Stockbridge, Edinburgh
Posted in Architecture, Art Deco, Bridges, Edinburgh, Woolworths at 19:29 on 15 July 2010
Last week the good lady and I took another stroll along the Water of Leith.
No herons this time, and we didn’t tarry by Dean Village, the Dene Bridge nor St Bernards Well but since the last time we were there, there have been a few additions to the water in the shape of Antony Gormley sculptures. This is the one nearest Stockbridge.
Gormley is most famous for the Angel Of The North but has also placed figures on Crosby Beach near Liverpool and on roofs in New York and London.
The Water of Leith seems an appropriate location for these new emplacements as it flows past the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, albeit out of sight in a valley.
We had a look around Stockbridge, the good lady loading up on books from the charity shops and a great second-hand book shop that we hadn’t gone into before.
I liked the look of this one as the facade is Decoish:-
I suspect the projecting frontage may have started life as a bank.
There is some nice detailing on the door surround too.
On its left as you look at it in the photo stands the former Woolworths shop (which wasn’t ever Art Deco) and is now a Scotmid.
On the way back I photographed the bridge which carries Belford Road over the river.
I’ve no idea whether this is one of Thomas Telford’s (as the Dene Bridge is) but it looks of an age to me.
This is the detail up on the right in close up:-
I believe it depicts the Arms of Edinburgh.
Tags: Antony Gormley, Belford Road, Dene Bridge, Edinburgh, Scotmid, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Water Of Leith, Woolies, Woolworths
Denis Cullinan
16 December 2012 at 21:14
Nice photography here, and the scenes bring back memories of the later 2000’s, when I would visit my daughter (who was slaving away at Edinburgh University) and who married a Glaswegian Scot in 2008. You don’t get too many family-joinings of Scotsmen and New Yorkers, I would reckon.
New York, where I live (call this living?) is drooling with Art Deco artefacts, including of course Rockefeller Center (even Gertrude Stein judged it “beautiful”), where I worked for a dozen years or so. The lobby of 30 Rock would knock your eye out.
jackdeighton
16 December 2012 at 21:50
Thanks Denis,
Glad to bring back memories for you.
Yes, I believe there’s a lot of deco in the US – New York, Miami; Buffalo City Hall has some amazing detail (the internet is a wonderful thing for seeing places and buildings you can’t in real life) – but I’ve never made it across the pond to see for myself.