On a cold but windless and bright day 57
Strollers met at Haymarket Station for a walk round the Dalry and
Fountainbridge areas. It was good to see our Blue Badge guides, Helen and Karen, again.
Passing Easter Dalry House, once the home of
David Scott the romantic painter, we stopped to gaze up at the chimney stack
which is around 300 feet in height and to look at the distillery buildings,
which are now flats, and to see the sheer size of the distillery site. We had a
quick look at the sculpture of the men rolling barrels (funded by the flat
builders) and at the former site of the Scotia Cinema founded by John Maxwell
who then went on to own Elstree Studios.
We then stopped to look at the tenements in
the Caledonian area. These were designed by the same builder as the Learmonth
estate but were aimed at the workers of the local area. We also took in the
Dalry Baths and Dalry House while quite a few the Strollers who had either
lived in that area or whose parents/grandparents had stayed there regaled us
with tales of their childhood and memories.
Our route then took us through the Telfer
underpass to admire the Fountainbridge library originally built in 1897 but
rebuilt with lovely art deco friezes and reopened in 1940. We also passed the
new Boroughmuir School and the Fountain Park Cinema complex. These were both
built on the sites of the brewery which used to take up most of the area before
heading to the canal.
The canal was important to the area as both coal and
cattle were shipped in by this route. We then took in the view looking out over
the sites of the former rubber mill and sweet factory. The remaining part of
the rubber mill is now being renovated as a gallery. No walk in this area would
have been complete without reminding us that Sean Connery lived and worked in
this area before becoming a film star! George Michael Kemp who designed the Scott
Monument was found drowned in the canal before the monument was finished and
the artist William Bonnar, who was his brother in law, took charge until it was
completed.
We finished up at the site of the old meat
market, which had also been at one time the canal basin of Port Hamilton. Some people
remembered when the meat market was a night club called Fat Sam’s, the same
people who remembered the Tartan Club at the brewery site. Some people have
long memories. (Chairman’s note – it was the Americana discotheque before
becoming Fat Sam’s American eating emporium.)
Our thanks to Helen and Karen again for a
very interesting walk.
