#lochend — Public Fediverse posts

Steel Suburb: the thread about Lochend’s controvertial Steel Houses

There’s a quiet and well-kept little corner of the Lochend Housing Scheme that is a bit different from the rest. Its houses look distinctly municipal (although they were never “council”), but they are at a lower density than other parts of the scheme; there are bungalows and there are no tenements. You wouldn’t know it to look at it, but underneath the modern external insulation and pebbledash, all of these houses are steel houses. Lets find out how these houses came to be and what sort of houses they are.

Lochend steel houses at Findlay Gardens

In February 1926 the Scottish National Housing Company Ltd. (SNHC) formed a new subsidiary to provide 2,000 steel houses for Scotland; the imaginatively named Second Scottish National Housing Company (Housing Trust) Ltd., (SSNHCHT). The objective of this was to quickly build new housing in areas that needed it, without either making demands on the skilled labour market or the material supply of the traditional building trade; bricks, stone, plaster and cement. By producing the houses out of prefabricated steel components, idle engineering workers could be employed; unskilled workers could quickly erect the houses on prepared sites and there would not be a significant drain on building materials. A further consideration was that there was a deep recession in the Scottish shipbuilding industry, which was projected to last for some years further. By extension, this impacted the wider engineering, steel and coal industries, and Scotland’s industrialists and a number of politicians saw steel houses as a stimulus for these sectors.

The SNHC had been set up in September 1914 to built housing on land owned by the Admiralty adjacent to the new Rosyth Dockyard. Its stated objective was “to carry on the business of housing, town-planning and garden city making” i.e. to develop the Rosyth Garden City for let to dockyard workers. It was arranged along the lines of a public utility company, with dividend limited to 5% and a board stuffed with the worthies of local government of Scotland, including the Lord Provosts of Glasgow and Edinburgh. During the war, they would go on to build some 1,872 houses at Rosyth.

Rosyth Garden City, cottage houses, 1920

The capital for the SSNHCHT steel house programme of the was provided by the government – 50% from the Public Works Loan Board and 50% from the Scottish Board of Health (at a rate of 5% interest, this scheme had to pay itself back!). Its time-scales were ambitious, with only 2 years were allowed to complete and there a £40 penalty for each house that failed to meet its scheduled delivery date. To keep labour demands down, only 10% of the workforce could be from the skilled trades, with penalties for exceeding this proportion. Houses were allocated to the main centres of population, including 750 for Glasgow, 350 for Edinburgh and 300 for Dundee. Five approved types were ordered; 1,000 Weir Houses (in 3 variants), 500 Atholl Houses and 500 Cowieson Houses. The SSNHCHT had to abide by local building regulations and have their proposals approved by the Dean of Guild Courts (the equivalent then of a planning committee). Rents were set to local equivalents and factoring was handled by local agents – in Edinburgh this was Gumley & Davidson. All of the steel houses had coal fires as the only source of heating and hot water and were lit by gas; electricity was ruled out as an economy.

Weir steel houses at Garngad in Glasgow

Steel houses were not without controversy – indeed the government’s initial offer had been a £40 per house subsidy to local authorities that ordered and constructed their own such houses; none had taken it up, which was why they turned to the SNHC. The prime minister, Stanley Baldwin, had to intervene due to the controversy and made the provision of steel houses something of a campaign promise. Mrs Baldwin offered to personally live in one for a month to demonstrate how satisfactory they were.

The socialist movement faced the question of whether to resist them on account of their perceived lack of quality and the labour practices involved in their manufacture versus accepting them as a cheap way to quickly provide modern new houses for slum clearance. This caused a substantial rift at the time; John Wheatley MP (who as Minister of Health had been behind the “Homes for Heroes” council houses of the 1919 programme) spoke unfavourably of them: “the people [do] not want steel houses. [I have] yet to learn that a single one of the thousands who had bought their own houses had ordered a steel house“. The building trades were unhappy that workers employed in fabrication at the factories undercut their rates and that only 10% of the labour could come from their members. Mr Hicks of the Building Trades Union condemned them as “shoddy and insanitary“. His union was in turn accused of protectionism and of trying to prevent underemployed engineering workers and casual labourers from getting steady work on fabricating the houses.

