Pubs in Edinburgh

Question

This piglix contains articles or sub-piglix about Pubs in Edinburgh

Answer 1

Golf Tavern

Bruntsfield Links is 35 acres (14 ha) of open parkland in Bruntsfield, Edinburgh, immediately to the south-west of the adjoining Meadows.

Unlike The Meadows, which formerly contained a loch drained by the end of the 18th century, Bruntsfield Links has always been dry ground. It is the last vestige of the Burgh Muir, former woodland which stretched southwards to the Jordan Burn at the foot of the slope now covered by the built-up areas of the Grange and Morningside. The woodland was cleared in accordance with a decree of James IV in 1508, much of the wood being used to build timber-fronted houses and forestairs in the Lawnmarket and West Bow area of the Old Town.

"Links" is a Scots word for land associated with the game of golf. Originally meaning open sandy ground "usually covered with turf, bent grass or gorse, normally near the sea-shore", as at Leith Links or Lundin Links, the word came to mean any ground on which golf was played and is now often used for modern golf courses.

A City of Edinburgh Council plaque states that Bruntsfield Links are one of the earliest known locations where the game was played in Scotland, but it is unclear precisely when. The Golf Tavern which stands on the west side of the Links claims to have been established in 1456, although there is no evidence for this other than an unsupported statement made in A history of the Edinburgh Burgess Golfing Society, now known as The Royal Burgess Golfing Society.

After James IV's Charter of 1508 allowed the Town Council to feu portions of the Burgh Muir quarriers began extracting sandstone from the Links. By an Act of Council dated 25 December 1695 lessees were granted the liberty of choosing "an aiker" on any part of the Links for a quarry, "the said aiker always being at ane distance from the place where the neighbours play at Goulf".Robert Chambers mentions golf being played on the Links at the time of a well-known local incident which he implies took place in the reign of Charles II, although the internal evidence points more to the later "Killing Time" of the 1680s. This would make it contemporaneous with the famous game of golf played by the Duke of York and John Patersone on Leith Links in 1682 (see Timeline of golf).

...

Wikipedia

Answer 2

Newbridge Inn

Newbridge Inn

The Newbridge Inn is a public house in Newbridge, a suburban village to the west of Edinburgh, Scotland. The inn was founded in 1683. The present building is dated 1895 and is a category C(S) listed building. It is located at the corner of Old Liston Road and Bridge Street, which was formerly the main route from Edinburgh to Glasgow.

The Newbridge Inn was built in 1683 on land owned by Archibald Hope of Raukellour. On 12 December 1700 he sold some of the land, including the Inn, to John Dundas for "20 merks Scots money, 2 lambs, to be given on Whitsunday and Marksmas and 6 good hens yearly on Whitsunday". On 16 July 1726 John Dundas sold the land and the Inn to James Liston for the sum of £385.15.6d. On 6 April 6 1737 Liston sold it to Patrick Hay for "a certain sum of money as the agreed and adequate price and hold me well content and satisfied and paid". In 1759 on 22 August, Patrick Hay sold the land and the Inn to George Reid, a brewer and farmer, for £200.0.0d. George in turn willed it to his son Cumberland Reid on 14 June 1815 and in 1818, Cumberland left it to his nephew, John Reid, a merchant from Leith. John sold it to his brother James for sum of £700.0.0d on 27 August 1821. On 25 March 1824 James Reid sold only the Inn to Helen Cowie Buchanan for £465.0.0d. After 62 years, Helen sold on to Robert Gordon on 15 May 1866 for £725.0.0d. Robert Gordon took a loss and sold it on to John Aitkinson for £665.0.0d. On 3 July 1877 it was sold yet again for £300.0.0d to James Masterton. After his death the inn passed to his wife Christina Garlick Masterton who gave it to her younger son, John Masterton. John sold it on to his brother James Masterton for £250.0.0d in 1898. In 1930, James Masterton Jnr willed it to his nephew, James Yule Wemyss in 1952. When James died, his wife Pleasance Cecilly Wemyss took over the running of the Inn in 1963. After 106 years and four generations in the same family, the Newbridge Inn was sold to David and June Morris on 28 June 1983.

...

Wikipedia

Answer 3

The Oxford Bar

The Oxford Bar

The Oxford Bar is a public house situated on Young Street, in the New Town of Edinburgh, Scotland. The pub is chiefly notable for having been featured in Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus series of novels. The Oxford Bar, or The Ox, is John Rebus's favourite pub in Edinburgh.

