Ag. Lab in the middle of Edinburgh?

[Mary Young]

I'm curious to know what sort of work an Ag. lab would be doing in the middle of Edinburgh in the 1850s. In 1851, an ancestor, George Millar, was living in what I found to be, after a bit of research, mews buildings in Montgomery Street Lane (between Elm Street and Windsor Street). These mews buildings were surrounded by the houses they served and were only accessible through a tunnel off Montgomery Street proper.

In the 1850s, Montgomery Street was in fact on the edge of town! This 1870 map from Peter Stubbs' wonderful site
https://www.edinphoto.org.uk/1_MAP/1_...arge.htm#start
shows the Montgomery Street Lane mews at the western end of Montgomery Street and hardly any development beyond the new Maryfield "Colonies" at the east end. The city gradually encroached on the big estates over the next 80 years. But as late as the 1930s, when the City built the Northfield estate, there were fields across the road from our flat, less than 2 miles from Montgomery Street.

[Tinker]

Mary, that map is amazing and really helpful, thank you so much! I've been reading up about Dean village and Stockbridge, and they, too, appear to have been proper villages until quite late on, like Leith. I always thought of Edinburgh as a busy, crowded city, so it was quite a surprise to discover how rural you could be in the middle of one. (Coincidentally, George's son John had a daughter Margaret who married a John MacGregor: his family lived in Leopold Place from the late 1890s on, and my gran was born there!) Do you know if the 'Feuing grounds' shown on the map were land earmarked for development or for cultivating? Feuing got mentioned rather a lot during my researches but it seemed to be in the context of land that was being sold for development.

Tony, given the number of gardens and parks in Edinburgh, I had initially wondered that too, although having followed George's movements round the city, it does look as if he was working for a landowner. Either way, my ancestor definitely worked on the land for most of his life. It's been really great to have been able to flesh out the lives of George and his family, given the limited info I started with, and it's all been thanks to the help I've got from everyone who posted on this thread!

[Tinker]

I've just spent a couple of happy hours browsing through those Edinburgh maps and tracking down the addresses at which all my Millar and MacGregor rellies lived. George's son was a train driver living at Caledonian Crescent after his marriage, and he was literally on the doorstep of his place of work with the Haymarket and Caledonian railway lines on either side of his place of abode. Apart from those houses, which were probably for railway workers, there were miles of open ground, so to all intents and purposes he could have been living in the countryside!

[Mary Young]

I've just spent a couple of happy hours browsing through those Edinburgh maps and tracking down the addresses at which all my Millar and MacGregor rellies lived.

I'm glad you enjoyed Peter Stubbs' site, it is a single-handed effort, quite amazing.

[Tinker]

It's a real find: I've bookmarked it for further exploration. There's nothing like a contemporary map to give a feel for how our ancestors lived. I can remember how delighted my husband was when we finally tracked down the address at which his great-grandfather was living in the 1880s, on an old Doncaster map: the street no longer exists now, as the area was razed and re-built at some point. Looking at a modern map of Edinburgh, there's not much trace of the railway lines that John Millar travelled on any more, and I would certainly never have guessed how close he was to his workplace.

[Mary Young]

Do you know if the 'Feuing grounds' shown on the map were land earmarked for development or for cultivating? Feuing got mentioned rather a lot during my researches but it seemed to be in the context of land that was being sold for development.

Yes, those Feuing Grounds to the west of Montgomery Street were parcels of land being Feued (not sold) for development. The landowner retained rights in the ground, with the property owner(s) paying a yearly feu (or fee) in perpetuity. Although each feu was relatively small, in total they made large incomes for the landowners. Right to buyout feus came in 1974.

Coincidentally, George's son John had a daughter Margaret who married a John MacGregor: his family lived in Leopold Place from the late 1890s on.

This interesting document re Blenheim Place and Greenside mentions Leopold Place. Worth reading the NOTES further down the page.
https://www.britishlistedbuildings.co...-place-and-2-a

[Logie]

Hi Tinker

Had a look at the Scottish 1851 for George. Unfortunately it is a fairly empty page and you are only allowed to look at the one page you have requested! Other occupations are: A widow living 8 Baxters Place listed as a Perfumer Mistress and her son as a Hairdresser Master! Another at Baxters Place is a widow listed as a washerwoman. Then there is George, Jane and the three kids. Son Jon (as) is a Message Boy.

So, not very helpful!

Logie

[Tinker]

Thanks for clarifying how feuing worked, Mary. It's no wonder the landowners stuck with the idea so long, as they must have made a fortune from the income over time.
The British listed buildings site has been a goldmine over the last few days: it's where I found the info on Montgomery Street Lane. The notes on Leopold Place mention that those were "designed and built as high quality private housing with town houses in the pavilions and flats in the central and curved sections." My MacGregor family were at No. 21 Leopold Place - I don't know whether that's a house or a flat - but I'm intrigued to know how my lot could afford to live there. John's mother was widowed early on and John and his older brother were sent to George Heriot's Hospital, presumably as scholars who qualified as "poor fatherless boys," so the family can't have been that well off, unless John's maternal grandmother came into money and left the place to his mother after she died!

[Logie]

Hi!

This may be your George in 1871:

Living 47 Dean Path, Edinburgh St Cuthberts

George c 1804 Ratho, Gardener Gerdor 3 Acres (no Idea what the transcription Gerdor means)
Jane c 1813 Ratho

Logie

[Tinker]

Thank you very much for trying, anyway, Logie. The Perfumer Mistress and Hairdresser Master are rather interesting. It sounds very Georgian!! Mind you, John's sister Jessie (a department store saleswoman) was supposed to have gone round to posh people's houses with fur coats from the store as late as the 1920s, so that they could select their purchases in the privacy of their own homes, so perhaps the above couple did a similar thing, rather like an Avon lady and home hairdresser today.