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The more obscure, unusual, overlooked, and irreverent bits of Edinburgh and Leith local history
Site URL: threadinburgh.scot
Feed URL: threadinburgh.scot/feed
Posts: 10
Followers: 1
Educating Newhaven: the thread about the Victoria and other Schools
Published: April 15, 2026 05:00
When it closed its doors for the last time in 2022 the Victoria School in Newhaven was by far and away the oldest in the city still in public use. But this wasn't an end, it was merely the start of a new chapter in its long life. The old building soon…
Dead CERT: the thread about Edinburgh’s disastrous dalliances with guided busways
Published: April 1, 2026 05:00
April Fools' Day marks a suitable 30th birthday for the City of Edinburgh Council, a body which upon its establishment found itself in charge of a scheme promising a cheap and easy transport fix but which proved to be anything of the sort. It was a scheme…
You Can’t Fight City Hall! The thread about Lothian Road Public School
Published: March 24, 2026 06:00
Edinburgh doesn't have the greatest track record when it comes to building public concert halls; such projects usually involving endless (or even terminal) delays. Even the grand old lady of the Usher Hall is no exception, taking almost eighteen years to…
A multi-storey problem story: the thread about the Castle Terrace Car Park
Published: March 19, 2026 06:00
Despite being a local history site Threadinburgh does like to try and keep things topical sometimes, so when news broke that car park operator NCP had entered administration with huge debts I felt it was an opportune moment to take a quick look into its…
Jimmy’s: the thread about the school on St Leonard’s Crag
https://threadinburgh.scot/2026/02/25/jimmys-the-thread-about-the-school-on-st-leonards-crag/
Published: February 25, 2026 07:15
St Leonard's Crag is the romantic sounding name for a quarried-out promontory where Holyrood Park meets the old district of St Leonard's. Perched atop it is a handsome old building whose striking feature is a grand corner tower on which regular listeners…
Milliner, Haberdasher, Caricature: the thread about Sibbie Hutton, the “Most Fantastic Lady of Her Day”
Published: February 21, 2026 17:44
Today marks 200 years since the death of John Kay, the Edinburgh barber turned artist, etcher and engraver renowned for his prolific caricatures. In the best Georgian tradition, these gently lampoon the great and the good of the city's society in the late…
The thread about William McGonagall’s elegy to “The Ancient Town of Leith”; “Indifference to Practically Everything But Rhyme”
Published: February 19, 2026 17:07
"A classic example of his indifference to practically everything but rhyme"; the withering summary by an Edinburgh Evening News journalist in 2002 when recalling the work "The Ancient Town of Leith" by the poet and tragedian William McGonagall. A man most…
The thread about St Leonard’s Public School; ninety years of remarkably unremarkable service
Published: February 10, 2026 07:15
Part eight of the "Lost School Boards" series pays a visit to St Leonard's Public School, one of which no trace now remains and that was thoroughly removed from the map in a 1980s redevelopment scheme. A building that was criticised for most of its life…
The thread about the Great Edinburgh Beer Duty Fraud: Boiling the Wort and Cooking the Books
Published: January 24, 2026 06:45
It was 3AM on Christmas morning 1933 when - after a long and cold stakeout - not Santa but three agents of His Majesty's Customs & Excise entered the renowned Bell's Brewery on the Pleasance and caught the brewers in the act of working illicitly. They…
The thread about “why did Edinburgh become the home of Hogmanay” (and why it never did)
Published: December 31, 2025 15:05
In a news article the other day, the BBC's Edinburgh and East Reporter sought to answer the age old question of "Why did Edinburgh become the home of Hogmanay?" without really getting into the detail of the city came to consider itself as such. So with…