Slateford

A historical perspective, drawn from the Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland: A Survey of Scottish Topography, Statistical, Biographical and Historical, edited by Francis H. Groome and originally published in parts by Thomas C. Jack, Grange Publishing Works, Edinburgh between 1882 and 1885.

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Slateford, a village in Colinton and St Cuthberts parishes, Edinburghshire, on the Water of Leith and the Union Canal, ¼ mile SSW of Slateford station on the Caledonian railway, this being 21/8 miles SW of the Edinburgh terminus. It has a post office, with money order, savings' bank, and telegraph departments, a bridge, a canal aqueduct, a railway viaduct, a plain old U.P. church, a public school, a Good Templar's hall (1872), a police station, and the extensive bleachfield of Inglis Green. The Rev. John Dick, D.D. (1764-1833), afterwards professor of theology to the Associate Synod, was minister here from 1786 to 1803; and Robert Pollok (1799-1827), author of the Course of Time, spent the last summer of his life with Mr Dick's successor, the Rev. John Belfrage, M.D., and preached once or twice in his church. The aqueduct and the viaduct are magnificent works, the former 500 feet long and 65 high; and they and the bridge stand so near one another, and have such different heights, as to form a curious scene. Pop. (1841) 221, (1861) 514, (1871) 647, (1881) 621, of whom 519 were in Colinton parish.—Ord. Sur., sh. 32, 1857.

An accompanying 19th C. Ordnance Survey map is available, or use the map tab to the right of this page.

Note: This text has been made available using a process of scanning and optical character recognition. Despite manual checking, some typographical errors may remain. Please remember this description dates from the 1880s; names may have changed, administrative divisions will certainly be different and there are known to be occasional errors of fact in the original text, which we have not corrected because we wish to maintain its integrity. This information is provided subject to our standard disclaimer

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