New Mart Gardens, Chesser

Image: © Ian Dodds Taken: 21 Jul 2024

Like the other residential streets situated at the North side of the Edinburgh Corn Exchange (now a music venue) cul-de-sac area, New Mart Gardens was built 15 or so years ago, and is all flats. The slightly taller bits are obviously the stairwells and there are seven blocks in all. Plans for other housing developments within the cul-de-sac are now in their later stages. Behind the music venue are a series of long brick sheds and some odd equally long glasshouses. These are left over from the old 'New Mar(ke)t' and the cost of keeping them structurally safe is said by the website advertising the proposed development to be prohibitive to any private business.. A cynic might argue that if these mundane but nevertheless imposing and impressive structures were more centrally located, and not sited on council-owned land, an alternative plan might have been arrived at. But as only Asda-shoppers, car-booters and local residents get to hear the hollering, grunting and panting emanating from late middle-aged men hoping to prolong their youth with weekly five-a-sides, it seems their fate is sealed. (The football takes place in the brick buildings of course; the glass buildings' current use, if any, is unknown to most.) As its name suggests the New Market was planned (no doubt to ease city centre congestion) and came into existence around 1910. Contemporary maps show Chesser Avenue, now a fairly important connecting road between trunk roads was built for access to the market from the trunk roads (today's A70 and A71). It is also interesting to note from the old maps that Gorgie, a fairly central Edinburgh suburb - now conventionally viewed as starting on both sides of Gorgie Road heading into the centre near the McDonald's before the railway bridge - was originally marked as being at roughly opposite the start of Balgreen Road, slightly further West than today's Gorgie is viewed as starting. The Gorgie area of today was originally a bit of a no-man's-land, referred to as North Merchiston or Wester Dalry. How things change - it is the original Gorgie that now doesn't quite have an area ascribed.

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