Nostalgia: Spanning the gaps in our city's history

Published on Saturday 9 May 2009 11:05

IT was a revamp of Waverley Station in the late 19th century which gave the then city leaders the chance. The original North Bridge, built in 1772 as the Capital began to expand north, was, just over a century later, proving too small and narrow for the increasing amount of traffic trundling to and from Leith.

Like its present-day counterpart, the first North Bridge had three arches but they were far narrower and the later rail lines had to wind their way around the supports as best they could.

So when the station was redesigned – expanding into the biggest in Britain at the time with 21 platforms – the same architects, Cunningham, Blyth and Westland, were hired to create a new bridge.

Our photograph shows the new bridge shortly before it was completed and opened in 1897. The North British Hotel – now the Balmoral – doesn't feature in this snap – it wasn't completed until 1902, although it was part and parcel of the whole station and bridge redesign.

The Scotsman building, now a hotel but which once housed the Evening News, is also absent – it was built between 1899 and 1902.

Another, rather smaller part, of the whole station redesign was a footbridge linking Jeffrey Street and Calton Road.

The expanded station was built over Leith Wynd, an important trading route dating back to the 16th century, and the replacement footbridge was one of the conditions of the Act of Parliament which allowed the creation of a new Waverley.

It was "temporarily" closed by British Rail in 1950, partially dismantled and all but forgotten until this week, when a new campaign to have it reopened was revealed in the News.

Waverley is due to undergo another revamp, a 130m overhaul of the roof, and its owner Network Rail wants dismantle the footbridge remains which still exist at the Calton Road entrance and under the roof, but a website campaign, www.rebridgethe gap.org.uk, aims not just to stop that happening but have the whole bridge rebuilt.

If campaigners fail, however, the footbridge won't be the first to have disappeared from the Capital's cityscape. In 1980, a disused railway bridge crossing Easter Road was pulled down – part of the Scottish Development Agency's 1.5 million clean-up of Leith, which also saw smaller bridge over Halmyre Road and a stone viaduct disappear. Another old railway bridge was demolished at Bonnington Road in 1968, while a 110-year-old 16-arch viaduct between Glencorse and Roslin was demolished in 1987, as it was deemed unsafe.

Some were never meant to last – such as this pedestrian bridge over London Road to Meadowbank Stadium which was constructed by the Army in 1970 for the Commonwealth Games.