Edinburgh, 152 Lower Granton Road, Bakery, Shop And Post Office

NT27NWE 48 23852 77059

This structure is still in use.

Site recorded by GUARD during the Coastal Assessment Survey for Historic Scotland, 'The Firth of Forth from Dunbar to the Coast of Fife' 23rd February 1996.

Adjacent to rear entrance to no. 152 Lower Granton Road is a one-and- a-half storey building with brick external walls of English Garden Wall bond, timber-pitched roof and slate roof.

This building was depicted as roofed, L-shaped building with outside stair access adjoining a two storey and attic dwelling to the N facing onto Lower Granton Road on the Ordnance Survey 1st epoch digital map (64NT2377) of 1895-96 and the more recent 1:1250 map, sheet NT2377SE (1971). By 1994, it was the bakehouse of G Edward 'established in 1937', according to the fascia sign in RCAHMS photograph no. C35850.

The E wall of outbuilding/bakehouse was of planked wooden construction with a later inserted window. SE of the outbuilding, there is a later extension added creating the 'foot' of the 'L'-shape although this appears on the 1895-96 map and is probably original. The external staircase was in a poor state of repair on the date of visit and appeared to be 'resting' on this extension roof at the date of visit. It is unclear if there was an earlier external stairway (access was not possible due to its poor state) but this too is depicted on the 1895-96 Ordnance Survey map. This wooden external staircase on the E side of the building led to a taking-in door (which allowed access to the storage area in the roof space for the storage of flour etc.). The chimney to W of the site was not explored.

The only item of interest within the bakehouse was a single scotch oven. This is a high-arched side-fired oven where the door size is kept to a minimum to restrict cold air intake. This in turn slows down loading and emptying and rendering the front corners of the oven inaccessible to the baker. Originally the oven would have used coal, but latterly gas was used. The recessed oven-door has a tooled stone surround some 0.07m in thickness. The splayed opening in which the oven door sits is itself sitting on a cast-iron plate, which in turn sits above a stone shelf. The cast-iron door is of a 'hipped' shape and measures 0.52m in width by 0.42 m in height, with two strap hinges with a simple metal latch-style fastening. Crude in form, it could have been made locally and there is no maker's mark on the door. The oven is of stone construction and measures 3.61m in depth (using an electronic measuring device). The oven and surround including the splayed front measured 1.71m in height. The damper for the chimney to the left of the oven had been removed. The stoking area and the later gas installation had been removed and/or covered up by the date of visit.

The whole outbuilding and the house it was attached to (152 Lower Granton Road) had been used as a brothel post-1994 to circa 2005. The building was visited as there is a proposal for demolition.

Visited by RCAHMS (MMD and EAL), June 2007.