Leith Walk Primary School

Leith Walk is one of the longest streets in Edinburgh, Scotland, and is the main road connecting the port area of Leith to the centre of the city. Forming the majority of the A900 road, it slopes upward from 'the Foot of the Walk' at the north-eastern end of the street, where Great Junction, Duke and Constitution streets meet, to the Picardy Place roundabout at the south-western end.

Although the whole street is usually referred to as Leith Walk, its upper half is actually divided into several stretches with different names. Unusually, some parts also have different names on opposite sides of the street. Running from its upper (south west) end, on the west side of the street the sections are Picardy Place, Union Place, Antigua Street, Gayfield Place and Haddington Place; on the east side, sections are titled Greenside Place, Baxter's Place, Elm Row and Brunswick Place. It continues (on both sides) as Croall Place, Albert Place, Crighton Place and, after the junction with Pilrig Street, as Leith Walk.

There was a rough pathway in the vicinity of modern-day Leith Walk in the time of James II in the mid 15th century. Leith Walk, as we know it, owes its existence to a defensive rampart which was constructed between Calton Hill and Leith in 1650. The attack on Edinburgh by Cromwell's army in that year was halted at this line by the Scots under David Leslie (whose army was subsequently defeated at the Battle of Dunbar). The rampart developed later into a footpath described by Daniel Defoe, writing in 1725 and recalling his time in Edinburgh in 1706, as "a very handsome Gravel-walk, 20 Feet broad, continued to the Town of Leith, which is kept in good repair at the public Charge, and no Horse suffered to come upon it."

The fact that it was forbidden to wheeled traffic explains why the street became known as "the Walk", the name by which it is still known locally. At the time of its creation it provided an alternative (and shorter) route to Edinburgh compared with the older Easter Road and its counterpart Wester Road (present-day Bonnington and Broughton roads) although it did not supersede these routes as the main road to Leith until after the building of the North Bridge, completed in 1772.

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Wikipedia