Site of a Proposed Harbour and Docks at

Wardie Bay

Enlarge this picture

    ©

Wardie Bay

Proposed Harbour and Docks

Thank you to John Dickson for allowing me to reproduce this painting.

The View

I recommend enlarging this photo as it includes a wealth of on the vessels and the buildings on the shore and has a small map below the painting.

How many of the buildings in this painting can be recognised?

To the left of the Old Chain Pier a circle can be seen on the bank with a house above it.  This appears to be where Starbank Park was later laid out in, around 1890,

The large building, just to the right of it and down by the coast is about where the Starbank Arms Public House was built.

Starbank Arms

  ©

The light-coloured tenement to the right of the chain pier appears to be near the foot of Trinity Road appears to be near the foot of Trinity Road, where a railway bridge was later built over the road, around 1846, to take the railway to Granton Harbour, then over the Forth by ferry to Burntisland.

What are the buildings on the right hand side of the picture, in Boswall Road?  There are still some old buildings in and around Boswall Road today, including Boswall House and two neighbouring houses, and Challenger Lodge, all built around 1830, and overlooking the Forth.  A short distance further to the east was Wardie House, built in C17 but only a small part of it now remains.

Date of the Painting

I'd estimate the date of this painting to be around 1830.

-  The Old Chain Pier features prominently in the centre of the photo.  It was built in 1821 and destroyed in a storm in 1898.  Here is another painting that features the Old Chain Pier:

Old Chain Pier

  ©

-  The decision was made to build a harbour at Granton, about a mile to the west of the Old Chain Pier. The building of Granton Harbour commenced in 1836.

Granton Harbour

   ©

Acknowledgement:  John Dickson, Royston, Edinburgh:  October 24, 2011

Reply

1.

David King

Trinity, Edinburgh

Thank you to David King who wrote to tell me:

Buildings at Trinity Crescent

There is a large tenement block about 2/3 of the way across this photo with a smaller building beside it.  These are the buildings closes to the small yacht that is sailing past.

-  The large tenement block is numbered 6, 7 and 8 Trinity Crescent.  This block was built circa 1824.    (Source:  Historic Scotland)

-  The smaller building to the right of this tenement block has since been demolished and replaced by a 4-storey tenement block, numbered 1-5 Trinity Crescent, built in late C19.    (Source:  Historic Scotland)

So, given the date of the first tenement block above, and the fact that this painting probably pre-dated the decision to build the nearby harbour at Granton, we can probably date the painting to c.1824-35.

Acknowledgement:  David King, Trinity, Edinburgh:  November 4, 2011