Old Travel Photograph Harbour South Queensferry Scotland

Old travel photograph of the harbour at South Queensferry near Edinburgh, Scotland. South Queensferry has a long history as a port, as it served as the South terminal of the Passagium Reginae, Queen Margarets Ferry, all through the Middle Ages. It was then, like its counterpart at North Queensferry, the property of Dunfermline Abbey, to which the ferry had been given by King David I about 1150. In 1763, the harbour was in great measure demolished by a storm, just when the Burgh was employed in carrying forward a second quay, which was judged to be absolutely necessary to make the harbour complete, the work in question probably having been an elongation of the West pier. In the 1780s the East pier was dangerous, and was threatening to the Passage jetty which ran along its East side: work was accordingly begun with the object of extending the pier and turning its end westwards, as a precaution against north easterly seas, but in 1789 a storm wrecked the new construction and also breached the West pier. This disaster seems to have necessitated a change of plan, as in 1791 the point of the East pier was lengthened, and in 1792 it was decided to take down and rebuilds the West Head of the Harbour without any gap or opening. This may or may not have been done, as in 1795 a further decision was taken to rebuild the West pier. For the next twenty years no major works are recorded, but by 1815 the harbour had become unsafe, and an ambitious scheme was finding favour, namely to builds a breakwater westwards from the Sealscraig rocks and to enclose the whole of the bay. This, however, proved too costly, and in 1817 it was decoded, on the advice of an engineer named Hugh Baird, to turn the West pier at right angle and run it eastward, to make the entrance in the North East corner, and to rebuild the head of the East pier. Another entrance, presumably one at the North West corner, was closed, and the harbour thus seems to have been brought more or less to its present form.



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