Haddington Old & New
Ninth Selection of Slides by George Angus
STATIONMASTER’S HOUSE (L606) |
BLOCK OF FLATS (9132) |
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| Recorded in 1945. this substantial 2-storey stone building was built in 1846. The ground floor was originally used as offices and waiting room until about 1890, when the full offices were ready. This photograph was featured in ‘The First Railway North of the Border’, published by the LNER, in June 1946, the centenary year. | In May 1980 when David Brown (architect) was confronted by this problem, he gutted the building, changed it to 3 stories, and formed 6 small flats. The stationmaster would have had a long climb to reach his domain, visible top right. |
THE “NEW” SCHOOL (338) |
THE COAL BRAE (F591) |
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| Built in 1938, photo taken July 1954. The Western half of Rosehall, which becomes the Pencaitland Road offstage right. Behind Stevenson the Engineer’s house lies the bulk of the Knox. When the original secondary school was built in Victorian times its title was ‘The Knox Memorial Institute’, but somewhere along the way the word ‘memorial’ was quietly dropped. Since I left school, the ‘Institute’ was replaced by ‘Academy’. | The sloping pasture between this fence and the gasworks has now been filled with private houses. The central footpath connecting Pencaitland Road and Letham Drive was the place where I had my ‘name & address took’ in January 1939,and had to appear before a Children’s Panel, charged with cycling UP the Coal Brae. I got off because the ‘no cycling’ signs had long since disappeared. |
GASWORKS (2566) |
SITE OF GASWORKS (H559) |
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| Photo taken 31 May 1962. The corrugated iron building, which housed the retort for the many years that Haddington brewed its own gas, was demolished in February 1963. .the principal gas tank on the extreme right gives an indication of how it used to dominate this part of the Royal Burgh. | Recorded 12 May 1995. The site reeked of years of unpleasant chemicals in the soil. But after treatment, it houses a supplier of tyres and exhausts and a small garden centre, while there are houses within a stone’s throw. |
THE BALL ALLEY (7985) |
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| C1904. An interesting photograph of the isolated stone wall, which gave its name to this grass haugh (also known as ‘The Nine Trees’). This was taken by Dakers who was editor of the Courier, not long before its demolition. The 3 youths were telegraph messengers, a trade which universal telephone ownership has made redundant. |