Piershill Barracks

Piershill Barracks was a military installation in Piershill in Edinburgh.

Piershill Barracks
Piershill, Edinburgh, Scotland
Remains of a wall tower of Piershill Barracks
Piershill Barracks
Coordinates55.956°N 3.146°W / 55.956; -3.146
Site history
Built1793
Built forWar Office
In use1793-1934

History

The barracks were built as part of the British response to the threat of the French Revolution and were completed in 1793.[1] Built along three sides of a quadrangle,[2] they were occupied by various cavalry regiments who would exercise their horses along Portobello Beach.[3]
Regiments there were the Dragoon Guards, Light Dragoons, 9th Lancers, Inniskilling Dragoons, 7th Hussars and the Royal Scots Greys.[4]

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.[5]

They became the home of the Royal Scots Greys in the late 19th century[6] 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.[7] 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.[7]

The barracks were vacated in 1934 and demolished in 1935, shortly before the start of the Second World War.[1] The site is now occupied by the Piershill Square tenement blocks which were constructed in 1936 using stone from the old barracks.[8] The blocks were created as Council housing by the City Architect, Ebenezer James MacRae.[9]

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References
  1. "Piershill Barracks". 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]"". Archive.org. 2016-10-23. Retrieved 2019-01-05.
  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". 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) (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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