There was also official prejudice against steel houses within Edinburgh; Baillie Mancor of the Town Council said the council wanted “real houses” and not steel houses; Councillor Mrs Eltringham Miller said that these houses were “a gift, and they were not looking forward to what they would cost after they had them.” Councillor Hardie went further and said that these were “shoddy building substitutes” and that the state was adopting a “Mussolini attitude” in forcing steel houses upon local authorities. Nevertheless, the Housing and Planning Committee approved sites in Edinburgh for the scheme on land they had already laid out for municipal housing. 250 were to go to Lochend, where 23 acres were transferred to the SSNHCHT and 100 to the Wardie district; additional land was reserved at Saughton as the Corporation desired 500 steel houses in total and was keen to encourage the SSNHCHT in any way it could.

Work progressed quickly; in July 1926 it was reported that “satisfactory progress” was being made and that the new houses were proving popular with applicants. By August, groundworks were complete and houses were beginning to rise from the ground; many more applications for let were being received every day. Rents were set at £22 per annum for cottage flats, £28/10 for the bungalows and £34 for semi detached houses. In November 1926, The Scotsman reported that the Lochend steel houses were nearing completion, with “quite a batch of Weir houses ready now, and men at work on the gardens, shovelling a rich, dark soil, which augurs well for the gardens of the future.” The paper observed that the houses were “more than empty: they have never been inhabited” and that it was with the “coming of the people and the gardens that they will acquire a personality.”

Lochend was allocated all 5 available types under the scheme, laid out in typical garden city style, the streets taking the name “Findlay” from John R. Findlay, Bt., chairman of the SSNHCHT (the steel houses at Wardie were given the streetnames “Fraser” from Provost Fraser of Dunfermline, who was on the board of directors).

Housing types and distribution of the Lochend Steel Houses

Atholl Cottage Flat

These houses were produced by the Atholl Steel House Company and named after one of its founding partners, the Duke of Atholl, who had envisaged building a steel house in 1919 after touring the idle shipyards of the Clyde. He partnered with the industrialist William Beardmore, whose shipyard and locomotive works were desperate for work, with his steel foundry at Mossend in Lanarkshire ready to provide the plates. Also known as “4 in a block” houses, this style was very popular with the 1920s public housing schemes, offering a good balance between reducing building and population density, construction costs and giving each household its own entry door and garden.

The Atholl Cottage Flat. The house on the right has not been rec-lad, and the steel panel lines are visible. Like the Weir Lanefield, the upper flats were accessed through the side. The narrow central upstairs window is diagnostic when comparing it with the Weir Cottage Flats.

Atholl’s original house was to be a lodge for his own estate, and as such was designed and built to be permanent. The construction of the Atholl House was therefore more substantial than its competitors, requiring 3 to 4 times as much steel. These heavyweight steel walls were load bearing, providing rigidity to the steel framework to which they were attached and therefore no internal cross-bracing was required. The steel was coated on its inner face with granulated cork to prevent condensation and then lined with composite boards, which were painted or wallpapered, eliminating the need for plasterers. Atholl estimated the lifespan of his house to be 60 to 90 years, with that of the Weir and Cowieson being 40 years.

The Weir Houses were produced by G. & J. Weir, engineers to the shipbuilding industry at the Holm Foundry in Cathcart in Glasgow. Weir’s chairman, Viscount Weir, had a particular interest in the idea of prefabricated houses and they would be something the company returned to on numerous occasions. Those of the 1926 scheme were of three distinct types, but all used the same basic structure, of a load bearing timber frame and floors to which a relatively thin skin of steel plates was attached as an external cladding. Their lighter construction and lower labour costs than other steel houses meant that they were the cheapest, and Weirs therefore got 50% of the total order for the scheme. A feature of all Weir houses was exposed internal copper plumbing; it could not easily be buried within the walls or their thin insulation layer, and Lord Weir felt it was better to make it accessible for repairs, so was simply clipped along the inner partitions. The Weir Paragon House of 1944 inherited this design feature.

