My maternal grandmother, Henrietta Johnson Barclay, was born on the 16th June 1888 at 16 New Baker’s Land, Canonmills, Edinburgh. She was the youngest of John and Henrietta’s six children—four girls and two boys.
Canonmills was named after the water-powered corn mills built in the 12th century by the Augustinian Canons of Holyrood Abbey. Similarly, “Baxters Land” got its name from the Guild of Bakers, who used the mills for flour.
Canonmills sat right next to the peaceful Botanical Gardens, but the area itself was always busy, with a tannery, chemical works, foundry, distillery, and brewery among the industries present. The Canonmills Bar, a tenement and pub on the corner of Canon Street and Canonmills, was typical of the area.
Henrietta’s early life was difficult. Not long after she was born, her father, John Angus Barclay, died on the 14th November 1889 in Edinburgh’s Royal Infirmary from acute Endocarditis, a rare heart disease. By 1901, Henrietta was living with her older sister, Jessie, and her brother, Angus (Jonathan) Barclay, at 1a Paterson’s Land on Barony Street. Details in the 1911 census show her still on Barony Street but at number 39 and now with her mother and brother Angus. He is working as a kitchen porter and Henrietta is a “Layer on” at one of the local print works.
Canonmills
Paterson’s Land
Salisbury Street
Henrietta’s life changed again when she married William Sutherland Pender Galloway on 25 August 1911 and moved to 10 Salisbury Street in Edinburgh. She lived there for over fifty years and had seven children.
When I was a child, I often visited my Gran on Salisbury Street. We took the number 27 bus to Forrest Road and then walked to her house. Sometimes we stopped at Irvine’s Bakers on West Richmond Street to buy treats for tea. My favourite was a vanilla slice. I always looked forward to these visits, even though I sometimes found my Gran a bit scary. Still, she was kind, and I loved her house. I played in the hall, a big square room with other rooms leading off it, which was perfect for my toy cars.
On the way to Gran’s, we passed Parker’s Store, a well-known Edinburgh shop that sold all sorts of things like clothes, furniture, and toys. Mum bought our school clothes there. One of the main attractions was “Parker’s Menage,” a credit plan that let you pay over several weeks. The store was like a maze, with rickety stairs and creaking floorboards. The building was Georgian and got a mock-Tudor makeover in the early 1900s.
Parker’s
Salisbury Street was demolished in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the Dumbiedykes area of Edinburgh underwent redevelopment. The council claimed the tenements were in poor condition, which upset many residents since the buildings were actually well-maintained. Despite this, the demolition proceeded, and people were forced to relocate elsewhere in the city.
Gran and her daughter, Elizabeth, were offered a house in Oxgangs Avenue, in the same stair that my own family lived in, and they remained there until Gran passed away on the 27th of February 1985 at the Princess Margaret Rose Hospital.
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