Rose Mount: the thread about a long gone West End villa and model housing schemes

This thread was originally written and published in June 2022.

What better way to start the day than with a quick refresher on why this unusual and distinctive block is so called and on a little of its history:

The name Rosemount is taken from a villa of that name – Rose Mount – which once occupied this corner of land that was then outside the city limits. It was the domain of William Morison, a writer (in Scottish law; a Solicitor). Morison feud this land from the Heriot Trust in 1790 (under old Scottish feudal property law, a smaller portion of land – the feu – was split off of a larger holding for development, but the owner of the latter remained the feudal superior of the former, and was paid a feu duty as such.)

Morison owned the plot of land south of the road to Glasgow via Linlithgow, and surrounded by the Dalry House estate to the west, Bonar of Grove to the south and Walker of Gardner’s Hall to the east. Note at this time the modern street name of Morrison Street did not exist (Morrison is a modern rendering of the traditional Morison). Instead of a single street name, the road was progressively Rose Mount, Tobago Street and then the more ancient lost place names of Castle Barns and Orchardfield.

Morison also owned the properties of Whitehouse and Adiefield in the same stretch.

Tobago Street was so called because the owner of the land here was one Nathaniel Davidson “of the Island of Tobago“. We can assume a plantation owner of some description. Castle Barns and Orchardfield dated back to the early Kings of Scotland, David I having an orchard and barns there in 1120 to service the castle with produce. Morison and Rose Mount are first mentioned in the feuing of 1790s and by the 1817 revision of the Town Plan, a bay-fronted house can be seen looking down an ornamental driveway and avenue along the Glasgow Road, perfectly positioned to catch the evening sun and make a statement to anyone arriving in the city from the direction of West Lothian, Stirling and Glasgow.

Morison is “the late” William Morison by 1824, when his lands here called “Morison’s Park” are offered for feuing. It is noted at this time that the street that would later be called Morrison Street was intended to be called St. Cuthbert’s Street. By 1849 the city is growing up around Rose Mount, the driveway and avenue seem somewhat suppressed and the structure to the rear of the house is in ruin. By this time Morrison Street (note the different spelling) is clearly established, but the buildings along its north side are not as of yet.

Morrison Street was probably not named for our William Morison, but for Thomas Morison or Morrison – a wealthy builder from Muthill near Crieff in Pertshire – whose bequest founded the Morrison’s Academy private school in Crieff. After Thomas Morison’s death, the trustees of his estate – lead by one Captain Hugh Morrison – bought William Morison’s land to the north of what would become Morrison Street and developed the streets of Dewar Place, Torphicen Street etc. By 1848, Rose Mount (site marked X) falls into disuse and is swallowed up by the Caledonian Railway coal yard, By 1854 it is struck off the Post Office Directory but the name is commemorated with an entry for Rosebank Cottages (confusingly on the old Grove lands to the east.)

Rosebank Cottages were built between 1854 and 1857 and are a charming Colonies-style housing scheme (but not by the Edinburgh Cooperative Building Company) modelled on Shaw’s Houses in Pilrig. The Rosebank Cottages were designed by Alexander MacGregor to provide “flatted cottages for the better class of mechanics“. Each house contained living room, two bedrooms, a scullery and a toilet.

The interior layouts and construction were by a young James Gowans, later Sir James; architect, builder, quarrymaster, local politician and businessman extraordinaire. At Rosebank, Gowans strived to give the working man and his family a small, self-contained house with its own front door, this was one of the reasons for the “deck access” of the upper level flats, accessed by a common external staircase that Gowans designed the ironwork for.

Inside there was the luxury of a hallway, meaning there were no rooms accessed by first passing through another. He also pioneered soil pipe vents at roof level for the water closets to vent the smells away from the properties (a standard feature of toilet plumbing that we now all take for granted) and an innovative passive ventilation system which was pre-heated by drawing air in past the kitchen range grate and extracting it through a flue in the roof ridge. As if to prove a point (or perhaps because of his financial circumstances), Gowans moved into the recently completed Rosebank Cottages, living at number 34 for 4 years.

