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22 Rare Color Photographs That Capture Street Scenes of Edinburgh, Scotland in the 1950s_teo
Edinburgh in the 1950s was a very different place. After the ravages of war, the International Festival and Military Tattoo was introduced as an antidote to post-war austerity, the new Civic Survey and Plan put forward grandiose recommendations for change, and a new young Queen visited the city.
This was a time when slum housing was a blight on many people's lives, but there was a real sense of community that was ultimately lost in the move to sparkling, modern homes in the new housing estates. People continued to use the trams to travel to work in the many factories or make trips to Portobello for a day of fun, but they were slowly usurped by the car.
It was a glory period for the local football teams, and nights spent dancing or at the pictures were a weekly event. There was still the horse-drawn milk float and children played in streets that were lit by gas. Beautifully illustrated with many previously unpublished photographs, Edinburgh in the 1950s provides an exceptional insight into a time now acknowledged as the end of an era in Edinburgh - for good and for bad.
St Cuthberts milk float, 1955
Hart Street, New Town, c. 1954
Princes Street, c. 1954
Princes Street in 1953
Edinburgh Castle from Princes Street, 1953
A Sandison & Sons Wool Depot, 1953
West End, 1953
Princes Street in 1953
Three wheeled car on Princes Street, 1953
Princes Street, 1954
The Mound in 1950
Learmonth Avenue View to Fettes College, 1953
Holycorner, c. 1952
Princes Street in 1952 at RW Forsyth corner, S St Andrew Street
Princes Street with coronation decorations in 1953
West End, 1957
Speakers corner on the Mound/Princes Street, 1957
Princes Street, Aug 1958
Outside Waverley Market on Princes Street, 1958
East End of Princes Street near Woolworths and Waverley Market, 1958
View towards Arthurs Seat from Blackford Hill Rise, late 1950s
Princes Street at the junction of St Andrew Street, late 1950s
