Chain Pier, Newhaven

Category

Library Item

Item no

3888

Title

Chain Pier, Newhaven

Description

View of two spans of the chain pier at Newhaven, Edinburgh. A wooden structure at the end of the pier is visible, two steamboats are moored on either side.

Artist / maker

Unknown

Date

1850

Size

15.4 x 20 cm

Type

Salted paper print

Location

Edinburgh and Scottish Collection

Newhaven Chain Pier was built in 1821. It stretched into the Firth of Forth from its starting point in front of Trinity Crescent, between Newhaven Harbour and Granton Harbour. The pier was destroyed by a storm in 1898.

Newhaven was founded by James IV in 1504 as a royal dockyard. It became an important fishing village, famous initially for oysters and later herring. An indoor fish market was built there in 1896. Newhaven fishwives, with their distinctive striped clothes, sold their goods around Edinburgh. David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson famously photographed these fishwives and other Newhaven residents in the 1840's. The area now has a population of roughly five thousand.

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Related images

Related subjects

Landscape > Water > Seas

Places > Edinburgh areas > Newhaven

Places > Scotland > Edinburgh

Transport > Infrastructure > Piers and wharves

Transport > Water > Steamboats

(55°58′48″N, 3°12′15″W)

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