Local history

On Saturday, 26 and Sunday, 27 September, The Cockburn Association will host the Edinburgh and East Lothian Doors Open Days weekend. 

Doors Open Days is a free festival offering access to spaces of historic, cultural, architectural and community interest which are normally ticketed or not accessible to the public. 

As Scotland's oldest conservation charity, The Cockburn feels particularly energised by this year’s theme of ‘Heritage at Risk: Revive, Resist, Reimagine’. 

The redoubtable Victorian brothel-keeper Katherine Johnson featured in Series 6 of the BBC's A History Through Time, which looked at the story of 20–22 Calton Hill.

Johnson enjoyed considerable commercial success and notoriety in her day, working under a variety of names at various addresses.

In the North Briton (Saturday, 24 November 1866), we encounter her as Clara Johnson, working from premises on Clyde Street and involved in a dispute about money with one o

Trinity House ship of faith. 

Little known fact – Leith Academy began here in the cellar. 

Well worth a visit. 

#Edinburgh 

#hyperlocal 

#history 

At the bottom of Broughton Street stands a church building which in 1990 was semi-derelict and facing possible demolition. Only a few local residents and art specialists were aware of the spectacular mural decoration within, painted by Phoebe Anna Traquair. By 1990 this was in a shocking state of disrepair.  

Locals gathered yesterday to celebrate the life and love of Agnes Maclehose (née Craig), who was born on 26 April 1758. 

Maclehose (‘Nancy’ to intimates) came from Glasgow, where she met and married the lawyer James Maclehose in 1776. She parted 4 years later on the grounds of his mental cruelty, by which time she had borne him 4 children.

A commemorative Red Wheel was officially unveiled today at the western gable end of Powderhall Stables on Broughton Road.

On a sparkling February afternoon, local notables, enthusiasts and press gathered to mark the spot as a place of special importance in transport history.

The Calton Hill Conservation Trust has arranged a series of events for locals looking at the archaeological potential of the area.

The project will be run by the Edinburgh branch of Headland Archaeology (HA). It will look into the human history of the Hill, about which little is known before building of the old observatory house in 1776.

A photogrammetric survey from the air took place using a drone on 15 January. 

David Howie Scott, director of the popular Howie’s restaurants, wants to put a bronze plaque commemorating the 19th-century anti-slavery campaigner Frederick Douglass outside premises at 29A Waterloo Place (26/00212/LBC). 

Proposed wording for the 330mm x 500ml memorial is:

The Royal Scots Regimental Museum’s annual outreach exhibition opened at Out of the Blue this morning. Depute Lord Provost Cllr Lezley Cameron (right) helped launch the event.

This year’s exhibition focuses on the Quintinshill rail disaster of 22 May 1915, in which 227 people died including 216 officers and soldiers of the 1st/7th (Leith Battalion) on their way to the Gallipoli campaign.

Constipation and baldness are not the exclusive preserve of Spurtle readers in 2025. 

Such travails – experienced singly or in tandem – have afflicted local residents since at least the mid-19th century, as evidenced by a recent archaeological find in the area.