This photo was taken here. It’s on Redbubble: Flashy Berry Car.
Walking along Tower Street in Leith, at the end of January, I saw a splash of red: bright red berries growing behind and through a fence, just in front of a bright red car. I took over a dozen photos trying to capture exactly what it was that had caught my eye – that sudden blaze of redness.
I took this photo here. It’s on Redbubble: An Edinburgh baker’s window.
Douglas the baker’s has been at 105 Leith Walk for decades: a small survivor of the old independent Scottish bakers’ tradition. I used to live just off Leith Walk, and it was my boast that within ten minutes walk I could buy bread of six different nationalities: Italian, Sicilian, Polish, Bangladeshi, and Chinese, and Scottish, of course, from Douglas.
Next to the gloss of Gregg’s or the fall of Crawford’s, Douglas looks basic, but everything they make tastes good, from the bran scones you can see piled in the left-hand corner of the window to the apple sponges at the right.
A look inside and a couple of close-ups under the cut.
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This photo was taken here. It’s on Redbubble: Fort House, Leith.
The remnants of Leith Fort (built 1779) still stand on North Fort Street in Leith. The Fort was built to defend the Port of Leith (the architect was James Craig (1744 – 95) who planned the layout of Edinburgh’s New Town). Leith Fort was used as a prison for the French during the Napoleonic Wars and as an army base until the end of WWII, but it was mostly demolished in the 1950s, leaving only the original entrance and boundary wall with the original guardhouse and adjutant’s office just inside the gate. This photograph shows the iron gates and the adjutant’s office, now the concierge office for the red brick tower blocks of Fort House, the worst housing estate in Edinburgh. The black cannon are a modern addition.
This photo was taken here. It’s on Redbubble: Bridge of Shadows.
This old bridge of iron and wood in Leith links Tower Place to Rennie’s Isle, running parallel to the modern road bridge Ocean Drive. I love this bridge, especially the way it looks when you stand at the Tower Place end and look across with the shadows falling on the old grey wood.
Last time I walked down this way, the bridge was closed to foot traffic.
This photograph was taken here. It’s on Redbubble: In the Hard Rock Cafe: St Andrew’s & St George’s.
St Andrew’s & St George’s Church, reflected in the window of the Hard Rock Cafe on George Street in Edinburgh’s New Town.
The original plan for the New Town included a church on Charlotte Square facing down George Street. When Sir Laurence Dundas took the planned church site to build himself a mansion in 1774, Edinburgh City Council held a competition to design a church for a site on the north side of George Street. Major Andrew Frazer’s design won: an oval with a portico that sets off space between the church and the road. The church was completed in 1782, and the spire added in 1784. It was the first church in the New Town.
The Edinburgh Hard Rock Cafe was established on the south side of George Street in March 1998.
This photograph was taken here. It’s on Redbubble: At the farmers market.
The farmers’ market is every Saturday, 9am to 2pm, at Castle Terrace. Get there early, have yourself a hot cup of coffee from the Torchwood stalls at either end, a hot bowl of porridge from Stoats, and browse for fresh, fresh, lovely food.
Looking At Edinburgh 