General construction diagram of the Weir Steel Houses; a wooden frame sitting on a concrete base, with lightweight steel panels cladding the outside.

In 1925, Weirs built a demonstration steel bungalow in Grosvenor Square in just 10 days:

10 days to complete a house. The Weir demonstration house in Grosvenor Square

The Weir Houses were the most controversial of the steel houses as Weirs paid their workers at the rates of the engineering trades from which they were drawn, which were lower than those of the building trades. Weirs were accused of building “steel houses of a very inferior kind by paying low wages under sweated conditions“. In an editorial, The Scotsman called them “a pig in a poke” (an unknown entity) but that people would want to live in them anyway and prevailed upon Weirs to improve their wages. Atholl avoided this scandal by paying building trades rates to their prefabrication workers in the factories.

Weir Eastwood Bungalow

The correspondent from The Scotsman who was sent to review the house noted that “the Living room is a good size, and the kitchenette or scullery is larger than that of many a modern brick house. The two bedrooms are a sensible shape“. The Eastwood, like its siblings, featured lots of built-in storage cupboards and a built-in coal bunker in the kitchen. The price, excluding groundworks, was set at £365 per house.

Weir Eastwood Bungalow at Lochend, this pair of houses were in a very original condition at the time this photograph was captured.

Weir Douglas Semi-Detached House

The Douglas was the largest of the Weir Houses and was a semi-detached, two-storey cottage house. The ground floor contained a sitting room with “handsome fireplace”, kitchen, larder, bathroom and – something of a novelty for the time – a large under-stairs cupboard. Upstairs were the three bedrooms, with the master bedroom running the full width of the house and having an unusually wide casement window to the front. This was the only house of the programme that had 3 bedrooms; all the other having 2. The price, excluding groundworks, was £390 per house.

Weir Douglas Semi. The house on the right is in a very original condition, that on the left has modern windows, roof, external insulation and cladding and porch. Note the five-pane first floor window.

Weir Blanefield Cottage Flat

This was the cottage flat in the in the Weir range. It was basically a 2-storeyed version of the Eastwood Bungalow with the upper flats accessed by internal staircases accessed from the side. The upstairs kitchens had floors strengthened with timber laid on a damp-proof layer to protect the steel beneath from “the vigorous scrubbings” of the housewife. The price, excluding ground works, was set at £357 per house.

Weir Blanefield Cottage Flat. In a relatively original condition excepting the modern UPVC windows in 3 of the 4 flats. The easiest way to discern this from the Atholl cottage flat is the lack of the narrow central upstairs window to the front, and the upstairs outer window is offset somewhat from that on the ground floor

Cowieson Terraced House

F. D. Cowieson had trained as an architect, but found success in prefabricated wood and iron buildings, with the company based in St. Rollox in Glasgow. Initially these were simple agricultural structures such as barns and sheds, but soon the company was offering halls and huts, pavilions and even cinemas. During WW1 the company turned to building bus and lorry bodies – particularly ambulances – and they would later become much better known for this side of the business. They also experimented with “brieze block” houses, a single pair of which were trialled in Edinburgh at the Riversdale Demonstration Site.

1920s advert for Cowiesons, describing the range of prefabricated structures that the company offered.

The Cowieson Houses built in the programme were of a four-in-a-block terrace and like the Weir Houses, used a load bearing wooden structure to which a steel cladding was applied. The roof was originally asbestos tiles.

Cowieson Houses at Lochend the three houses on the left have been re-roofed, externally insulated and pebbledashed; that on the right has not and looks to have its original roof also.Cowieson Houses in Dundee, built under the 1926-7 scheme by the SSNHCHT. This photo has been included as the exterior is in its original condition and the light paint shows up the steel panel lines to good effect.

