The Old Post Office, Waterloo Place, Edinburgh, early 19th Century. Thomas, by H. Shepherd
(you can buy this print from Richard Nicholson of Chester)
...and early 21st century, now an empty office block. (click to enlarge images)
A1-The Great North Road
30 miles west of Bristol.
See what Joe has to say about Edinburgh. He suggests looking at these pictures.
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The Old Post Office, Waterloo Place, Edinburgh, early 19th Century. Thomas, by H. Shepherd (you can buy this print from Richard Nicholson of Chester)
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...and early 21st century, now an empty office block. (click to enlarge images)
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...meanwhile, the Post Office has move across the road and into a shopping mall, all grandeur gone.
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Here's another picture of the Post Office and Waterloo Square. The Duke's horse is on the left in front of Register House. This unattributed 'chromo view' was published in Nelson's Souvenir of Scotland in 1895. The portico, seen to the right of the Post Office in Shepherd's picture, is now gone and the stage coach replaced by horse drawn omnibuses. Looking down Waterloo Place, the first half mile of the Great North Road, the monument on Carlton Hill can be seen. |
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The straight start to the Great North Road from Waterloo Square down Waterloo Place is soon interrupted by Calton Hill and the road swings to the right, south of the hill. On top are various monuments to the great and good, people and events in Scottish history. The most obvious are Nelson's Monument, built in 1816, to commemorate the victory of Trafalgar in 1805 and the National Monument, a copy of the Athens Parthenon, built in 1822 but never completed for lack of funds, in honour of Scotland's dead in the Napoleonic wars. These two monuments are echoed many miles down the road by Nelson's Monument near Felton in Northumberland, some gates at Thornton-le-Street and the Monument to French prisoners who died at the Yaxley Barracks near Norman Cross 325 miles down the road.
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Wheeled transport in Edinburgh goes back a long way. In 2001 a chariot burial was found at Newbridge, close to Huly Hill, a Bronze Age burial cairn surrounded by three standing stones, west of Edinburgh. This was the first chariot burial found in Scotland though 17 have been found in England, mostly in East Yorkshire, notably at Wetwang, and there are others in the Netherlands and France. The Newbridge chariot is dated at around 250BC in the Iron-Age.
And so, is Edinburgh the end of the road? There is a Great North Road in Muir of Ord, Inverness...
©Biff Vernon 2002
