Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for Jock's Lodge

Jock's Lodge, a village in South Leith parish, Edinburghshire, on the road from Edinburgh to Portobello, adjacent to the S side of the locomotive depôt of the North British railway, 1¾ mile by tram E by N of the General Post Office, Edinburgh. Standing on low ground, at the NE base of Arthur's Scat, immediately above the subsidence into meadow, and surrounded with a rich variety of pleasant scenery, it extends somewhat stragglingly ¼ mile along the road; consists chiefly of a spacious cavalry barrack and two lines of dwelling-houses; and has a post office, under Edinburgh, with money order, savings' bank, and telegraph departments, a soldiers' home, and a police station. The barrack, on its N side, was built of Craigmillar stone in 1793; comprises a quadrangular, enclosed area (500 x 300 feet); contains accommodation for a regiment of cavalry; and includes a neat, comparatively recent, Episcopalian chapel. It bears the name of Piershill, after Colonel Piers, who occupied a villa on the exact site of the officers' quarters in the time of George II., and commanded a regiment of cavalry then stationed in Edinburgh. The name ' Jokis Lodge ' occurs as early as 1650, but is of uncertain origin. Pop., inclusive of Restalrig, (1871) 1647, (1881), 1266, of whom 429 were military.—Ord. Sur., sh. 32, 1857.


(F.H. Groome, Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1882-4); © 2004 Gazetteer for Scotland)

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a village"   (ADL Feature Type: "populated places")
Administrative units: Midlothian ScoCnty
Place: Jocks Lodge

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