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Edinburgh, Granton Harbour, Middle Pier, Warehouse

Warehouse (19th Century)

Site Name Edinburgh, Granton Harbour, Middle Pier, Warehouse

Classification Warehouse (19th Century)

Alternative Name(s) Gunpowder Store

Canmore ID 236719

Site Number NT27NW 28.09

NGR NT 23808 77489

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/236719

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
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Administrative Areas

  • Council Edinburgh, City Of
  • Parish Edinburgh (Edinburgh, City Of)
  • Former Region Lothian
  • Former District City Of Edinburgh
  • Former County Midlothian

Architecture Notes

NT27NW 28.09 23808 77489

The building is situated toward the end section of the middle pier on its E side. The building incorporates a central two storey loading bay with cast iron hoist with lions head mask at its apex. The N and S elevations incorporate loading bays with flanking windows and a blocked doorway with later insert. A large opening with a steel lintel has been inserted on the W side in place of windows. The warehouse sits on a stepped bulwark that incorporates a sea door for direct entry by boat.

Information adapted from CFA (M Cressey) December 2003.

The warehouse is constructed of regular stugged ashlar stonework laid in horizontal courses with segmental arched window and door openings on all elevations. The roof is rectangular in plan, shallow pitched and piended, covered with thin, west highland slates laid in diminishing courses. The internal roof structure is formed from a series of king post trusses and purlins with a number of later accretions evident. Internally at ground floor level there are remains of railway tracks indicating that goods were loaded and unloaded from wagons. The building is thought to have been a gunpowder store due to its substantial wall thickness, although no written evidence of this appears to exist.

Information from RCAHMS (RJM and EAL), January 2008.

Activities

Standing Building Recording (11 April 2018)

NT 23810 77488 A historic building survey was undertaken, 11 April 2018, of the Old Gunpowder Store prior to development. The Gunpowder Store was constructed in c1840 and was one of four warehouses on the middle pier or ‘Mid Pier’ at Granton Harbour. The buildings around Mid Pier slowly expanded throughout the later 19th century and early 20th century, with land reclaimed in the 1970s and 1980s, and the former harbour buildings largely cleared. A few remnants of the lifting tackle and pulleys have survived to the upper loading doors and ground floor ceiling, although a new concrete floor and two large garage doors have been installed to the N and S walls of the ground floor. The former tramway to the S of the building has also survived, as has the original timber harbour (albeit in a dilapidated state) to the E of the building against the stepped harbour wall.

Archive: NRHE (intended)

Funder: Granton Holdings Ltd

Diana Sproat – AOC Archaeology Group

(Source: DES Vol 19)

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