innocent at first objected then allowed itself to be bought for the princely sum of £113,000. The NBR ripped up the horse-drawn “Scotch Gauge” Innocent and relaid it as a Standard Gauge steam-powered railway in 1847. They also took on the Marquess of Lothian’s railway as far as Gorebridge and rebuilt this in a similar fashion, thereby adding the adding the first push south of the railway that would eventually become the Waverley Route to Carlisle. The Innocent remained open until 1968 as an important but overlooked branch line into the city for coal, brewery and warehousing traffic. It was steam worked until almost the end, the old J35 engines “manfully struggling up the gradient“, sometimes taking multiple attempts to reach the top. “If they avoided asphyxiation in the hell hole, the crews were rewarded with a good dram from the bond“. The route that they followed is now a popular walking and cycle route, officially known as the Innocent Railway.

    A J35 locomotive making the run uphill for the Innocent Tunnel. This was its second attempt, having stalled on the first.

    As a footnote, the Innocent may not have been so deserving of that name if its plans to tunnel its way north into the city centre had ever come to anything. One option was a 900 yard tunnel emerging in Holyrood Park, running on the surface from there, the other a monster 2,200 yard bore emerging at Waverley Station from the south – a great “what if” of Edinburgh transport history.

    Early Edinburgh railways. The Edinburgh & Dalkeith (Innocent) in light blue, the Edinburgh & Glasgow in green, the North British in brown and the Edinburgh, Leith & Granton in Yellow.

    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:

    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
  2. 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 Strzelecki

    John 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 1907

    It’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 propellers

    The 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 Street

    Even 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 Flight

    Undeterred, 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.
    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.

    Advert for Gibson’s Aeroplanes, 1910-11

    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 lorry

    Another 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 Towers

    George 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.

    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:

    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