Other peoples homes (6) Victorian Edinburgh, Lauriston Gardens
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Send to a friend by YMAuthor: Olivia Hughes
Easy like Sunday morning but, what do you do when it’s blustery and wet, you’ve read the Sunday papers, drunk more coffee than is good for you and ruled out going back to bed? Of course, you tackle a job that you have been putting off for far too long. So, last Sunday saw me sorting through a shoe box full of old photographs - moments in time that make you smile, cry and remember.
Easy like Sunday morning but, what do you do when it’s blustery and wet, you’ve read the Sunday papers, drunk more coffee than is good for you and ruled out going back to bed? Of course, you tackle a job that you have been putting off for far too long. So, last Sunday saw me sorting through a shoe box full of old photographs - moments in time that make you smile, cry and remember.
One of the photographs I discovered amongst the collection was of my Grandmother’s home in Lauriston Gardens, Edinburgh. As I looked at it so many childhood memories came flooding back.
When we were very young my sister and I would be taken on the Flying Scotsman from London’s Charing Cross Station to Edinburgh’s Waverley Station for a holiday with my Grandmother. Right next to the Meadows and Bruntisfield Links within the shadow of Arthur’s Seat my Grandmother had an enormous double fronted ground floor flat in a traditional grey sandstone tenement block. Built around 1860 it was so different from our brick built homes in Southern England. During the 19th century tenements became the predominant type of new housing in Scotland’s industrial cities. Three to five stories high with two to four flats on each floor. They are sometimes referred to as closies (a reference to the passageway through which entry is gained to the upper flats). We used to think the flat very special because it had its own main door entry. In front was a narrow garden planted with ferns and rose bushes separated from the pavement by a low stone wall topped with cast iron railings and fleur de lys rail heads. The path leading to the storm doors and front door was paved with black and white diamond shaped tiles and outside no ordinary bell. It was a brass handled bell pull mounted on an oak back plate. When you pulled the handle a never ending brass bar seemed to come out of the wall and magically ring a bell inside in the hallway. The hallway seemed to go on forever with high ceilinged rooms off either side. It always seemed to be very dark in the hallway and our feet would echo on the floor tiles laid out in a fascinating geometric design of terracotta, blue and white. At the end of the hall was a Grandfather Clock, twice as tall as us children, with a door in the front. My sister and I would balance on the plinth to open the door and take it in turns to hide inside. I cringe now to think of what damage we must have caused to the mechanism.
Apart from the heavy wooden window shutters, folded back in the summer but closed in the winter to keep warmth from the fires in and the cold Scottish climate out the most vivid memory that sprang to mind as I looked at the photograph was of the beautiful cast iron cooking range. In Victorian times the range was the centrepiece of every home. Homes were warmed and food was served from them. My Grandmother and Grandfather moved into their flat in about 1926 and my Grandmother continued to live there until she died in 1977. In all those years her range was an essential part of her home. Regularly black leaded the range must have been about 5ft. long with a massive dark wood and green tiled fire surround, mantelpiece, and brass towel rail. It had three hotplates and two ovens one each side of the central firebox. She always had a coal scuttle full of coal standing beside the range that, winter or summer alike would always be alight.
One very faded print that held so many happy memories. Did I finish the job I set out to do? No, the sun came out, the shoe box lid went back on and the box was returned to the cupboard again until another wet weather job is called for with another opportunity to meander down memory lane.
Olivia Hughes
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