Liberton | |
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Liberton Kirk | |
Location within the City of Edinburgh council area Location within Scotland | |
OS grid reference | NT274696 |
Council area | |
Lieutenancy area |
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Country | Scotland |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
Post town | EDINBURGH |
Postcode district | EH16 |
Dialling code | 0131 |
Police | Scotland |
Fire | Scottish |
Ambulance | Scottish |
UK Parliament | |
Scottish Parliament | |
Liberton is a suburb of Edinburgh the capital of Scotland. It is in the south of the city, south of The Inch, east of the Braid Hills and west of Moredun.
Liberton Community council's area includes Liberton, Gracemount, Kaimes, Alnwickhill and Mortonhall. [1] Historically the parish covered a wide area and included Burdiehouse, Gilmerton, Niddrie and Straiton. [2]
Incorporated into the city in 1920, [3] the area was once home to Arthur Conan Doyle, who lived in a small cottage near the Braid Burn, which is now inside the grounds of the Cameron Toll Shopping Centre car park and is now a small school.
Increased development in the area from the mid 1970s to current times[ when? ] has seen Liberton develop into a popular choice for homeowners with areas such as Double Hedges, Alnwickhill and Howdenhall often representing better value for money than locations closer to the city centre.
In recent years[ when? ] once thriving community pubs and hotels have closed with the likes of the Liberton Inn, Northfield House Hotel and The Marmion, formerly The Captains Cabin, all having been converted to or planning permission being sought for retail premises or flats.[ needs update ]
The name, of Old English origin and formerly written Libertun, [4] has generally been believed to signify 'Leper Town', the area being supposed at one time to have contained a small colony of lepers exiled from the city. However modern authorities have suggested it may more probably have meant ‘barley farm on a hillside’, from the Old English words hlith, hillside and bere-tūn, barley farm. [5] [6]
This rural parish was split into Over Liberton and Nether Liberton, the latter centring on a water mill standing on the Braid Burn.
The suburb is home to a prehistoric standing stone just over 6-foot in height. [7]
A chapel of Liberton was granted to the monks of Holyrood Abbey in 1143 by MacBeth, Baron of Liberton. The latter is mentioned in the Charters of King David I from 1124. In 1240 a document records the transfer of the church from St Cuthberts in Edinburgh back to Holyrood Abbey and this control continued until the Reformation. [8]
In 1387 Nether Liberton was under control of Adam Forrester (whose family later owned Corstorphine) and is recorded (with Provost Andrew Yichtson) as benefactor of the repairs and rebuilding of St Giles Cathedral that year. [9]
At the time of the Reformation a church, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, already existed at Liberton, under control of Holyrood Abbey. [10]
The current Liberton Church, designed by James Gillespie Graham, was built in 1815 after the old church was burned beyond repair. [11] The graveyard contains a "table stone" to the south-west of the church bearing one of the earliest known sculpted depictions of ploughing. [12] A modern cemetery lies to the north-west of the older kirkyard. The war memorial at the western entrance (1920) is by Pilkington Jackson.
Liberton Tower is a well-preserved and restored late medieval (15th century) tower house standing to the south of the Braid Hills. [13] Liberton House nearby is a late 16th-century A-listed fortified house, also restored. The house is open to the public free of charge by appointment only. [14] [15]
Liberton became part of Edinburgh on 1 November 1920. [16]
Although the area is mostly residential, it has a riding school and stables, which take advantage of the nearby Braid Hills to offer pony trekking. Also in the area is Liberton High School, Gracemount High School and several primary schools (Liberton, St John Vianny, Gracemount and St Katherine's). Sporting activities are represented by Liberton Bowling Club (Website) based opposite the Kirk, a Golf club off Gilmerton Road and a Rugby Union club at Double Hedges Park.
Southfield Sanatorium once occupied Southfield House; Ellen's Glen House community hospital (2000) was built in the grounds to meet twenty-first century NHS Lothian needs. Liberton Hospital opened in 1906 and currently specialises in geriatric medicine.
The Liberton/Gilmerton ward of the city had 37,672 inhabitants at the 2021 Census.
Ethnicity | Liberton/Gilmerton Ward | Edinburgh [17] |
---|---|---|
White | 82.6% | 84.9% |
Asian | 10.2% | 8.6% |
Black | 2.7% | 2.1% |
Mixed | 2.4% | 2.5% |
Other | 2.1% | 1.9% |
Local family names include Speedy, Flockhart, Inch, Tod, Plenderleith, Borrowman and Torrance.
