Qualla: Leith

Leith: Introduction

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kim Traynor, CC BY-SA 3.0. In 1920 the people of Leith voted 26,810 to 4,340 against merging with Edinburgh. The city annexed them anyway. The arithmetic of that defeat - more than six-to-one and totally ignored - tells you most of what you need to know about how the port has always felt about the capital up the hill. Leith was Edinburgh's gateway to the world, the place where foreign dignitaries landed and the raffish people lived who couldn't afford the Old Town. It made whisky, glass, sugar, soap from whale oil, lead pipes and ships. Then, like ports everywhere, it lost most of that. Then it came back.

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Image: Kim Traynor | CC BY-SA 3.0

Leith: The Port and Its Trades

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Steven Harrison (Struan), CC BY-SA 3.0. Leith's first harbour was built immediately after 1710, expanded between 1800 and 1817, and supplemented by Newhaven's L-shaped pier basin in 1825. The trades reflected the sea-going life: bonded warehouses for incoming wine and whisky, glass kilns to bottle them, sugar refinerie...

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Image: Steven Harrison (Struan) | CC BY-SA 3.0

Leith: Lime Juice, Limeys and Lauchlan Rose

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kim Traynor, CC BY-SA 3.0. In the 19th century the Royal Navy needed lime juice in quantity and unspoiled - scurvy on long voyages killed more sailors than enemy action. Lauchlan Rose of Leith solved the preservation problem by patenting a method based on Louis Pasteur's work, and won the navy contract. He...

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Image: Kim Traynor | CC BY-SA 3.0

Leith: Leith Links and the Plague

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gweduni, CC BY-SA 4.0. East of the historic core lies Leith Links, a broad green that sat outside the medieval town walls until building closed in around it from 1770. 'Links' in old Scots meant rough sandy ground where the original Edinburgh-rules golf was played - the local five-hole course, played t...

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Image: Gweduni | CC BY-SA 4.0

Leith: Trainspotting and Tesco

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Walter Baxter, CC BY-SA 2.0. Leith Central station, built lavishly in 1903 to handle the suburban passenger boom that never quite materialised, closed to passengers on 7 April 1952. It remained a railway depot until 1972, then fell derelict, becoming a haunt of drinkers and drug users. Irvine Welsh set a key...

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Image: Walter Baxter | CC BY-SA 2.0

Leith: Trams Return

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Finlay McWalter, CC BY-SA 3.0. From 1920, electrified Edinburgh trams linked the city up the hill with the port for the first time without the incompatible-systems problem that had plagued the merger debates. The lines were ripped out in 1956. For almost 70 years Leith depended on buses and the slow walk down ...

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Image: Finlay McWalter | CC BY-SA 3.0