Jun 25, 2026 · 24 min · 8 segments
In this episode we take in the area from the bridge at Canonmills over to George V park and the surrounding area. The Victorians changed this site immeasurably, from draining the loch to burrowing…
Ruth GrayHost
So what's in a name? Where does the name Cannon Mills come from? We're going to start off with a clue that's literally built into the old petrol station right at the bottom of Rodney Street, very close to the same river that we've mentioned in the last couple of episodes, the Water of Leith.
So this service station or the garage, as we call it, has been there for a really long time, decades in fact.
but one of the pieces of stone that's visible on the outside back wall is actually a stone lintel from a much older building so this stone has an inscription on it says 1686 baxter's land it actually came from a 17th century baker's meeting house that stood pretty much on this spot So the Cannon Mills area got its name from these bakers.
And that's from the milling that was happening here way back during the reign of David I.
And it was the Augustinian Cannons who had their abbey in Holyrood Park that were given this bit of land to mill flour for their bread.
the reason this spot was really good for milling was that there was actually a loch on this site so I had no idea until I started researching this so you can maybe hear that it's raining don't worry I'm dry yeah there was a loch on this spot and there was water flowing up here through a lade which is a little man-made channel that was used to divert water up from a like a pond or a loch so that it would turn the wheels of a mill so yeah there was a wee lock here I never knew that but the whole kind of low lying area between like the bottom of Dundas Street and like Rodney Street was covered by a lock And in the winter, when the loch froze, because they had proper winters back then, the surface was used by people who liked to skate on it.
But yeah, there was actually a curling club, which was founded in 1760, Cannon Mills Curling Club.
So as well as that Baxter's Land, the baker's meeting house, there are records of papermaking nearby, a brewery, a distillery, a cooperage.
So what's in a name? Where does the name Cannon Mills come from? We're going to start off with a clue that's literally built into the old petrol station right at the bottom of Rodney Street, very close to the same river that we've mentioned in the last couple of episodes, the Water of Leith.
So this service station or the garage, as we call it, has been there for a really long time, decades in fact.
but one of the pieces of stone that's visible on the outside back wall is actually a stone lintel from a much older building so this stone has an inscription on it says 1686 baxter's land it actually came from a 17th century baker's meeting house that stood pretty much on this spot So the Cannon Mills area got its name from these bakers.
And that's from the milling that was happening here way back during the reign of David I.
And it was the Augustinian Cannons who had their abbey in Holyrood Park that were given this bit of land to mill flour for their bread.
the reason this spot was really good for milling was that there was actually a loch on this site so I had no idea until I started researching this so you can maybe hear that it's raining don't worry I'm dry yeah there was a loch on this spot and there was water flowing up here through a lade which is a little man-made channel that was used to divert water up from a like a pond or a loch so that it would turn the wheels of a mill so yeah there was a wee lock here I never knew that but the whole kind of low lying area between like the bottom of Dundas Street and like Rodney Street was covered by a lock And in the winter, when the loch froze, because they had proper winters back then, the surface was used by people who liked to skate on it.
But yeah, there was actually a curling club, which was founded in 1760, Cannon Mills Curling Club.
So as well as that Baxter's Land, the baker's meeting house, there are records of papermaking nearby, a brewery, a distillery, a cooperage.
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