In July 1927, Lochend was proudly exhibited to King George V and Queen Mary, who made a royal visit on 11th of that month. Before proceeding to Lochend, the visitors stopped at the Corporation’s newest housing scheme at Prestonfield, where the King and Queen each planted a tree to inaugurate the development. They then headed to Lochend through the Holyrood Park, with 35,000 school children turned out to line the route. Further crowds greeted them at Lochend and they made a slow drive through the new neighbourhood, guided by Lord Provost Stevenson and two councillors.

Their majesties expressed pleasure at the fine layout of this garden city and were greatly interested in the many types of construction in evidence as well as the openness of the place and tasteful arrangement of the gardens.

Edinburgh Evening News, 11th July 1927

The Royal Party at Lochend Drive. The Queen is leading the King onto the pathway, lined with a neat picket fence.

A halt was made at 49 Findlay Gardens, a Weir bungalow, where an inspection was made of the house occupied by the Hill family and their two young children. Mr Hill’s occupation was given as the manager of an egg merchant, T. Howden & Co., in Leith, which gives an idea of the sort of persons who were living in the houses. The residents were asked if the house had been cold in winter; yes it had been, but it was not now (it was July!). The next house to be inspected was the Atholl House of Mrs Wilson at 7 Findlay Medway, where they remarked on the sensible layout of the interior and were intrigued by a bed settee in the living room, the Queen sat on it and plumped up the cushions.

The householders were apparently not informed in advance that they were about to receive their guests and the first thing they knew was the knock on the door from the police. One of the housewives was reputedly peeling potatoes when they arrived and said of the Queen: “She’s a verra hamely lady” and that “Ye hav’na much crack for folk o’ that kind, and ye’re a bit tongue-tacket, but she was that kind and natural, and said everything was very nice“.

The King and Queen leaving 58 Lochend Avenue, an Airey tenement flat

On leaving the steel houses, the royal party then proceeded to some of the Airey Duo-slab houses; Mr & Mrs Galloway at 58 Lochend Avenue and Mrs Dickson at 34 Lochend Drive.

In the end, an additional 500 steel houses were erected by the SSNHCHT above and beyond its original target, taking the total to 2,252. All were completed by the end of 1928 and the stock, along with those at Lochend, was passed to the ownership and management of the Scottish Special Housing Agency in 1963 when it took over the assets of the Scottish National Housing companies. Although they were only given a 40-60 year lifespan by their builders, most were first refurbished between 1978 and 1983 and in 3 years time they will have their centenary. Nearly all are still standing and most have been substantially upgraded with external insulation and rendering, double glazing, central heating, new roofs etc. A handful remain in an earlier state, usually those that had been bought very early under “right to buy” legislation. The tenants of those that were not bought early campaigned to have them upgraded rather than demolished, and most of those were subsequently bought (it was not possible to buy a defective house).

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#Lochend #Logan #Restalrig #StMargaret

Hawkhill: the thread about its House and the marvellous things that once went on there

If old gate piers could talk, they could tell many a tale of who once passed through them, could they not?
There’s an old gate pier on Lochend Road. What would it tell us if it could? Would it have interesting tales to tell? Shall we find out?

A Georgian gate pier where it shouldn’t be? 151 Lochend Road, Edinburgh.

So why is there a Georgian gate pier leading to 1980s housing? Well of course there used to be a Georgian house here before there were 1980s houses. Given this area is known as Hawkhill, the house was sensibly called Hawkhill House. The name Hawkhill is descriptive and literal – there was once a hill here were hawks must have dwelled. It’s mentioned as Halkehill in 1560, and shown as Halkhill in Adair’s map of 1682.

“Halkhil” on John Adair’s Map of Midlothian, 1682. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

Once part of the Barony of Restalrig, these lands found their way into the possession of Lord Balmerino after the Logans were dispossessed of them. He in turn lost them – and his head – for his part in the Jacobite rising of 1745. The Crown gave (or sold) them on to Trinity College & Hospital, who feud a small estate of 20 acres off of them at Hawkhill in the 1750s.

