Jack Gillon

The teeming nature of life in eighteenth-century Edinburgh elevated the Old Town’s taverns to a critical role in the city’s social life, and there was ‘no superabundance of sobriety in the town’. Much of the business life of the city was carried out in taverns where it was even normal for doctors to consult their patients. The Edinburgh taverns of the eighteenth century are described as having ‘a coarse and darksome snugness which was courted by their worshippers’. These earlier basic hostelries were swept away during the period 1880–1910, which is recognised as the golden age of pub design. These new pubs were decorated with an abundance of spectacular ornaments to attract customers into their shining interiors. This book won’t tell you how many real ales or malts the pubs stock or whether the burgers are worth popping in for. What it does provide is a record of Edinburgh Pubs that are architectural gems of exceptional quality or which have a particularly interesting historical association.

Monumental Edinburgh takes the reader on a tour of the city's centre, focusing on monumental pieces which capture the city's industrialcreative heritage. Colour imagesfascinating tales, must for anyone interested in Edinburgh's historic street art.

This fascinating selection of photographs traces some of the many ways in which the villages of the East Neuk have changed and developed over the last century.

This fascinating selection of photographs traces some of the many ways in which Haddington has changed and developed over the last century.

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 Beautifully illustrated with many previously unpublished photographs, Edinburgh in the 1950s provides an exceptional insight into a time now acknowledged as the end of an era in Edinburgh - for good and for bad.