Old Leith Rediscovered

Old Leith Rediscovered is a Living Memory Association project in partnership with Spirit of Leithers Facebook Community and the National Library of Scotland.

Much of old Leith was swept away as part of Edinburgh's 'improvements' of the 1920s and 1960s. Knowledge of what was lost now relies mainly on old street maps and photographs — and of course old Leithers' memories.

One of the best maps available is Charles Goad's Fire Insurance Plan of Leith. First published in 1892, Goad's Plan captures the streets and structures of old Leith in extraordinary detail.

With financial support from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and assistance from the National Library of Scotland, Old Leith Rediscovered brings the historic townscape of Leith to life by adding a large selection of surviving images to Goad's Plan of Leith, and publishing it online as a free, interactive experience.

Old Leith Rediscovered is a celebration of the history of Leith and her people. We hope it will help foster a pride and inquisitiveness about Leith's past and provide a focus for Leithers at home and abroad to share memories and images of days gone by.

Sources
This material in this site was put together by Fraser Parkinson, Rhona Alcorn, and Vasilis Karaiskos.

Except where specifically acknowledged, we believe the information we provide to be 'common knowledge' and without a single authoritative source.

We gratefully acknowledge in general terms each of the following people and collections for allowing us to share their Leith treasures:

• People
  • Jack Gillon (Sixties Edinburgh)
  • Tom Nolan
  • Frank Ferri

• Collections
  • National Library of Scotland map collection
    We owe a special thanks to Chris Fleet from the National Library of Scotland for his help with map resources and map-related software throughout the project.
  • Spirit of Leithers Facebook community
  • British Newspaper Archive
  • Capital Collections
  • EdinPhoto and contributors
  Leith Lives (1980s Leith local history project)
  
  • [murmur] Edinburgh
    oldleither.com (now defunct)
  • National Galleries of Scotland
  • The Living Memory Association archive
  • University of Edinburgh's Centre for Research Collections
  • Edinburgh Evening News and The Scotsman
  • Lost Edinburgh

We have not knowingly breached any copyrights, but do please contact us on email us if you have any concerns.