Edinburgh

[Lucky Poet]

I seem to have a reverse Midas touch for abandoned places - this one having a new looking fence around it, being the abandoned lighthouse at the end of the western breakwater thing at Leith Docks, after a hell of a long walk:



Still, we do us much as we can...










Down at the older part of Leith Docks, one of those hydraulic accumulator towers caught at the bottom right of shot:


And a much-photographed old swing bridge:


Taking aim at the new flats:

[Lucky Poet]

Nearly forgot to add, if you turn around from the first shot and walk west a minute, you get this slightly sad scene, telling you where the money ran out for the ever so fabbo seaside stuff that was being built before the housing bubble went pop:

[Lucky Poet]

I rather like recent the wee vogue for leaving menshies in stone form on the bit of flat ground just south of Arthur's Seat's summit:


And on the way down. Seriously, if you're in Edinburgh, feeling energetic, and the weather is agreeable, go climb cos the view is quite something:

[banjo]

lp,mrs banjo and i are heading for that very spot tomorrow to celebrate our 29th wedding anniversary.a couple of days booked and a few places to visit.looking forward to it.

[The Egg Man]

lp,mrs banjo and i are heading for that very spot tomorrow to celebrate our 29th wedding anniversary.a couple of days booked and a few places to visit.looking forward to it.

Does that mean Lucky Poet will be joining you and Mrs banjo for the celebration?

[The Egg Man]

It seems Edinburgh Councillors have decided to terminate the trams at Haymarket.

Of all the crazy decisions associated with this project, this has to be the worst. It's a bit like a tram line from Glasgow Airport terminating at Paisley Road Toll.

Madness.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home ... -1.1119871

[yoker brian]

Thats what happens when major projects are designed by committee - all tram or light rail transit schemes constructed in the UK in the last 20 years (Manchester, Croydon, Nottingham, Sheffield, Wolverhampton/Birmingham) and most recently the Luas in the Irish Capital, have faced similar problems. Over Budget & Delivered Late

[BrigitDoon]

[Roxburgh]

Politicians specialise in spending other people's money and nobody seems to mind .... at least they keep voting for the same clowns.

[Lucky Poet]

Sidestepping the Council Train Set for happier things, this weekend (24th & 25th of September) sees Edinburgh's 21st Doors Open Day. Details >here<.

Unrelated, the recently reopened Chambers Street museum's looking good. (I'm still in the habit of calling it the Royal Scottish Museum, though it's not been called that in quite a few years. I wrote this while eating a Marathon and pondering some Opal Fruits.)

The new entrance bit, nicely using previously hidden vaults:


Main hall*, sadly now sans fish ponds but nicely spruced up:


A few odds and sods, starting with this rather neat old flying cigar tube hung on a wall:


Always slightly disturbing to see things from your earlier life turn up in museums. This thing's CPU packed a mighty 1 MHz wallop:


Big clock, being the centre of attention as it makes clunking noises and jiggles around:


Though it'll take a while to get used to the changes it's good to be able to skulk around the place again, and now it's September you can actually get near it without being trampled to death by tourists, which is always a bonus.

*If you visit, please bear in mind that you can be prosecuted for not taking a photo of this view.

[Lucky Poet]

I was having a nosey at some old photos, and remembered I'd promised an HG bod ages ago that I'd find these photos and post them. It be inside the Tron Kirk, on the High Street. >This<, in other words. It's not been opened inside for a few years now, as the Council seems to be unsure what to do with the thing. Historical shell for sure, it continues to bravely obstruct the traffic at one end of the South Bridge (built long after it, and the cause for it to be about a third less wide than it was when built in the mid seventeenth century). Abandoned by its congregation in the 1950s, some excuse or other led the powers that be to entirely gut the building; usually the sort of thing that gives historically-minded souls a dose of the vapours, but they accidentally found something rather bloody interesting (well, I think so).

Before the Bridges and other developments punched through it, the High Street was a single street, leading into the Lawnmarket and so on of course, lined on either side by an unbroken series of closes, set about 25 feet apart, as they had been since the founding of the burgh. Being rather wider, the new kirk would cross several of these. Getting to the point, they removed the heads of several closes, but only demolished what they needed to, leaving much undisturbed beneath the floor level of the new construction; when the interior of the kirk was removed in turn, a few centuries later, lo and behold: a preserved section of a cobbled close (actually Marlin's Wynd, or Merlin's Wynd depending on your choice of tha era's flexible spelling), intact up to the first course of stonework, complete with cellars. These were taken in 2006, btw...



Note the supporting pillar resting on a resourcefully improvised foundation:

[Lucky Poet]

Oh and from the sublime-ish to the ridiculous, here's Edinburgh Council reverting to type:

[Doorstop]

[Lucky Poet]

Before I totally forget, here's a few from Doors Open Day last week.

The spiffy (and very steep) medical lecture theatre at Teviot, still used for lectures and dissections, and complete with a rather underweight audience member:










There's a wee museum elsewhere in the building, but with no photography allowed - lots of human specimens ye see, including William Burke's preserved skeleton. Cheerful.

More spiritual, across the Meadows is Barclay Church (or Barclay Viewforth Church as it is now - being >this<), one of the most beautiful and unusual churches in town, and one-time tallest building in Scotland. Never been inside before:






Non-original kist o whistles, incidentally, seeing as it was built for the Free Church in the late nineteenth century:

[Lucky Poet]

Various gloomy shots of closes. North Gray's Close:



The Vennel, off the Grassmarket:



And of course Fleshmarket Close. Not my fault it's been done loads of times - you are legally obliged to take a photo of this now and again:



Elsewhere, on Regent Street some, uh, railings. It was the sun shining through that caught my eye, honest: