Here's a nice shot along the length of the old Cowgate when the Wishart Arch was still connected to it.The arch was where plague victims were brought to in the middle of the 16th century, but nowadays the arch itself looks as if it has the plague, cast aside in isolation like a bubonic casualty.
There's evidence too in the photo that this is where nicotine victims came to in the early 1970's, with a discarded packet of Embassy Tipped lying alongside it in the gutter!
"Bring out your dead...bring out your dead..."
Wish all these little lanes still existed. Am sure there was a motor factors on the left hand side of the street just past the arch. That was possibly around 1982? Also, would the back garden of the tennement that housed the Tauside Bar would have backed onto that building possibly?
ReplyDeleteHistorian is right about the motor factor. It was called Cheyne's. I have a funny feeling there were two almost side by side. Could one of them have been an early incarnation of D & A?
ReplyDeleteAgree with Historian, wish all the little lanes still existed, I was born at 35 Cowgate and remember as a kid, having to visit one of the lanes to put rubbish in the communal bins in Sugarhouse Wynd if I recall.
ReplyDeleteMy grandmother lived in the Cowgate in the 1960’s and had a general grocer’s shop on the street in the 40’s and 50’s.. I too was required to take rubbish down flights of steps to ‘the midden’ in Sugarhouse Wynd, a terrifying experience in the dark. My parents watched me from an upstairs window to make sure I got there safely!
DeleteI worked on the flats and building next to the arch and remember it having to get protection by scaffolding and boarding while the renovations were on going, the company obviously didn't have confidence in the digger and forklift drivers they employed.Could't risk a well known piece of local history being obliterated during the work being done :)
ReplyDeletei bought sticky pvc letters F A N T A, from a sign shop here, to personalise my tangerine n black, mk 1 raliegh chopper, wi the rounded roll bar, rather than the mk 2 squared off.
ReplyDeletecycled to the seedlies on it, fae west kirkton and developed terrifyin speed wobbles on way back hame.
I remember the car park you can see to the right in the picture. My dad would park his Hillman Avenger in there.
ReplyDeleteI remember the wee man in the hut(pictured), you paid your 5p or 10p or whatever it was in the early 80s, and he raised the wooden barrier. The ground was really bumpy, full of potholes and rises, but most memorable of all was the back wall: it consisted of a row of the ghosts of the toilet cubicles that made up part of the school that once stood where the car park was. In fact, I'm pretty sure my dad told me he attended that school, but maybe someone here can tell what it was called? Shining white (but suspiciously stained) ceramic tiles, divided every three feet or so with the remains of the dividing panel. I'm *almost* sure you could still see the remains of the fittings there too. Bog rolls holders that once held the infamous 'tracing paper' loo roll.
Ooyah.
Cowgate School? I recall a long, covered stairway that led down from King St, I suppose to that same building.
ReplyDeleteIt was indeed Cowgate School, used to go there Friday nights for Band Practice, St Andrews Parish BB, was a drummer.
ReplyDeleteAnybody remember the zoo/farm around here I remember it being at the bottom of the car park in the early 80s when my mum parked there so i could go to Brian Sherrifs.
ReplyDeleteGrant - yeah the City Farm was behind the Wishart Centre on undeveloped ground near the Arch. It was run by the Cyrenians.
ReplyDeletePigs, goats, cow, hens, rabbits etc usually for primary school use, but was open to the general public too.
Not sure if there were two motor factors but can find out but one was East of Scotland Factors started by my grandad. First started in the High St then moved to Cowgate and moved again when the work started in that area to Hawkhill. Would love to see photo of with their building in it in Cowgate.
ReplyDeleteI stayed at 68 Cowgate next to the School Mitchell's self drive was there in the pend. i got 2 shillings for washing the cars age 9. This was in 1965. D & A motors across from the mill in them days.
DeleteJohn o groat's Pub at end of Cowgate. My dad and brother drank in it in the 1960s i think it was oldest Pub in the town at the Time. part of it in the Museum
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