This thread was originally written and published in December 2019. It has been edited and corrected as applicable for this post.

This part in the Edinburgh and Leith themed Twelve Days of Christmas thread is preceded by a post about Lord Russell Place and the man for whom it was named.

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On the eleventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me; Pipe Street. I could have gone with the Big Pipes of Leith, but they are covered in another post, and this gives me a chance to include something of Old Portobello; “the town that bricks built”.

Pipe Street dates back to the very beginnings of Portobello in the 1770s, when the lands to the east of the Figget (Figate) Burn were feud to an Edinburgh mason by the name of William Jamieson by the landowner, the Dukes of Abercorn. Jamieson was looking to build a villa but instead when he dug down he found a clay bed on the river bank. He built his house – Rosefield – but being an industrious and entrerprising man, he also opened a brick and tile works. He had clay and coal was plentiful in the district. Below is a sketch of John Ainslie’s plan of Portobello, or “Village of Figget”, of 1783.

Jamieson built housing here – from his own brick and tile and known as Brickfield – for his workers and laid a pipe (or pipes) from the Figgate Burn near his house at Rosefield, well enough above the industry of Portobello, to bring fresh water to his employees. The pipes discharged into a communal trough or cistern near where Pipe Street meets Bridge Street, and gave its name to the former.

Despite Jamieson’s early attempts to bring fresh water into the district, in 1832 and 1836 there were outbreaks of cholera amongst the workers “with a heavy mortality, and again in Pipe Street and neighbourhood many deaths occurred.” Cholera returned in 1853 and 1854, despite there now being piped fresh water from Edinburgh and most houses having water closets. Pipe Street was again badly afflicted, this being on account of the sewage drainage from the area running down to the old, abandoned pier on the beach where it lingered in pools. The Town Council gained powers in a Parliamentary Act in 1856 to deal with this nuisance – however it obviously was not completely solved as in 1893, when Portobello was amalgamated with Edinburgh, “improvement of the sanitary condition of Pipe Street and lanes adjacent” was one of the conditions.

In 1857 the Burgh drew up plans for sewers that would send the untreated effluent of the burgh far enough out into the Firth of Forth that the sea would carry it away. Two outlets, one at the east and the west of the beach of Portobello were built, and the pipes of the interceptor sewer that fed these ran along the sea front and was built over, providing the town with the seaside promenade for which it is known.

Somewhat fittingly, Pipe Street was later the site of a public gasometer to provide the town of Portobello with town gas from Edinburgh for lighting, and the gas main supplying this ran down Pipe Street. And when the potteries and old houses off of Pipe Street and its lanes were cleared away in the 1970s, new houses were built in 1979 with street names including Brickfield, William Jameson Place and The Pottery.

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The Edinburgh and Leith-themed Twelve Days of Christmas thread concludes with a post about The Drum and Drum House

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