View of Union Canal, Edinburgh, from north-west, with Viewforth and Bridge No 1 in background

Description View of Union Canal, Edinburgh, from north-west, with Viewforth and Bridge No 1 in background

Date 15/2/2016

Collection Records of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS), Edinbu

Catalogue Number DP 232772

Category On-line Digital Images

Scope and Content James Kirkwood & Sons’ map of 1821 is the first to depict and name the Union Canal (opened 1822) along with its 'Inner Basin' (later Port Hopetoun, begun March 1818) and 'Outer Basin' (at Viewforth). Port Hamilton was built to the west of the ‘Inner Basin’ in 1823 as a coal basin, but does not appear on maps until the Ordnance Survey 1st Edition 1:1056 map of 1852. The Canal, originally the Edinburgh and Glasgow Union Canal, was 31.5 miles in length and due to its method of construction, following the same contour with no locks, it was known as 'the Mathematical'. The only locks on the canal were at its western end at Camelon, Falkirk, and this flight of locks (now demolished) connected the Union Canal with the earlier Forth and Clyde Canal. Coal, lime, passage boats, building stone, iron and timber were the commodities from which, it was hoped, annual revenues would be raised to cover the cost of building the canal (estimated by Hugh Baird at £235 167). Animal waste (horse dung) was also removed by barge to the agricultural land outwith the city. Great improvement that the canal was it was to be overshadowed by a further transport revolution. In 1842 train services began to run along the newly constructed line between Glasgow Queen Street and Haymarket in Edinburgh’s west end (the line’s eastern terminus at that time). By 1849 the canal had been eclipsed to the point where it was bought over by the Edinburgh & Glasgow Railway Company. Of greater importance to the Fountainbridge area, however, was the Caledonian Railway, which cut through the northern boundary of the area, bringing with it goods yards and foundries. This line ran from Carlisle to Edinburgh, opening in 1848. As a result of this, by 1922 all three canal basins were closed and then filled in (Lochrin by 1906, Ports Hamilton and Hopetoun in 1922). Many existing structures were swept away and new ones built in their place. The large coal yard on the western side of Port Hamilton was built over as St Cuthbert’s Bakery, while the north end of the basin became part of the foundations for St Cuthbert’s Dairy. The canal was filled in back to its current terminus and eventually fell out of use completely in the 1960s. The banks of the Union Canal have seen a revival since the restoration of the canal route west as part of the Millennium Link project enabled the canal to be reopened as a navigation route in 2001. This restoration has been a major contributing factor in the current (2016) redevelopment of the former industrial zone of Edinburgh’s western city centre. Several residential and commercial developments have sprung up along the banks of the canal, which has reinvigorated use of the canal towpaths. This shows the stretch of the canal from just below the Walker Bridge at Yeaman Place looking east, looking towards Horne Terrace (far right) and Viewforth and Bridge No 1 in the far distance.

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