The Shore & the King's Wark: Leith's Royal Quayside
Why is it significant?
Feel the cobbles under your feet and the river sliding past right beside you: this is the Shore, Leith's old quay, where for centuries ships tied up almost at the doors of the houses. On the corner of Bernard Street stands a solid old stone building with a pub on its ground floor.
Key Facts
| Place | The Shore & the King's Wark: Leith's Royal Quayside |
|---|---|
| Address | The Shore, Leith, Edinburgh EH6 6QU, UK |
| Geo Coordinates | 55.97630, -3.16940 |
| Part of Walk | Leith Uncovered: The Shore, the Docks and the Birthplace of Golf's Rules in Edinburgh |
| Generated | Generated |
Feel the cobbles under your feet and the river sliding past right beside you: this is the Shore, Leith's old quay, where for centuries ships tied up almost at the doors of the houses. On the corner of Bernard Street stands a solid old stone building with a pub on its ground floor. Its name, the King's Wark, means simply the King's Work.
In 1434 King James I ordered a royal building on this spot: a storehouse, armoury and lodging for the king's goods and guns arriving by sea. It burned, was rebuilt, passed through many hands, and the building in front of you dates largely from the early eighteenth century. But the name has survived for almost six hundred years, which tells you how long Leith has been the place where Scotland's kings did business with the sea.
Imagine this quay in its prime. Barrels of claret from Bordeaux, the favourite wine of Scotland thanks to the old alliance with France, timber and flax from the Baltic, coal and salt going out. And on 15 August 1822 the crowds packed in here to watch King George IV step ashore, the first reigning monarch to set foot in Scotland in more than 170 years. Walter Scott stage-managed the whole visit and wrapped the king in a tartan pageant that still shapes how the world pictures Scotland.
The waterfront has darker memories too. In April 1705 an English sea captain, Thomas Green, was hanged on the sands at Leith with two of his crew, convicted of piracy against a Scottish ship, a crime they very probably did not commit. Scotland was still raw from the collapse of its Darien colony, and the trial was driven more by fury at England than by evidence. Two years later the two kingdoms were united.
By the 1970s the Shore was a tired, half-empty dockside. Today its old warehouses hold flats and restaurants, and on a sunny evening the quay is full again, with people instead of barrels. Keep walking north along the Shore, past the last of the old houses, to the squat round tower with battlements where it meets Tower Street.