Commercial Quay: Whisky Bonds and Claret Ships
Why is it significant?
On your right runs a long terrace of plain stone warehouses, their ground floors opened up with glass, tables set out where carts once backed up to the doors. Not far beyond rises the vast modern office block of the Scottish Government at Victoria Quay.
Key Facts
| Place | Commercial Quay: Whisky Bonds and Claret Ships |
|---|---|
| Address | Commercial Quay, Leith, Edinburgh EH6, UK |
| Geo Coordinates | 55.97730, -3.17330 |
| Part of Walk | Leith Uncovered: The Shore, the Docks and the Birthplace of Golf's Rules in Edinburgh |
| Generated | Generated |
On your right runs a long terrace of plain stone warehouses, their ground floors opened up with glass, tables set out where carts once backed up to the doors. Not far beyond rises the vast modern office block of the Scottish Government at Victoria Quay. Old Leith and new Leith, a few hundred metres apart.
Warehouses like these were bonded stores. Imported goods could be kept under lock and key, with the customs seal on the door, and the duty paid only when they left. For Leith that meant, above all, wine and later whisky. By the nineteenth century the port had become a great centre of whisky blending and bottling, and casks from distilleries all over Scotland were brought here to be married into the blends that sold around the world.
Wine came first, though. For centuries Leith was Scotland's door to France, and Scots drank claret from Bordeaux by the cask, long after the English had switched their loyalty to port. The old alliance with France had turned French wine into almost a national habit, and Leith merchants kept their vaulted cellars full of it. There is a saying that claret flowed in Leith like water... and in some taverns, it was probably cheaper.
The first wet docks here were dug at the start of the nineteenth century to designs by the engineer John Rennie, and for generations they were the beating heart of the port. But in the twentieth century shipping changed, bigger vessels and containers went elsewhere, and by the 1980s Leith had become one of the poorest corners of the city. The warehouses stood empty for years, waiting for the revival that finally came with new flats, offices and restaurants.
On a damp day, try to imagine the smell this quay once had: oak casks, spilled wine, malt, tar and coal smoke. Keep walking west to Dock Street, where a lonely stone arch stands among the houses.