Remember when: History by the barrel

WITH dray horses heaving loaded brewery carts over its traditional granite setts, washing billowing on window pulleys in the sun, and not a motor car or parking meter in sight, this picture of Holyrood Road in 1928 cuts a sharp contrast with today.

Once home to some of the country's most successful breweries, and later, notorious, squalid tenement slums, the area has seen many changes over the years

It was on this week back in 1957 that the local authority began work to demolish homes in Holyrood Square, off Holyrood Road, to make way for the new Dumbiedykes development, which remains a housing estate today.

Three years before, councillors visited families living in the overcrowded conditions - described at the time as "Scotland's Disgrace" - announcing they would be rehomed within 18 months.

The impact of two world wars and the Depression had taken its toll on an area which was once an important and thriving close-knit Edinburgh community.

Among its former assets were Abbey Brewery and Holyrood Brewery, which covered some 27 acres at the beginning of the 20th century, between them accounting for a quarter of all the ale produced in Scotland at the time.

Holyrood nowadays is, of course, a revamped area with the Scottish Parliament taking centre stage.