From the archives....the Caledonian Hotel

This super shot comes from our archives. It shows the Caledonian Hotel covered in scaffolding during the 1980s whilst it was being cleaned. Those of us over the age of 35 will remember the busy cleaning phase that the city went through, beautiful sandstone once again being revealed after decades of being hidden by the copious, oily soot produced by Auld Reekie's chimneys. Modern opinion sometimes criticises the methodology of some stone-cleaning habits back then but it cannot be denied that some of the grandes dames of our city refound the beauty of their youth (if only I could do the same!!!) and immediately brought back some much-needed glamour to our streets.

The Caledonian Hotel has been described as a "wonderfully blousy intrusion into West End Edinburgh" (McKean, "Edinburgh, An Illustrated Guide", p51). It is mostly built of red Permian Locharbriggs Sandstone from Dumfriesshire with some stone from Corncockle Quarry too. This distinctive red stone was, aptly, brought to Edinburgh on the Caledonian Railway line, of which the hotel used to be a station. Locharbriggs stone was also used for the fire station in Lauriston Place and some of the Edinburgh College of Art. 

Copyright Scott & Brown (Builders) Ltd.

Auld Reekie

This photo, photographer unknown, was taken around 1860-1890 and gives us a perfect snapshot of just a few of the many chimneys that used to stand in the city centre. No wonder our beautiful sandstone buildings turned black over the years! How many can you count in the photo?