A new exhibition of forgotten images of Leith has gone online. As arguments rage over the historic port’s regeneration, Sandra Dick looks back at the way it was.

THEY show Edinburgh’s historic Port of Leith as it once was; hardworking and bustling with ships on their way to the four corners of the globe.

And for campaigners currently arguing against the increasing redevelopment of the area, they will bring a pang of regret for a once buoyant industrial age and tight-knit community that has gradually disappeared.

Hundreds of fascinating images of a lost way of life in the capital’s increasingly gentrified and redeveloped quarter of Leith were discovered in Edinburgh’s Central and Leith libraries, tucked inside more than a dozen painstakingly compiled volumes spanning decades.

They had been gathered by local historian, Dr James Scott Marshall, who displayed remarkable foresight by saving dozens of photographs, postcards and newspaper cuttings depicting daily life in what was once Edinburgh’s gateway to the globe.

The forgotten images include grainy black and white photographs showing clusters of steamers and sailing ships at berth on The Shore - today a tourist hotspot and home to Michelin star restaurants, shops and galleries.

Many capture the people of the port going about their business, either working in the once thriving shipyards, enjoying a game of golf on Leith Links, proudly showing off their Clydesdale horses or outside their shops.

Some will remind Leithers of what once was – and what is on the way: images include workers laying tram tracks to link the port with the city centre.

Others provide a captivating glimpse of long-lost buildings and once packed sugar and whisky bond warehouses which once defined the historic port and are now either upmarket homes or offices.

The eclectic assortment of images and ephemera provides a snapshot of social history that’s a world away from the port’s modern hipster image, with its trendy cafes, Michelin star restaurants and tourist attractions.

The collection has now been repaired and digitised to create Leith Miscellany, an online exhibition currently featuring on Edinburgh Libraries, Museums and Galleries’ Capital Collections website.

Clare Padgett, a library development leader who worked on the 200 plus images, said that while some are familiar images from the likes of pioneering photographer David Octavius Hill, others haven’t been previously seen and there are no details of where they came from or who took them.

“The collection is really quite diverse,” she says. “Some images had some information written alongside, but in others we really have had nothing to go on.

“They were kept in shop-bought photograph albums, almost like a scrapbook, with postcards and photographs alongside press cuttings.

“Dr Marshall was well known in Leith and had written many books about the port’s history. It’s possible he kept this collection as a research tool.

“These are images we really should treasure.”

Dr Marshall was born in Leith in 1913, and became minister of Kirkgate Church in 1947. He was regarded as an authority on the area, and went on to complete a doctorate on the port’s history.

He later moved to St Andrews, and died in 2010, aged 96.

Yet even he might struggle to recognise some elements of the ancient port today, which have seen it propelled from one of Edinburgh’s lower cost areas to one of its most desirable.

Indeed, it’s so different, that some have argued its regeneration has gone too far, with claims that the once gritty area known for its sense of community and unique role on the fringe of the capital has become ‘gentrified’, its historic assets stripped by property developers and leisure groups.

Recent debate in the port has raged over suggestions that local people are being ‘pushed out’ of the area by rising prices and new developments.

Last year a Scottish Government-backed study of the area raised concerns over rising property prices and the impact on local people whose families had lived in Leith for generations, attempting to remain.

The study findings, along with a controversial £50m plan for hotel, student accommodation and leisure facilities on Leith Walk, sparked a Save Leith Walk campaign which has attracted backing from writer Irvine Welsh, The Proclaimers and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Campaigners last month presented a 12,000 signature to Edinburgh City Council claiming development of the area will damage local business and unravel the area’s heritage and community.

Meanwhile, there are even plans for a National Lottery-funded play, provisionally entitled Displaced, which is expected to explore the impact of development on the area. It is due to be staged next summer, to coincide with the return of tramworks to the area.

The online exhibition includes several photographs of Leith’s old tram network as well as steam engines waiting for passengers at Leith Central Station, which closed in 1952.

Councillor Ian Perry, Councillor Ian Perry, Education, Children and Families Convener, said: “This is a most interesting collection of images from Leith’s rich and varied past, dating as far back as the 19th century, and sheds light on so many aspects of the area’s social history.”