Road Conditions

When the New Town was built, the recent innovation of a division between the road area for vehicles and pavements for pedestrians was incorporated into the design of the streets. (engraving of St Andrew’s Square around 1810) However, the roadway would still have been used by street traders, pedestrians and groups. There were on-going complaints about broken pavements and the condition of the road. One writer to The Scotsman protested: ‘The causeway (road) in many of the streets is so bad as to be, if not actually dangerous to a carriage, at least extremely disagreeable to those who happen to be within it. There are places which from year to year are allowed to remain in the same wretched state. I need only refer to the east end of Forth Street and Albany Street in proof of this.’ The sub-standard state of these roads may have been partly to blame for an accident in 1829, although poor coach driving was indicated as responsible: ‘A coach driver was charged with having occasioned a serious accident by furious driving. ..As one of the Newhaven heavy coaches was driving rapidly down Broughton Street, it ran directly upon a gentleman’s carriage, which was crossing at the time from Albany Street to Forth Street. ..The poll of the stagecoach penetrated into the body of the carriage (which was carrying a woman and a child); and we understand the lady was seriously hurt, having one of her arms broken. The child was unhurt. The coachman was thrown from his seat, and much cut.’ Concern at the utility companies digging up the road and not repairing them properly was as much an irritation then as it is today. In 1826 the city met with a deputation from the Coal Gas Company ‘with the view of finding an arrangement for the more perfect relaying of the street causeway when opened by the gas or water companies’. A further irritation was people smoking in the street: ‘Bakers and sweeps – greatly superior men to the rest of street smokers – are obliged by police regulations to keep at a distance from thronged pavements, and we think the police would do well to mitigate the public nuisance by compelling every person with a cigar in his mouth to take his place among the bestial in the road.’

We may see traffic wardens as a modern invention (and to some a curse) but one newspaper report in the 1850s shows that there is little new under sun: ‘A man and his lad were fined 2s6d and 1s respectively for carrying two paint pots and a ladder along the footway in Albany Street. A baker was fined 1s for carrying his board along the footway. A man was fined 5s for allowing his horse and van to stand for five hours in North Bridge. A woman was fined 2s6d for obstructing the thoroughfare at Waverley Bridge by allowing a basket to stand on the footway.’

There were street concerns that were very much of their time: ‘We wish to call to the attention of the police the state of the pavements at this season, which are frequently rendered slippy and dangerous by the vulgar custom of low characters literally strewing them with gooseberry hulls [skins]. Within these few days, several falls and accidents have been the consequence of such practice.’ Funeral processions were another frustration to some. ‘Sometimes we see the whole (funeral procession) company walking on each side of the pavements, while the bier with a very few mourners are in the road. This is rather indecent and should not be continued. It would be well if funerals in this city followed the system adopted in many parts of England; namely, by walking four and four, and keeping a line of procession.’ One anxiety that fortunately was of its time was that surrounding the celebrations on the King’s birthday: ‘It is greatly to be wished that the improper use of fire-arms on his Majesty’s birthday could be checked; the number of pistols in the hands of inexperienced youths on this occasion, who ranged themselves on foot pavements in regular parties, and fired by signal, to the great annoyance and danger of passengers, was astonishing. An instance of the danger attending the practice is that a gentleman had his hat perforated by a musket-ball. After passing through the rim, its further progress was prevented by the collar of his coat, otherwise the consequence might have been serious, for the shock, was so powerful as to make him stagger and nearly fall. The ball is in the gentleman’s possession. In the course of the day also some other serious accidents were occasioned by the incautious use of gunpowder by boys.’