IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Commercial Street, EDINBURGH, EH6 6JE

The Citadel Youth Centre building on Commercial Street, Leith. The building was originally a railway station on the Leith and Newhaven Railway and was built in 1846. The building is category B listed.

Opened in 1846 as the terminus of the North British Railway's branch from Edinburgh Waverley (Canal Street until 1868), this station closed in 1947 to passengers and completely around 1970. It was also known as North Leith station. Frontage, on Commercial Street.

This and a short section of wall, is all that remains of the Citadel built by General Monck and the Commonwealth troops in 1657 as a fortification. Within the Citadel was a house which in the 1740's was the home of Lady Bruce an enthusiastic Jacobite. Following Culloden it was watched and raided by government troops seeking Bonnie Prince Charlie. Within the area now is the premises of Graham Tiso, the well known outdoor and mountaineering supplier.

Former church, being converted into apartments.

The station was built in 1846 and has a Grade B listing. Until 1868, it was the Leith terminus of a line from Canal Street Station in Princes Street via the Scotland Street Tunnel. Later it became part of the North British Railway Co. line that ran for three miles from Waverley Station via Abbeyhill, Easter Road, Leith Walk, Powderhall (up to 1917), Bonnington and Junction Road. It closed to passenger traffic in 1947, continuing as a goods line until the 1970s. The building is now a youth centre. The name derives from its proximity to a fort of that name built during the rule of the Commonwealth in the 1650s.

For an overview of Leith's former railway stations (and much better images of the above by Peter Stubbs!), see http://www.edinphoto.org.uk/1_edin_t/1_edinburgh_transport_railways_-_leith_stations.htm#south_leith_station

All that is left of the once extensive fortifications of Cromwell's fort in Leith is the archway entrance and wall on the left of the picture. The wall on the right belongs to an adjoining Victorian church. In all, five forts were built in Scotland during the Cromwellian occupation: Leith, Perth, Inverness, Inverlochy [later Fort William], Ayr. "At Leith we saw one of those citadels built by the Protector, one of the best fortifications that ever we beheld, passing fair and sumptuous. There are three forts advanced above the rest, and two [gun] platforms; the works round about are faced with freestone towards the ditch and are almost as high as the highest building within; and withal thick and substantial. Below are pleasant, convenient and well-built houses for the governor, officers and soldiers, and for magazines and stores; there is also a capacious chapel, the piazza or void space within is as large as Trinity College in Cambridge great court. The building cost £100,000 stg.*, indeed I do not see how it could cost less. In England it would have cost more." -- John Ray, English naturalist, 1661 *actually an overestimate; see Image

Now in a rather neglected state (though note the recently restored staircase section on the left), this is the gateway to Cromwell's fort at Leith. The stone was quarried at Wardie. In the 1650s, Edinburgh was given the choice between building this fort to control the trade of Leith or losing its jurisdiction over the port. The council advanced 60,000 pounds Scots towards its cost. When it later became the property of the earl of Lauderdale, who threatened to create his own burgh of barony on this part of Leith, the council (i.e. of Edinburgh) had to pay the same amount, £5,000 sterling, to re-purchase the land. "The Protector and Counsall of England with his Heyness counsell sittand heir at Edinburgh for the government thairof haiffing intentioun to beg [build] a citadaill on the north syde of the brig of Leith they delt with the toun of Edinburgh ather to big that citadaill or ellis to lois thair libertie and superioritie of Leith. The toun of Edinburgh not willing to tyne [lose] thair superioritie did agree with the great counsall to advance thrie scoir thousand pundis scottis twiching the bigging of the citadaill and so the Inglisches began to cast the trenches and enter to that work on the north syde of Leith upon Monday 26 of May 1656." -- Diary of John Nicoll (1658) "The country lies very quiet; it is exceedingly poor; trade is naught; the English have all the money." -- Rev. Robert Baillie, 1658 See also Image

The bulk of masonry on the right is the roof of the vaulted trance leading into the fort, with the towers of the later Citadel Church seen behind.