Outline of the Hawkhill lands on Roy’s Lowland Map, c. 1750. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

The feuar was Andrew Pringle, Lord Alemoor, a judge, senator of the College of Justice, Solicitor General for Scotland and a Lord of Session. “He had an unrivalled reputation as a lawyer and pleader“. He was the son of John Pringle, Lord Haining of The Haining in Selkirkshire, who also was a respected judge and one time Senator of the College of Justice.

Andrew Pringle, Lord Alemoor, by William Brassey Hole. CC-by-NC National Galleries Scotland

Alemoor had John Adam, son of William and older brother to Robert and James, build him a small but perfectly formed villa on the land. Overshadowed as an architect by his younger brothers, John was more involved in the business administration, but was nevertheless a fine and competent architect. Hawkhill was squat but perfectly formed, topped with two large and distinctive chimneys.

Lord Alemoor’s Villa at Hawkhill near Edinburgh by John Adam

A later description from its sale notes:

“two lofty and finely-proportioned public rooms, library, five bedrooms, two dressing rooms, hot and cold baths, large kitchen, laundry, and other accommodation is supplied… There is a lodge for the gardener; stable, coach-house and other offices which are all ample; also a high-walled garden, well stocked and productive, and a large greenhouse. There is about 2 and a half acres of detached garden ground, bounded for 400 yards on the north side by a high wall planted with good fruit trees. The remainder of the property consists of a park of about 10 acres, and the shrubberies, in which there are some fine old trees.”

A description of Hawkhill in 1867

Alemoor was a man of letters. Sir Adam Ferguson took James Boswell to sup with him at Hawkhill. The latter was reportedly left impressed. He was “a very spirited and successful improver” and kept a fine garden, planted a good stock of trees and had a large parkland for sheep. But after the law, Alemoor’s main passion was science. He was supported in this by his factor, James Hoy. He had an observatory erected on the top of the Hawkhill to the latest designed by John Smeaton. We can see it and the house poking out in a late 18th century watercolour

Hawkhill, the observatory and the house in the distance, beyond Lochend house and Doocot. From the Hutton Papers vol. 2. CC-BY-SA 4.0 National Library of Scotland

Alemoor had Hoy take and keep regular, accurate temperature records for 7 years. Hoy kept this practice up at Castle Gordon where he went next to work and his data set was used to help calculate the first accurate, average temperature for Scotland. On June 4th 1769, Alemoor, Hoy and Dr James Lind (something of a polymath and also known as a silhouette artist1) observed the transit of Venus across the sun, each using a different telescope and each keeping time accurately. The Astronomer Royal commended their results as particularly accurate. This was an event of major world scientific importance – Captain James Cook had been sent all the way to Tahiti to observe it – and perhaps the first “crowd-sourced” scientific endeavour?

Excerpt from Dr James Lind’s letter to the Astronomer RoyalExcerpt from Dr James Lind’s letter to the Astronomer Royal

1. Dr James Lind, 1736-1812, an Edinburgh Doctor and not to be confused with Dr James Lind 1716-1794, the Edinburgh Doctor known for investigations into scurvy. I made this mistake myself and am indebted to Emma Schmidt for the correction. ↩︎

Alemoor died in 1776, the house passing to his brother who likely sold it to pay of their fathers’ debts on the home estate of The Haining. It came into the possession now of Captain Gideon Johnstone, RN. Gideon had been a captain at the Battle of Chesapeake Bay in 1781 but never got another command again after that. He retired to Hawkhill, dying there in 1788. The house passed to his brother John Johnstone of Alva, “a corrupt Nabob of the East India Company“.

John Johnstone esq. of Alva, right, by Henry Raeburn. Miss Wedderburn is centre, here niece Betty Johnstone on the left.

