Lighting Up Leith: Recent excavations into Leith’s Industrial Past

The history of Edinburgh’s maritime burgh of Leith is often overshadowed by the nearby turrets of Edinburgh Castle or the imposing crags of Arthur’s Seat. However, recent archaeological excavations thanks to developer-funded work, along Baltic Street and Halmyre Street have unearthed the structural remains of the district’s vibrant industrial and maritime past.

Gasworks:

Situated just off Baltic Street, the remains of the c.1825 gasworks have been meticulously cleaned and cleared by a team of archaeologists to reveal the large circular bases of gasholders, once used to store the gas produced on the site. This industrial production centre was fed by coal from the adjacent railways, which was burned to produce gas. This was stored in gasholders and then pumped from the gasworks to supply the city’s streetlamps at night. The burning of coal, the making of gas, and its distribution throughout Edinburgh was a daily cycle in the everyday lives of working people, providing the light necessary to navigate Auld Reekie’s smog-filled closes and winding streets.

Founded in 1822, the Leith Gaslight Company opened the Baltic Street gasworks around 1825. This was subsequently operated by the Edinburgh and Leith Gas Company founded in 1840. The Baltic Street gasworks were contemporary with the New Street gasworks situated to the north of the Canongate, excavated by AOC Archaeology in 2006 and 2008. By the late 19^th century, Baltic Street produced roughly 60% of the city’s gas output. By the turn of the 20^th century both the Edinburgh and Baltic Street Gasworks were closed in favour of a larger gasworks constructed at Granton, still visible today in the solitary steel frame of a disused gas holder, looking out over the Firth of Forth.

Image 1: Gas cylinder base

Image 2: Archaeologists excavating the gas cylinder base buried below debris.

Victualling Yard

Excavations on the Baltic Street site have also yielded unexpected discoveries in the form of the hitherto thought destroyed remains of the c.1781 Navy Board Victualling Yard. For avid readers of the works of C. Forester’s ‘Hornblower’ sagas and P. O’Brian’s ‘Master and Commander’ series, the wonders and intrigues of the 18^th century victualing yard need no introduction, for the victualling yard is the beating heart of the navy. These depots were responsible for the outfitting of navy vessels with everything from foodstuffs to beer, clothes to bedsheets, and coal to candle sticks. Functioning as a separate department from the Admiralty Board, responsible for military command of navel squadrons, the Navy board situated at the victualling yard had authority over the civil administration of the fleet. Every captain relied on the goodwill of the local yard’s quartermaster to ensure their ship was correctly provisioned, a situation often exacerbated during the lulls in government navy spending between periods of conflict.

Image 3: The foundations of the Victualling Yard excavations, Constitution Street.

Image 4: Navy Victualling Yard before demolition, Constitution Street.

On site, the foundation walls of two structures remain, hugging the side of Constitution Street. Visible from the road, the old wall of arches and doorways still bears the anchor-embossed keystone, a symbol of the Navy board. The keystone and significant finds from the site are set to be retained and preserved as part of the archaeological programme of works. The yard was responsible for supplying the Navy squadron stationed in the Forth following the 1745 Jacobite uprisings and War of Austrian Succession. It played a prominent role in supplying the growing naval presence in and around Leith between 1792 to1815, during the subsequent French Revolutionary Wars, and following the Napoleonic wars.

Both the victualling yard founded in c.1781 and the gasworks c.1825, would have been contemporary with the nearby glassworks on Salamander Street  c.1746, excavated by AOC Archaeology in 2020, and the roperie (rope works) and sailcloth factory on Salamander Place investigated between 2012 and 2018.  With these sites representing Edinburgh and Leith’s industrial and inter-connected maritime heritage within a stone’s throw of each other, not since the early 2000s has the history of Leith’s shore been so explored, when excavations by the City of Edinburgh Council’s Archaeological Service explored medieval and post-medieval remains at Ronaldson’s Wharf.

Halmyre Street

Further inland just off Leith Walk, excavations on Halmyre Street have uncovered the remains of the 19^th century M. Anderson’s Iron Foundry and the 20^th century tram engineering works. These foundations have been painstakingly cleaned and recorded to better understand how these two energetic industries have overlapped and replaced one another within the same small corner of Edinburgh.

The Anderson Iron works were one of many smoky industrial foundries present within Edinburgh at the turn of the 19^th century. Its work included casting the iron troughs on the Avon and Slateford aqueducts, which form vital connections along the Union Canal’s passage, east into Edinburgh. Later, the tram engineering works replaced the foundry on the site. These engineering works consisted of a series of rectangular workshops used to maintain and repair the first electric tram traction system in Scotland, introduced in 1904. This system replaced the horse-drawn trams of the 19^th century, remembered in the city through their dark red and white livery, now used by Lothian Buses.

Image 5: Foundations of tram workshops and Iron foundry

Image 6: Excavations on Halmyre Street

Summary:

Both excavations are the result of planning requirements put in place by the City of Edinburgh Council’s Archaeological Service, prior to further development of these sites. The Excavations at Baltic Street are funded by both Bridges Fund Management  and HUB residential, with on site works delivered by The Sirius Group, while the works at Halmyre Street are funded by the Firethorn Trust.

The current planning legislation’s encouragement to repurpose brownfield across Edinburgh has provided, both in the past and in the present an excellent opportunity to better understand and evaluate the city’s urban archaeology and industrial history. While the modern Leith emerges from the smog of the past, moving towards greener and healthier urban living, since the advent of the 20^th century, this industrial past, exposed in these excavations, was vital in laying the foundations of the modern world we live in today.

Visit AOC’s InSitu site to read more about previous excavations at the New Street Gasworks and other archaeological stories from work around the UK.