At around the same time, John Taylor and Son of Princes Street, “Cabinet makers and Upholsterers to Her Majesty the Queen” opened a large cabinet works to the south, the Rosemount Cabinet Works.

I can’t find a good photo of the Rosemount Works, but it’s noted as being built in brick, and it can be seen in the corner of these dark and grainy Britain From Above aerial photos. Taylor and Son went into liquidation in 1946 although it was communicated in the local papers that the business was being continued by some of its management. By 1951, it was a saleroom for second-hand furniture being operated by Findlater Smith Ltd.

The year following the construction of the Rosemount Works, 1858, the Rosemount Buildings were built to the plans of William Lambie Moffatt, to provide “model industrial housing” comprising of 96 brick-built flats in a around a private quadrangle.

The styling was very industrial itself, making extensive use of cream brick details. Moffatt (who incidentally had spent some of the younger years of his life at 8 Morrison Street), made his name designing poorhouses in Scotland and North England. Most of Moffatt’s poorhouses (or workhouses as they were known in England). These buildings were in a traditional, stone-built style, but clearly something influenced him in the radically different, dare I say “English”, style of Rosemount Buildings.

Again, Rosemount Buildings used deck access, with corner stair wells rather than external staircases, to provide each house with a private entrance. There was a great concern around public health at this time and it was felt that such arrangements were more sanitary for workers housing than the traditional Scottish “close”. The traditional tenement drying green was turned on its head by this design, being a central feature of the quadrangle, rather than hidden away behind the block.

In later life, Moffatt designed schools for the Free Church and – after the 1872 Education Act – for the School Boards, but these generally seem to be again in the now traditional stone, gothic style, preferred by the clients, e.g. the Portobello Board School on Duddingston Park.

Moffatt’s Gothic style in these schools is quite distinctive, they are more ecclesiastical looking than the style favoured by later School Board architects – e.g. “Lovers Loan Board School“, now Leith Walk Primary School.

Those unnecessarily grand buttresses at Lover’s Loan could easily have come off a cathedral, and were repeated by him on the visually similar Bristo (later Marshall Street) Board School, and the corner tower could have been lifted directly off of the plans for Lover’s Loan with only a few small adjustments.

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Dieses Jahr rufen wir wieder zu einem anarchistischen Block an der 1. Mai Demo in Zürich auf. 10:00 Ni-una-menos-Platz beim Transpi mit der Aufschrift: «Antinationale Kämpfe verbinden»!

In der Tradition der Haymarketproteste von 1886 gehen wir 140 Jahre später immer noch auf die Strasse. Damals ging es um den 8-Stunden Tag. Während den Protesten wurden mehrere Arbeiter*innen durch das brutale Vorgehen der Polizei getötet, worauf es zu Ausschreitungen kam. In der Folge wurden acht Anarchisten hingerichtet. Heute wollen wir antinationale Kämpfe verbinden, denn der Kampf gegen Herrschaft und Ausbeutung hat nie aufgehört und ist heute so wichtig wie 1886.

Auf einen antinationalen, kämpferischen 1. Mai! Hoch die antinationale Solidarität!
Amore e Anarchia, subito!

https://barrikade.info/article/7462

#anarchie #anarchistisch #1mai #zurich #haymarket

@GEO_Collective is running a #poetry slam as a fundraiser on May the fourth. It's really about the #solidarityeconomy, but bring what makes this life worth living for you!

(Why May 4th? That's the date of the worker demonstration at #Haymarket Square in Chicago that May Day commemorates.)

Tickets: https://www.
eventbrite.com/e/grassroots-poetry-slam-tickets-1984979006643

More about GEO: geo.coop

Taken this day, 2012, new construction underway at Haymarket
https://www.flickr.com/photos/woolamaloo_gazette/51053185826/in/photostream/lightbox/

Interesting to go back & see this now completed (& sadly bland) building before it was finished.

