Archaeological works completed at 24–26 Calton Rd, Edinburgh in late 2020 identified a series of 19th and 20th century industrial structures, alongside two earlier, possibly 18th century walls, one likely a dividing wall between garden plots in Canongate’s “backlands”, and the other possibly the rear boundary wall of the same plots. In addition, evidence for earlier, late medieval and early post-medieval, activity in the backlands of the Canongate was present in the form of residual artefacts, including both locally produced and European ceramics, within underlying garden soils with midden material. When taken in conjunction with previous works in the surrounding plots, for example at the sites of the Canongate Poorhouse and the former gasworks, to the west, the evidence from this site further illuminates the nature of occupation, broadly changing from domestic to industrial, of Edinburgh’s Canongate from the late medieval period to the 20th century.
Victoria Huggett (Sun,) studied this question.