Having been thwarted from my original plan to visit the stretch of coastline between Seafield Treatment Works and Leith Docks in Edinburgh – a great place to spot bricks due to years of tipping rubble as coastal defences – by a 20-foot-high mesh fencing totally blocking an access to the area. I may try requesting access from the Port of Leith Authority or from the cement works in the area later. However, all was not lost as there was another good spotting location not 10 minutes away at the Granton area of Edinburgh.
Known locally as the brick beach, this beach is exactly what its name suggests and is almost all made up from tipped bricks along with other debris, though you will be lucky to find pristine bricks here as most are well-rounded by wind, wave and tide. However, if that’s not an issue bricks are there a-plenty.
My search revealed plenty of the usual local suspects including, DOUGAL WINCHBURGH, WHITEHILL, ETNA, SHOTTS, PRESTON GRANGE, DEWAR, GISCOL and EDINBURGH to name but a few. I’m not going to go into detail about these regulars but will look at some of the more interesting new finds, often referred to as newbies and these can all be seen in the gallery below.
New LEGIBLE additions to my Scottish Brickmarks list included NCB NEWTON, BOGHEAD and DARNGAVIL, CLEGORN TERRA COTTO Co Ltd GLASGOW, SCOTTISH TERRACOTTA, CLEGHORN TERRACOTTA GLASGOW, LOCHSIDE, COLTNESS, J. AGNEW CARLUKE, NCB WHITEHILL, CRAIGEND and BAR LAW.
One half-brick with the letters GART presented me with number of options from GARTCRAIG, GARTCOSH AND GARTSHORE and more detective work will be required. A couple of incomplete bricks, one with RAE and another with EBURN together gave me a RAEBURN. Another half-brick with AND suggests a PENTLAND. Non-Scottish bricks included an ACCRINGTON NORI and a LONDON BRICK. The INCHBURGH is probably a badly stamped WINCHBURGH but you never know. One very poor example with the lettering BELL I is probably a BLUEBELL from one of the Stein brickworks.
My hunt also produced a few mystery bricks. A help here is welcome.
Including this one with only a C stamped in the frog.
Not a bad days brick spotting and I need to return again for another look, this time further around the corner as a rising tide cut short my visit. Now a few final words. If visiting this location note that the bricks are very loose and can be slippery between the high and low tide lines. There are also lengths of reinforcing bar sticking out from lumps of concrete, so take care.
Copyright ©2020 Gary Buckham. All rights reserved.
