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Lauriston Street, EDINBURGH, EH3 9DJ

Showing High Riggs almost straight ahead with Lauriston Street on the left and East Fountainbridge on the right. Main Point at the top of the slope from the West Port was the junction of three historic roads to Carlisle via Biggar, Glasgow via Lanark and Stirling via Linlithgow. These can be seen (2nd l. to r.) in a wider view which can be accessed by clicking on the More sizes button above the image frame. Lauriston Street is a later addition to the historic junction.

A new office block on West Port (good views of the castle from the top!)

Across the road from the old Edinburgh Royal Infirmary this pub gave rise to the phrase “I’m just going across to the Doctors” so beloved of staff of the hospital and the nearby university departments. Allegedly. The wall plaques outside the building go into this in some detail.

Colourful shops in West Port, Edinburgh.

The Simpson Memorial Maternity Hospital, or Edinburgh Royal Maternity Hospital to use its official name, opened as Edinburgh's first planned maternity hospital in 1879. It was funded by subscription to commemorate Sir James Young Simpson, who had discovered the anaesthetic properties of chloroform in 1847. From 1915 it housed Britain's first ante-natal clinic, followed by a post-natal clinic in 1926. In that year it amalgamated with the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh which built a new Simpson Memorial Maternity Pavilion in 1939 (demolished 2006). The Lauriston Place building continued to be part of the Royal Infirmary until 1994. After several years of neglect and decay, it has been revitalised as a modern hotel. http://www.lhsa.lib.ed.ac.uk/exhibits/hosp_hist/ermh.htm Image

The Simpson Memorial Hospital, or Edinburgh Royal Maternity Hospital as it was officially named, closed in the 1990s and was recently converted into a hotel. The associated Simpson's Memorial Maternity Pavilion within the Royal Infirmary was demolished in 2006. Image

Main Point is the historic junction where the road from the west of the city split in three directions: on the left to Biggar and Carlisle, in the middle to Lanark and Glasgow, and on the right to Linlithgow and Stirling. This spot is probably the original Tollcross, where tolls were collected from traffic approaching the Grassmarket via the West Port. The name was later transferred, first to the lands beyond, known as Orchardfield (the original name of Bread Street), then to the new junction created at the southern end of Lothian Road. See also Image