1896 map 11

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Reproduced from 1896 Ordnance Survey® map (original scale 1:2500, equivalent to 25.344 inches per mile)

I am very grateful to Scott Brown, former proprietor of the Starbank Inn, for lending the original.

This map shows the to the east of of Granton Harbour, with part of Wardie Beach, the houses built by the Duke of Buccleuch at East Terrace on Lower Granton Road, the Wardie Hotel and, inland to the south, some more substantial houses.

The shale beds at Wardie Beach are said to have been an inspiration to Charles Darwin, who visited the area when he was a student at Edinburgh University.

A little inland is Wardie Church (United Presbyterian) – marked ‘U. P. Church’ on Primrose Bank.

Boswall Road had not by this date been connected in a straight line with its eastern part, Primrose Bank (see next map eastwards).

Wardie Lodge, towards the left hand end of the map, later bacame Challenger Lodge and is now St Columba’s Hospice.

Towards the right hand end of the map is the Chain Pier. The pier would be destroyed in a storm within a few years of this map being drawn.

At the landward end of the pier was the Old Chain Pier Bar which is still in existence although it has been extended and altered.

Where the railway curves southwards is Trinity Station on the North British Railway

The Z-bend linking Trinity Cresent and Lower Granton Road was a feature of the tramway system for many years. But in the 1890s the tram line had not been built – it was laid in 1909 – and public transport consisted of horse buses.

Up the hill, south of the Z-bend and at the junction with Primrose Bank, was Christ Church, Trinity.

On Lower Granton Road, the tenements are still under construction and Victoria Place – often now called Victoria Square – is incomplete.