Canonmills


City of Edinburgh

A district of NW Edinburgh, Canonmills lies between the New Town and the residential suburb of Inverleith. It developed as a village with mills on the Water of Leith which is known locally as the Puddocky Burn. A solitary orange-pantiled mill building from c.1700 remains, on the corner of Eyre Place and Canon Street, which was refurbished as offices in 1987.

Once situated on royal land, this was gifted by King David I to the Augustinian monks of Holyrood Abbey, who worked the mills. The land later became the property of Heriot's Hospital and eventually the estate of James Eyre, a brewer whose name was given to several streets in the vicinity. The bakers of the Canongate were obliged by law to grind their corn here. Canonmills Loch served as the mill dam and, in the winter, was used by Canonmills Curling Club, founded in 1760. The loch shrank as it was no longer required to power the mills and was finally drained between 1847 and 1865. It is now the site of King George V Park.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-94) was born in Howard Place, and the composer Frederic Chopin (1810-49) stayed in Warriston Crescent.

Canonmills Clock, in the centre of the road junction at the bottom of Brandon Terrace, is a notable Art Deco landmark which was gifted to the City of Edinburgh in 1945 by Archibald G. Bryson, Session Clerk of the nearby St. Mary's Parish Church.


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