Johnstone went to India as a clerk, avoided the “Black Hole of Calcutta” which claimed his brother and found himself as an artillery officer. He worked his way up to being a provincial governor but returned from India in a scandal, fired by his former friend General Clive on the subject of taking bribes from local princes. He therefore came back overshadowed but fabulously rich, so retired to a quiet life as a country gentleman of leisure on the estate of Alva.

Hawkhill was given to his niece, Elizabeth – Betty – Johnstone, on the left in the painting above. She was the youngest sister of Margaret Johnstone, Lady Ogilvy, who was sentenced to death after the ’45 for her part in encouraging her husband in his support of the rising. He fled to France and she did the same, escaping Edinburgh castle by swapping clothes with her washer woman and walking out the gate. Aunt Betty was unmarried but doted on by her nieces. They took Aaron Burr to visit her, who wrote in his diary “Pretty place. View of the Forth.” he noted he had a sumptuous meal and Madeira wine. This would be about 1808. Who was Aaron Burr? He was an America lawyer and politician, 3rd Vice President of the United States. He is noted for having “assassinated” Alexander Hamilton (former Secretary of the Treasury) in a duel in 1804. He was in Europe on a self-imposed exile.

Aaron Burr by John Vanderlyn, 1802

Betty died of old age at Hawkhill in 1813. She passed away during a thunder storm, looking to the sky and remarking “Sirs, what a night for me to be fleeing through the air” before expiring. She is buried with the Fergusons of Pitfour, also of her family, in Greyfriars. Hawkhill went to her cousin, James Raymond Johnstone esg. of Alva, who had inherited John Johnstone’s estate and ill gotten fortune from India. He gave it in life rent to his sister Ann Elizabeth and her husband James Gordon of Craig, an Advocate.

Hawkhill as it was in the mid 19th century, much the same as Georgian times except the added conservatory. Note the trees, sunken garden to the right. Perhaps Ann Elizabeth Johnstone strolling in the foreground. From Old & New Edinburgh vol. 5 by James Grant

Ann Elizabeth died at Hawkhill in 1851, at which point the whole estate was put up for sale. The advert noted that the lands had value in quarrying and felling the trees planted by Alemoor.

The Scotsman, March 10th 1852

The lands were now split up. The hill of Hawkhill itself began to be quarried for its whinstone for use in street paving setts. Alemoor’s trees were felled and his sheep park was dug up for clay to feed a brickworks built on the site. Worse was to come when a tallow melting works was built in the eastern portion of the park land. The works belonged to Alexander Beveridge of Leith; “margarine manufacturer and tallow melter, employing 17 men and 13 women” and a member of The Incorporation of Candemakers of Edinburgh.

A brick from the Hawkhill Brickworks, found in the Warriston Cemetery © Self

The reek from the tallow works and dust from the quarrying both ended up in court cases from disgruntled neighbours. The “Tallow Melting Case” found in favour of the works, and the works and the stench went on.

Scotsman, 1866

Thomas Field, “slate merchant, brick and tile maker and quarry master” lost his case and the brickworks was ordered to shut; quarrying went on however. In 1877, three boys were hospitalised in Leith after playing with blasting powder from the quarry. A young woman working in the Tallow Works lost an arm to machinery in 1877 in horrible circumstances.

Scotsman, 17 Sep 1883

The site of the closed brickworks was sold off and became the Hawkhill Recreation Fields, a commercial enterprise. It was used for amateur sports, professional football, dog racing, as a showground and fairground. Then on 1 October 1888 something quite incredible happened at Hawkhill…

At 5:15PM, the slight figure of “Professor” James Baldwin strode across the field, packed to capacity. In one hand he had a “parachute umbrella” in the other he took hold of a trapeze suspended from a hot air balloon. Then the balloon was let go…

“DROP FROM CLOUDLAND” advert, from the Scotsman, September 1888

The balloon rose quickly to 1,200 feet and Baldwin let go of the trapeze. He fell 300 feet before opening his “umbrella”. He fell to the ground, landing gently and exactly where he wanted to.

