Tag Archives: Victorian

Victorian bridge building

A new exhibition on Capital Collections showcases a fantastic collection of Victorian photographs which document the engineering feats constructed to realise the aim of opening up Scotland’s Highlands to rail travel. The Inverness and Perth railway was built to provide the quickest means possible of getting between Inverness, Central Scotland and further south into England. However, between Inverness and Perth lay mountain ranges and river valleys which would have to be traversed.

Civil engineer Joseph Mitchell and his partner Murdoch Paterson were tasked with the job and they have left a remarkable and enduring legacy. They were responsible for engineering the vast majority of the canal, road and railway infrastructure that took place in the Central and Northern Highlands in the 19th Century. Many of their bridges and viaducts are still in regular use by passenger trains today whilst others are still standing but with changed use. One notable exception is the Ness Viaduct at Inverness. It stood for over one hundred years, but was washed away in a heavy downpour and ensuing flood water in 1989.

What did you do for your summer holidays?

Florence Morham, a schoolgirl from the Victorian era in Whose Town? used to spend her summer holidays at the East Lothian seaside. From a privileged background, Florence’s family and her Uncle’s family would rent holiday cottages next door to each other at West Pans. They would stay away from the city during the summer months enjoying the fresh sea air and outdoors.

She would have indulged in all the familiar seaside activities – donkey rides, sandcastle making, exploring rock pools. Although even after the dreary summer we’ve had it’s unlikely any of your class would have been quite so wrapped up for a day at the beach.

They probably didn’t travel to their holiday destination by horse-drawn railway bus either … The railway bus at Levenhall

Happy new… zoom?

The New Year - poem

Our online image library, Capital Collections has a whizzy new zoom function. Use the magnifier to focus in on favourite pictures and see them in incredible detail. Try out the magnifier on this New Year Greeting card.  Simply click on the image within the image record page and zoom in….

The card is taken from one of a collection of  hand-decorated and lovingly compiled Victorian family photograph albums held by Edinburgh City Libraries, known as the Moray Albums. They belonged to a family called the the Stirling Home-Drummond Moray’s, an aristocratic, well-connected Scottish landowning family. If you’re interested to find out more about how the Scottish landed gentry lived, take a look at the beautiful 2nd volume which has been made available as an exhibition on Capital Collections.