#Edinburgh #Edimbourg #architecture #photography #photographie #construction #engineering #Haymarket #HaymarketEdinburgh

Today in Labor History March 15, 1917: The U.S. Supreme Court approved the 8-hour workday under the threat of a rail strike. Philadelphia carpenters struck for the 10-hour day in 1791 and by the 1830s, it had become a general demand of workers. In 1835, Philadelphia workers organized the first general strike in North America, led by Irish coal heavers, in the struggle for a 10-hour day. However, by 1836, labor movement publications were calling for an 8-hour day. In 1864, the 8-hour day became a central demand of the Chicago labor movement. In 1867, a citywide strike for the 8-hour day shut down the city's economy for a week before falling apart. During the 1870s, eight hours became a central demand of the U.S. labor movement, with a network of 8-Hour Leagues forming across the nation.

In 1872, 100,000 workers in New York City struck and won the eight-hour day. On May 1, 1886 Albert Parsons, head of the Chicago Knights of Labor, led 80,000 people down Michigan Avenue in the first modern May Day Parade, with workers chanting, "Eight-hour day with no cut in pay." Within days, 350,000 workers went on strike nationwide for the 8-hour day. On 3 May 1886, anarchist August Spies, editor of the Arbeiter-Zeitung (Workers Newspaper), spoke to 6,000 workers. Afterwards, they marched to the McCormick plant in Chicago to harass scab workers. The police arrived and opened fire, killing four and wounding many more. On May 4, workers protested this police violence at a meeting in Haymarket Square. An unknown assailant hurled a bomb at the police. The authorities rounded up hundreds of labor activists and anarchists. They convicted 8 in a kangaroo court and executed four of them, including Parsons and Spies.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average American currently works 8.8 hours every day. This, of course, does not include commute time which, for many Americans, can add another two or more hours a day to the time they give away for free to their bosses. Nor does it include work we take home. The scam of being a “salaried” employee is commonly exploited by bosses, who argue that we are paid based on the responsibilities completed, regardless of how long it takes to complete them.

Read my full article on Lucy Parsons, which goes deeper into the Haymarket affair and the struggle for the 8-hour day: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/03/24/lucy-parsons/

#workingclass #LaborHistory #anarchism #EightHourDay #SCOTUS #generalstrike #haymarket #police #policebrutality #mayday #deathpenalty #IWW #union

We went to #Haymarket today and came back with some avocados. The seeds can be used to make a nutty & floral pink tea. It's close to chrysanthemum, but I like this a lot more.

After boiling, the seed itself becomes soft, and it tastes like a bitter walnut, almost astringent, with more floral notes. The Internet tells me it's probably safe to eat and is full of antioxidants. But, allergies are a thing, and this is not medical advice.

The trams of the dusk https://www.flickr.com/photos/woolamaloo_gazette/55147663169/in/photostream/lightbox/

#BlueHour at Haymarket

#Edinburgh #Edimbourg #photography #photographie #NightPhotography #EdinburghByNight #Haymarket #HaymarketEdinburgh #EdinburghTram #Tram

Today in Labor History March 7, 1942: IWW cofounder and anarchist labor organizer Lucy Parsons died on this date in Chicago, Illinois. Lucy Parsons was part African American and part Native American. Her mother had been a slave. In 1871, she married Albert Parsons, a Confederate soldier, in Waco, Texas. Soon after, they were forced to flee due to racism, moving to Chicago. There they participated in the Great Upheaval of worker rebellions that swept across the U.S. in 1877. They were also active in the movement for the 8-hour day and other worker movements. In 1887, the authorities executed Albert, along with several other anarchists, for the Haymarket bombing, even most hadn’t been present at the bombing. In 1905, Lucy Parsons cofounded the IWW, along with Eugene Debs, Mother Jones, Big Bill Haywood and others. In 1915, she organized the Chicago Hunger Demonstrations. They were so effective that they pushed the AFL, the Socialist Labor Party and the Hull House to participate. In 1925, she participated in the International Labor Defense, which defended workers, communists, the Scottsboro Nine and others.

You can read my complete bio of Lucy here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/03/24/lucy-parsons/

#LaborHistory #workingclass #lucyparsons #IWW #haymarket #anarchism #communism #racism #womenshistorymonth #rebellion #8HourDay #motherjones #eugenedebs #execution #bigbillhaywood #union #scottsboro #chicago #waco #texas #slavery #civilwar #africanamerican #BlackMastodon