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Piershill Barracks

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Piershill Barracks
Piershill, Edinburgh, Scotland
Remains of a wall tower of Piershill Barracks
Piershill Barracks is located in the City of Edinburgh council areaPiershill BarracksPiershill Barracks
Coordinates55°57′22″N 3°08′46″W / 55.956°N 3.146°W / 55.956; -3.146
Site history
Built1793
Built forWar Office
In use1793-1934

Piershill Barracks was a military installation in Piershill in Edinburgh.

History

The barracks were built as part of the British response to the threat of the French Revolution and were completed in 1793. Built along three sides of a quadrangle, they were occupied by various cavalry regiments who would exercise their horses along Portobello Beach.
Regiments there were the Dragoon Guards, Light Dragoons, 9th Lancers, Inniskilling Dragoons, 7th Hussars and the Royal Scots Greys.

A General Court Martial was convened at the barracks on 25 September 1820 by order of Major-General Sir Thomas Bradford, Commander in Chief, Scotland, to try all such prisoners brought before it, with Colonel Sir William Williams K.C.B. (later Major-General William Williams (1776-1832)) as presiding officer.

They became the home of the Royal Scots Greys in the late 19th century but were condemned as insanitary and unfit for occupation by cavalry regiments in the early 20th century; this gave rise to concerns that the Royal Scots Greys would be disbanded leaving Scotland without a cavalry regiment. In practice the Royal Scots Greys moved to Redford Barracks and Piershill Barracks continued to be used on a much smaller scale by the Royal Horse Artillery.

The barracks were vacated in 1934 and demolished in 1935, shortly before the start of the Second World War. The site is now occupied by the Piershill Square tenement blocks which were constructed in 1936 using stone from the old barracks. The blocks were created as Council housing by the City Architect, Ebenezer James MacRae.

References

  1. ^ Historic Environment Scotland. "Piershill Barracks (156706)". Canmore. Retrieved 9 October 2016.
  2. Coghill, Hamish (2008). Lost Edinburgh: Edinburgh's Lost Architectural Heritage. Birlinn. ISBN 978-1841587479.
  3. "Portobello Beach". Portobello heritage trust. Retrieved 9 October 2016.
  4. "Full text of "Scottish Record Society. [Publications]"". 23 October 2016. Retrieved 5 January 2019.
  5. The Caledonian Mercury, 21 September 1820
  6. "The defence of Edinburgh during the great war of 1897". Victorian military society. Archived from the original on 1 May 2016. Retrieved 9 October 2016.
  7. ^ "Piershill Barracks, Edinburgh". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). 3 December 1906. Retrieved 9 October 2016.
  8. Historic Environment Scotland. "2-12 (even numbers) Restalrig Road South, 1-21 (odd numbers) Portobello Road... (Category C Listed Building) (LB49047)". Retrieved 21 March 2019.
  9. "Ebenezer MacRae: The man who shaped modern Edinburgh". The Scotsman. 21 February 2017. Retrieved 5 January 2018.
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