IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Frogston Road West, EDINBURGH, EH10 7AH

The site of the Princess Margaret Rose Hospital, now housing. Some buildings from the hospital survived and are now residential.

Used to access paths in woodland which surrounded the former hospital site.

The B701 at Fairmilehead. One of Edinburgh's subsidiary ring roads, with new housing on the site of what was the Princess Margaret Rose Hospital.

The white building is probably the only survivor from the Princess Margaret Rose hospital.

A leafy street near Fairmilehead in Edinburgh.

Houses built on the site of the Princess Margaret Rose Hospital.

If not well-versed in architecture you might expect the odd 'eyebrows' above the windows to be the most remarkable feature of this 1930s house. They do get mentioned in the listed building write-up by Historic Environment Scotland, but don't seem to warrant special attention. They are officially termed 'pantile hoodmounts' (pantile because they have the same profile as the S-shaped roof tiles of the same name), and are purely decorative. Generally these adornments don't look like eyebrows and protrude further from the wall, in order to act as a 'dripstone' and stop rain hitting or getting into a window or door. The main reason the house - said to be inspired by both Hollywood and Spanish design - is listed, is that Basil Spence, often described as being from the Brutalist school of architecture, very probably had a hand in its planning. He was only about 27 at the time, however, and a junior partner in an architect practice - it was (and perhaps still is) common for the main partners to be credited with all the work, but HES reckon it's got some telltale giveaways somewhere. Spence is most famous for designing the new Coventry Cathedral, built to replace the one destroyed by bombs in World War Two. In Scotland, he may be most famous for designing some high-rise flats in the Gorbals area of Glasgow in the 1960s, notable for being demolished by explosives in the 1990s, due in part to the levels of crime associated with them, and someone being killed in the explosion. In Edinburgh, where he studied and began his career, Mortonhall Crematorium is probably his biggest work, though a group of rough-looking flats at the bottom of the Royal Mile is likely (and unfortunately - they are awful) the building of his seen by the most people. In the Second World War Spence got mentioned in despatches a couple of times, took part in the D-day landings and, most interestingly, designed a fake oil depot somewhere around Dover. This was part of one of many intricate on-the-ground deception operations that took place in Britain towards the end of the war, and was actually a double deception, of sorts. The idea was to make the Germans think that there was a build-up of troops, weapons and vehicles at Dover in order to attack Calais (there was also similar stuff going on in Edinburgh, coincidentally, to make it look like an attack on Norway was imminent). The actual invasion was into Normandy, further West. So the hope was that the Germans would concentrate on protecting Calais and (the double deception bit), even when aware that Allied troops were landing on the beaches in Normandy, assume that this was an obvious deception to get them to move their manpower and firepower to the West, to leave Calais without adequate defences. Lots of lives were lost, and it is hard to gauge, without reading lots of big weighty books, how much was gained by the deception work, but it was ultimately a very successful mission.

Housing on the site of Princess Margaret Rose Hospital.

Looking south east.

Once a main route around Edinburgh, before the bypass it was busy again today with a 2km queue for the Kaimes traffic lights. The bus stop would once have served Princes Margaret Rose Hospital, now a residential area.