Liberton was a relatively important rural charge.
Dunedin, New Zealand, a sister city of Edinburgh's, has a suburb called Liberton.
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Edinburgh South is a constituency of the House of Commons of the UK Parliament created in 1885. The constituency has been held by Scottish Labour since 1987. The seat has been represented since 2010 by Ian Murray, who currently serves as Secretary of State for Scotland under the government of Keir Starmer. Murray was the only Labour MP in Scotland to retain his seat at the 2015 and 2019 general elections and this is one of only three seats and the only seat of the so-called "tartan wall" never held by the Scottish National Party (SNP).
Corstorphine is an area of the Scottish capital city of Edinburgh. Formerly a separate village and parish to the west of Edinburgh, it is now a suburb of the city, having been formally incorporated into it in 1920.
The Kirk of the Canongate, or Canongate Kirk, serves the Parish of Canongate in Edinburgh's Old Town, in Scotland. It is a congregation of the Church of Scotland. The parish includes the Palace of Holyroodhouse and the Scottish Parliament. It is also the parish church of Edinburgh Castle, even though the castle is detached from the rest of the parish. The wedding of Zara Phillips, the Queen's granddaughter, and former England rugby captain Mike Tindall took place at the church on 30 July 2011. The late Queen Elizabeth II used to attend services in the church on some of her frequent visits to Edinburgh.
Duddingston Kirk is a Parish Church in the Church of Scotland, located adjacent to Holyrood Park in Duddingston Village, on the east side of the City of Edinburgh. Regular services are held at the kirk, conducted by the minister, Rev Dr James A. P. Jack.
The Canongate is a street and associated district in central Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland. The street forms the main eastern length of the Royal Mile while the district is the main eastern section of Edinburgh's Old Town.
Gilmerton is a suburb of Edinburgh, about 4 miles (6.4 km) southeast of the city centre.
Cramond Kirk is a church situated in the middle area Cramond parish, in the north west of Edinburgh, Scotland. Built on the site of an old Roman fort, parts of the Cramond Kirk building date back to the fourteenth century and the church tower is considered to be the oldest part.
The Parish Church of St Cuthbert is a parish church of the Church of Scotland in central Edinburgh. Probably founded in the 7th century, the church once covered an extensive parish around the burgh of Edinburgh. The church's current building was designed by Hippolyte Blanc and completed in 1894.
Dumbiedykes is a residential area in the centre of Edinburgh, Scotland. It mainly comprises public housing developments.
North Leith Parish Church was a congregation of the Church of Scotland, within the Presbytery of Edinburgh. It served part of Leith, formerly an independent burgh and since 1920 a part of the city of Edinburgh, Scotland.
The Inch is a district of Edinburgh, Scotland, located to the south of Inch Park in the south of the city. It is located 2 miles (3 km) south south-east of central Edinburgh. It incorporates the Inch housing development, Inch Park and the category A listed Inch House, a former country house now used as a community centre. The associated Inch Doocot or dovecot, also a category A listed building, is situated close by, west of Gilmerton Road.
Corstorphine Old Parish Church, formerly St. John's Collegiate Church, is at the old centre of Corstorphine, a village incorporated to the west area of Edinburgh. Built in the 15th century, in the churchyard of a 12th-century or earlier chapel, the former collegiate church was listed category A by Historic Scotland on 14 December 1970.
Inch House, a former country house situated within Inch Park in Edinburgh, Scotland, is a category A listed building. The oldest part, a Scottish vernacular L-plan tower house, dates from the early 17th century. From 1660 it was owned by the Gilmour family, who arranged for additions and extensions to the house in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was sold to the then Edinburgh Corporation in 1945. Since then it has been used as a primary school and more recently as a community centre.
William Little of Liberton (1525–1601) was a 16th-century Scottish merchant and landowner who served as Lord Provost of Edinburgh 1586/87 and 1591/92. He was one of the founders of Edinburgh University.
Liberton/Gilmerton is one of the seventeen wards used to elect members of the City of Edinburgh Council. Established in 2007 along with the other wards, it elects four Councillors.
Gracemount is a neighbourhood in the south of Edinburgh, Scotland, bordering Alnwickhill and Kaimes to the west, Liberton to the north, Gilmerton to the east and Southhouse to the south.