BALDWIN’s DROP FROM THE CLOUDS. © British Library

Baldwin was a circus acrobat, tightrope walker and all round daredevil with a keen interest in ballooning. This was a trick he had first performed the year before in the US and he had brought it to Europe. It was a sensation and he made a fortune.

“Baldwin’s Drop from the Clouds”, poster advert for London in 1888

Baldwin made the first ever parachute jump in the US in 1887. In 1888 he made the first in the UK. The Houses of Parliament were suspended in order that members could go see for themselves before deciding whether or not to ban his act as suicidal. On the 1st October 1888, he made the first parachute jump in Scotland at Hawkhill.

London Illustrated News illustration of Baldwin’s act.

Such was the popularity of the act, that Hawkhill exceeded capacity. The proprietor of the next door farm at Lochend, Fanny Jackson, successfully sued Baldwin’s organisers for £30 for damages done to gates, fences and crops by the crowds who invaded her farmland. Ten years later on July 5th 1899, a balloon jumper act returned. This time it was Miss Alma Beaumont, “Lady Parachutist” who leapt from the skies as part of a huge show and fair put on at Hawkhill to coincide with the Highland Show.

Scotsman advert, July 4th 1899Alma Beaumont. Via Yeovil Virtual Museum

In 1890, a balloon was flown from Edinburgh International Exhibition at Meggetland and came down safely at Hawkhill grounds. From 1888 to about 1900, Hawkhill House itself was used as a residential boarding house, run by “Mrs Donaldson, late of Wooton Lodge, Cumin Place, the Grange“. By 1902 it was owned by Jonathan Newey & Sons, who ran a firelighter manufacturing business on the site. The quarry was worked out by about 1913, having completely consumed the Hawk Hill in the process (in case you’re wondering where it went as it’s quite clearly no longer there). In 1924, Leith bakers J. Smith & Sons built a modern, industrial bakery there. It later became part of the Sunblest empire.

Advert for Smiths’ of Hawkhill, Fife Free Press, 15th February 1958

The recreation grounds were bought after WW1 by the Leith Education Authority for use as school and public playing fields. Amateur football was allowed to continue, but professional sport and dog racing was banned. They continued to let the park out for sheep grazing. In 1920 they came into possession of the Edinburgh Education Authority, who tendered for “100 carts of good black soil” to be delivered to improve the playing fields. Many a local school, scouts and amateur sporting event would take place there over the next 70 years. When Leith Academy moved it its new site, it got on-site playing fields (“Academy Park”), and Hawkhill Fields were sold off for housing. Alemoor Crescent and Park were built, recalling the house’s first Laird, Andrew Pringle.

The tallow melting works closed in 1968, taking its stench with it, and was replaced by the council housing “multis” of Hawkhill Court and Nisbet Court (the Nisbets of Craigentinny were an old local landowning family, but never actually of Hawkhill.)

Hawkhill Court and Nisbet Court, 1977, © Edinburgh City Libraries

Hawkhill House by this point was unoccupied but remarkably much of its original John Adam Georgian interiors were still in place, if somewhat decrepit. The Georgian Society campaigned to preserve it.

Survey photos of Hawkhill House for the Ministry of Works, 1966. From Canmore’s entry for Hawkhill House.

But it deteriorated further and was soon bricked up not long after that photo study, it is looking very sad in the photo below taken in the early 1970s, not long before it was demolished in (I think) 1972. The site was added to the playing fields.

Hawkhill House, early 1970s. Unknown provenance (I’ve looked for it!)

We can see 130 years of transition at Hawkhill in this animated overlay of maps.

Animated map transition of Hawkhill, 1817 to 1944. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

Before finishing, I’d like to just say thanks to the ever helpful and knowledgeable Fergus Smith for the quick lesson (late) last night about how property could, or could not be, inherited in Scotland before 1868. It really helped me with this and saved a lot of time in working out some of the ownership. Thanks Fergus!

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.

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#Lochend #Logan #Restalrig #StMargaret