Boat Road, Barnton What Happened To The Houses?

A Memory of Barnton.

Hello. I've just been looking at a picture of the canal and houses at Boat Road, Barnton. The photo was taken in the very early '50's and I was thinking what a lovely-looking 'canal village' it looked - something that would be a tourist attraction or a film-set location if the houses had been allowed to remain! It seems that all (or nearly all) of the houses were pulled down about 1953. Does anyone know why all this happened? Thanks, Paul Watkin ex- Grange Avenue, Barnton.

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Added 20 June 2010

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I was brought up opposite Boat Road at 16 Canal Side which was a very old house even then (1940s/50s) with no electric and just a gas pipe sticking out of the wall for lighting, the walls ran with damp, there was only one room downstairs with a very small space near the back door for a kitchen. Upstairs there was one bedroom and my own "bedroom" was the landing. Our playground was the old rubbish tip known locally as "the patch". This row of houses was demolished late 1950s as "unfit for human habitation" so it's possible that the houses opposite on Boat Road were also demolished around the same ttime for the same reason.

By joyned.sandbank on Sat Nov 10th 2018, at 6:36 pm

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