Embracing our ever changing environment One of the fascinations of editing Edinburgh Life is learning how the city and its environs have changed over time, sometimes relatively quickly and boldly - largely due to human intervention - and sometimes imperceptibly slowly: often due to deliberate conservation or – conversely disinterest and neglect. This issue illustrates the point very well: Compare the two aerial photographs of the West End taken in 1930 and 1993. Suddenly you realise Princes Street Station is no more, replaced with a large area of spare ground yet to be re-developed. And since the 1930s photograph was taken, the trams that can seen trundling along Princes Street, subsequently disappeared in 1956, only to reappear in 2014, with the latest extension to Newhaven just opened. Or consider the scene from Newton Viewpoint in West Lothian. It has changed considerably in the space of 127 years as the Road Bridge and later the Queensferry Crossing have joined the Rail Bridge in spanning the Firth of Forth. All three examples show how economic imperatives can effect change very quickly. But then take our beautiful Braid Hills in the south of the city. The sweep of the land and distant topography has barely changed for centuries. Save for the 18 manicured greens of its golf course, the area has been conserved for everyone to enjoy. However, ‘Lothians lost history’ shows how old buildings, structures and places that are out of sight and have no recycle value, are left to slowly decay. Mavisbank House, the X-Craft submarines, the military facilities on Cramond Island and Inchkeith and the cattle route on Cauldstane Slap, are of a bygone age - and with no discernible future value, are left to be reclaimed by nature. I think this is all quite fascinating, and I hope you do too. Enjoy your summer in Edinburgh and the Lothians. Peter Bourhill Editor
Publisher/Editor
Peter Bourhill 07850 938407
Features Illustrator s
John Burnett
Lydia Bourhill Harriet Bourhill
Contributors
Murray Campbell James Crawford Gillian Ferguson John Jones
Circulation Social Media
William Allison
Lydia Bourhill Harriet Bourhill
Design
Alasdair Anderson
Contributing Photographers
Doug Corrance Don Munro
Front Cover: The three bridges that cross the Fir th of For th
£3.00 July/August 2023 EdinburghLife
www.edinburghlifemagazine.comand the Lothians
Beautiful Braid Hills
Lothians’ lost history Mavisbank House at Loanhead
X-Craft subs in Aberlady Bay Inchkeith & Cramond Islands
West End from above 1930 and 1993 aerial photos
West Lothian’s finest view Trams to Newhaven
Edinburgh Renaissance Band
50 years at the Fringe
Good News round-up
Summer Festivals highlights
S o c i e t y
E a t i n g O u t
Residential Property
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This page: A sunny afternoon on the Braid Hills Back page: An Edinburgh Tram approaches the newly opened Newhaven Terminus
July/August 2023 EdinburghLife 1