The Oxford Bar apparently became a public house in 1811, although it was a confectioner's shop in 1843. It was disponed on 30 October 1893 to Andrew Wilson, wines and spirits merchant, and thereafter remained a public bar.

The Oxford Bar retains its original compartmentalised form, which many other local bars have lost. Originally consisting of a central corridor with rooms to right and left, the corridor has been opened up to the left with an archway into the small stand-up bar but the original form is still clear.

It is a Category B listed building.

Several Scottish writers and artists are also said to have been patrons of the Oxford Bar, including Sydney Goodsir Smith and Willie Ross. In fact, the pub was first immortalised in Smith's Carotid Cornucopius. Ian Rankin is also a patron of the Oxford Bar, and chose it as Rebus's pub because a lot of police officers drink there. In Dirty Work: Ian Rankin and John Rebus Book-By-Book, Ray Dexter and Nadine Carr note that the Oxford Bar would be an improbable local for Rebus due to its geographical location.

Other visitors to the bar have included actor Sean Connery and author Colin Dexter.

Quintin Jardine's 2009 Bob Skinner novel, Fatal Last Words, also mentions the Oxford Bar considerably, again due to the connection with the local police force drinking there. There are a few other nods to Rankin too.

...

Wikipedia

Answer 4

Sheep Heid Inn

The Sheep Heid Inn is a public house in Duddingston, Edinburgh, Scotland. There has reputedly been a pub on this spot selling liquor and victuals since 1360. If this foundation date was proved correct it would make The Sheep Heid Inn perhaps the oldest surviving licensed premises in Edinburgh, if not Scotland.

In addition to the question of the conjectural date, the origin of the pub's name is also a matter of some debate. From the medieval period to early modern times, sheep were reared in Holyrood Park, a royal park beside Duddingston, and were slaughtered in Duddingston before being taken to the Fleshmarket in Edinburgh’s Old Town. There being no great demand for the heads (Scots: heids), the residents of Duddingston village became renowned for their culinary genius with this less than savoury item. Two dishes in particular were widely remarked upon, sheep heid broth ("powsowdie") and singed sheep heid. The local fame of the latter was even mentioned by Mrs Beeton in her famous cookery book. Indeed, until the late 19th century the use of these heads was so commonplace that the locals used the skulls as cobbles for their pathways. So the pub's name may originate here. Alternatively, and far more plausibly, its name probably came about following the royal gift in 1580 of an ornate ram’s head snuff box, given by King James VI of Scotland.

Duddingston village is exactly half way between the royal residences of Craigmillar Castle and Holyrood Palace, and James, like his mother Mary, Queen of Scots, is said to have stopped here many times and even played skittles in the courtyard behind the pub. As a mark of gratitude he presented the landlord with this highly unusual gift which remained on site for 300 years before being sold at auction to the Earl of Rosebery, whose descendants possess it still at their country seat of Dalmeny House. The pub does, however, possess a 19th-century copy behind its bar. The greater likelihood therefore is that the name was adopted for the pub to mark it apart from the many other taverns known to have existed in the locality.

...

Wikipedia

Answer 5

Trinity Chain Pier

Trinity Chain Pier

Trinity Chain Pier, originally called Trinity Pier of Suspension, was built in Trinity, Edinburgh, Scotland in 1821. The pier was designed by Samuel Brown, a pioneer of chains and suspension bridges. It was intended to serve ferry traffic on the routes between Edinburgh and the smaller ports around the Firth of Forth, and was built during a time of rapid technological advance. It was well used for its original purpose for less than twenty years before traffic was attracted to newly developed nearby ports, and it was mainly used for most of its life for sea bathing. It was destroyed by a storm in 1898; a building at the shore end survives, much reconstructed, as a pub and restaurant called the Old Chain Pier.

The Firth of Forth is an estuary which separates Edinburgh, Scotland's capital, from the peninsula of Fife. Traffic across the firth has been important for centuries; as well as having industry and agriculture, Fife lies on the shortest route from Edinburgh to the north of the country. The closest bridge to Edinburgh for many years was at Stirling, 36 miles (58 km) to the west.Queensferry, 10 miles (16 km) west, was named after Queen Margaret who crossed by ferry from there in 1070. Traffic across the firth was regulated and taxed as early as 1467, and was historically centred on the route from Leith to Kinghorn. A ferry from Newhaven to Burntisland started in 1792. Travel by sailing boat and stagecoach was slow and unreliable; Walter Scott in The Antiquary (1816) described the journey from Edinburgh to cross at Queensferry as being "like a fly through a glue-pot".

...

Wikipedia