Roadworks No.1

Where is it?

Answer

Corstorphine Road

Roadworks preparing for Edinburgh's Electric Trams

Where is it?

Photographic Collection

This photograph came from the collection of Lothian Region Transport, previously Edinburgh Corporation Transport Dept.

It is one of a small number of photographs in the collection that gives no location or date, though it may show work preparing for Edinburgh's cable cars.

It is from a much earlier period than the Roadworks 2, 3 and 4 photos which show the lifting of tramway track in the 1950s.

Location

The photograph above was originally added to this web site, with the title:

'Roadworks No 1  -  Where and When?'

However, thanks to the two replies below, I now know the location to be Corstorphine Road.

Reply

1.

Billy McDonald

Corstorphine Road

Thank you to Billy McDonald for identifying the scene and providing the comments below:

"I think I have correctly identified this photo.  I think it is Corstorphine Road looking west from the junction with Traquhair park east and as I live in the Corstorphine area I decided to take a walk along there to see for myself.

I can confirm that the two buildings in the photograph and also the wall are all still there.  Right opposite the Post house hotel and alongside the Struan hotel."

Billy McDonald

Reply

2.

Douglas Beath

Burnie, Tasmania, Australia

Corstorphine Road

Thank you also to Douglas Beath of Burnie, Tasmania, Australia for confirming the location to be near the zoo at Corstorphine.  Douglas added:

"The railway-looking billboards would have belonged to nearby Pinkhill Station, and the lost front gardens were a consequence of road widening for electric tramway extension.

Also the overhead wire feeder point would have been from the inter-suburban cable from Robertson Avenue substation.   DLG Hunter's book  p.188 enables us to date the photo at c.1923.   Incidentally DLG lived nearby, on the slope west of the zoo.

Also, the obviously newly-built wall was of the pattern for road-widening of the time :  you can see the same in Ferry Road from Arboretum Road to Crewe Toll from the widening work ready for the never-finished 1939 tramway extension."

Douglas Beath, Burnie, Tasmania, Australia

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