Constitution Street
Coordinates: 55°58′23″N 3°10′06″W / 55.97306°N 3.16833°W
Constitution Street is a thoroughfare in Leith, Edinburgh, Scotland. It runs north from the junction of Leith Walk, Great Junction Street and Duke Street to Leith docks.
The street takes its name from Constitution Hill, which stood on the site of the current Assembly Rooms. The road was only completed in 1800, at that time being built as a bypass from Bernard Street to Leith Walk, avoiding the crowded and twisting medieval streets of old Leith. The street at that time was causewayed, rising around two metres above natural ground level. Buildings which predate this now have their original fine ground floor rooms buried at basement level.
Constitution Street was to form part of the Edinburgh Trams network and much preparatory work was carried out but the Leith section of the project has been abandoned.
On 9 January 1823 the last two men executed for piracy in Scotland were hanged at the north end of the street (near what is now Tower Street). The two men were Peter Heaman from Sweden and Francois Gautiez from France. They were found guilty in the summer of 1822 of capturing the brig "Jane", en route from Gibraltar to Brazil, killing its master and stealing 38,000 Spanish dollars. The crowd witnessing this event was given as a huge 40 to 50,000 persons. One account says their bodies were afterwards awarded to Dr Robert Knox for dissection. A second account says they were buried where executed. Two bodies were discovered during an archaeological dig at the north end of the street in approximately the correct area in the summer of 2000, possibly validating the latter claim.
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