EP4 Leith: Water, Whisky and Wine

And it's easy to forget just how important rivers and waterways were before there were railways, before there were like big roads and infrastructure and modern transport.

The water of Leith wasn't just a scenic feature.

It was like an economic powerhouse.

You know, we're not talking about steam engines even here.

We're talking about like horse-drawn transport being the main competitor to waterways.

So, yeah, for hundreds of years, the water here would have powered mills, ground grain, processed goods.

timber, paper, cloth and supported a really wide variety of industries at its industrial peak.

There were loads of mill sites along the river and we spoke about a handful of those in the last episode around the Cannon Mills area.

The water of Leith is about 20 miles long so you can imagine how many other sites there were along the way which also makes me think how gross the water must have actually been considering there were like tanneries and stuff.

Let's not think about that too much.

So yeah, the combination of the water, the industrial power and the access to the sea helped to create a really significant trading community here at Leith and it has almost a thousand years of history as Scotland's gateway to the wider world.

And a bit like Cannon Mills, Leith appeared in a royal charter under the reign of David I who granted the harbour and surrounding lands to the Cannons at Holyrood Abbey and that was in 1128.

He was really generous to those cannons, like there's loads of stuff that falls under that royal charter from 1128, but Leith as an area and a harbour was within that.

And looking at key moments in Leith's history, the port repeatedly appears in the centre of major national events.

Royal visitors would have arrived here, including Mary Queen of Scots.

She landed at what's now the shore on her arrival back to Scotland in 1561 to take up her throne.

She's one of many visiting monarchs to touch down at the Port of Leith and in fact her mother, Marie de Guise, actually ruled from a property in leith during her regency while mary was a child in france now we could easily dive in here and talk about mary queen of scots but we'd be here all day and there are already many many podcasts that cover her life and time so we'll stick with leith But yeah, in addition to Mary Queen of Scots and her ma, King James VI, her son, and his consort, Anne of Denmark, stayed at the King's Wark on her arrival, at least, in 1590.

The King's Wark is still there.

It was built in the 1400s.

I'm sure it's been added to over time, but there has been a consistent property and business there since then.

Absolutely love that, and I love how historic that place is.

And then, yeah, you've got armies landing here too.

So Leith was host to a French garrison during the siege of Leith, defended by Marie de Guise herself.

And what's now Leith Walk was actually set up as a defensive rampart against Cromwell's forces in 1650.

So that rampart ran between Leith Harbour and Calton Hill.