It’s not easy to get your head around where the shoreline was in Leith at a given time, the natural coast has been altered beyond all recognition by human activity in the last 500 years. Slowly and gradually at first, and then it marched northwards into the Forth in ever-expanding dock building activity in the 19th and first half of the 20th century. The best way to visualise it is, naturally, with a visualisation.

The earliest view showing the shoreline and Leith Sands that I can think of is a beautiful sketch by John Slezer made around 1693. The sands are on the right where the figures are; notice that already by this stage there is a prominent and solid masonry breakwater. This defends the Timberbush from the sea. From the French word Bourse – for exchange – this was where imported timber was sorted, stored and traded. The stacks of timber can be seen and as this was a very valuable commodity, and the principal import source for Scotland, it had to be defended from nature. The harbour pier is a mixture of stone, turning into timber. The buildings of the Shore are on the left, the prominent tower belonging to the King’s Wark, which was brought down not long after this picture was made.

One hundred and fifty years after John Slezer’s sketch was made, Dominic Serres painted the scene. Here the artist is positioned alongside the pier, looking south towards the Shore with the Tower of the “Windmill” at its head. We can see that the pier itself has been reinforced in a rather ramshackle manner by timers and masonry. Small boats have been brought ashore, with the catch of the day being sold directly to assembled hawkers on the sands. And in he foreground we see a supply of timber; it was the old custom to float it ashore on the tides before storing it in the Timber Bush. Leith Sands ran off to the left (east) from here.

While today the shoreline of Leith is almost entirely concrete and boulder breakwaters, with the little strip of sand strictly off limits behind the Dock security fences, it was not always this way.

One hundred and fifty years prior to this, this spectacular 1886 photo by Begbie (no, not that one, I mean Thomas Vernon Begbie) shows the palisade retaining wall on the sands, formed to level the ground behind for the coming of the Edinburgh & Dalkeith Railway to South Leith in 1835. On the left we see the industrial chimneys and kilns of the glass manufactory, gas works and chemical works.

It’s actually two photos, intended to make a panorama, and each was taken stereoscopically. I’ve joined them together and put them through a colourising app. Now, I usually avoid these apps as a matter of principle but on this occasion there is an obvious benefit in helping the features we see stand out.

Let’s take a look up closer. On the left we can see the glass bottle kilns or “cones” of the Edinburgh and Leith Glassworks. Glassmaking arrived in Leith with the English occupation by Oliver Cromwell’s Protectorate in the 1650s, establishing itself in the Citadel of that force. It really got going a century later when it moved across the river to South Leith. Beyond are the chimneys of the Leith Gas Works and the row of vertical tubes which were the condensers. The light coloured building on the right of those is the passenger building of South Leith Station. The various sidings for the goods yard fan off to the right.

In the middle, the proud looking fellow in his pale work clothes and a waist coat stands amongst the shoreline rocks and the whins. Note that the chemicals used in camera plates at this time were often insensitive to certain blues, and working clothes often come out looking pure white but were more likely to have been pale blue-grey denims. We see the Tower down on the Shore on the left, peeping out between the chimneys. By this time it was used as a signal station for communicating with ships entering the port, the masts of which can be seen in the distance. Behind our fellow are the goods sheds, timber sheds, railway wagons etc. of the busy dockland. Another group pose behind the palisade on his left.

To the right we see a family picnicking amongst the whins – this scrubby, bushy coastal rough ground of coastal grasses and gorse were the natural flora of the shoreline. Children, squatting down, are scratching about in the sand on the right. In the distance,”bathing machines” make their ponderous way in and out of the sea in the middle ground, and further away still is the dock breakwater and Martello Tower. The smudge of smoke might at first suggest that there is an occupant in the tower, but it was likely never armed or garrisoned at this time, and it’s probably a passing steamship.

The people of Leith have a long history of using the sands for leisure. The annual highlight of the Leith year (and a fixture in the Scottish calendar) was the Leith Races, which you can read about on their own thread.

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