Edinburgh, Union Canal. General view of canal from Harrison Road bridge. Digital image of ED 6946

Description Edinburgh, Union Canal. General view of canal from Harrison Road bridge. Digital image of ED 6946

Date 1900 to 1930

Collection Collection of photographs by George Chrystal and Francis Maxwell Chrystal, photographers, Edinburgh,

Catalogue Number SC 785588

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of ED 6946

Scope and Content Union Canal, Edinburgh, from Harrison Road Bridge looking east (closed 1965 and navigation restored 2002) The canal was 11.3m wide at the surface and 1.5m deep, and cut through some of Edinburgh's pleasant residential suburbs on its run to the terminus at Port Hopetoun, a basin in the Fountainbridge area of the city. A towpath (left), wide enough to accommodate the pairs of horses required to draw the larger barges and fast passenger boats, ran along its length, and a number of boat-houses (right) for rowing boats and other pleasure craft grew up along its banks after the numbers of commercial traffic on the canal began to dwindle. The long wooden steps (right) allowed easy access to the rowing boats. Rowing boats and canoes could be hired at Slateford, where they could be rowed out into the countryside. Boats could also be hired closer to the city centre at Johnston's boat-houses and from the Harrison Park boat-house (right). Serious rowing became a popular pastime, with Edinburgh University and several Edinburgh schools, including George Watson's, and George Heriot's, using the canal for races and competitions. Although the canal was too narrow for boats to race side by side, 'station' races were organised where one boat started three lengths in front of the other. There were two finishing posts, and if the first boat had extended the gap or the second boat had closed the gap on the other, it was the winner. The Union Canal, the last of Scotland's major canals, was a commercial venture begun in 1818 and completed in 1822. It was built principally as a means of importing coal and lime into Edinburgh, and ran from Port Hopetoun in Edinburgh to join the Forth & Clyde Canal at Camelon, Stirlingshire. However, within 20 years of completion most of its passenger traffic was lost to the railways, and the Edinburgh basins closed in 1922. The rest of the canal remained navigational until 1965 when it was finally closed by an Act of Parliament. In 2002, Britain's largest canal restoration project, The Millennium Link, restored navigation, and with an extension to the Union Canal and a link with the Forth & Clyde Canal through the Falkirk Wheel, boats were once more able to travel between Edinburgh and Glasgow. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/785588

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap