20 LOCAL INTEREST
Babet calls time on the hut
Storm destroys a piece of history but our local historian is right on the case
By ANDY ARTHURSTORM BABET, which battered the east coast
of Scotland finished off one of the old huts on
the eastern breakwater at Granton. Somebody
asked me “is that one of the huts that was full of
beer cans and smelled of pee?“, the answer to
which was “yes“.
The official record (i.e. Canmore), says the
structures on Granton Eastern Breakwater are
WW2 military defences:
“2 rectangular concrete pillboxes at
intervals along W (harbour) side; flat-roofed
and supported on stilts over sloping
embankment wall; 1 and 2 entrances and
gun embrasures respectively.”
I’m sceptical about this theory – they just lookwrong for the description. The walls are thin,
they offer no seaward defence, the thin legs
supporting them would make them very easy to
destroy (as the sea managed to do), and they
aren’t listed in the very thorough paper by
Gordon Barclay and Ron Morris on the defences
of the Forth. I’m so sceptical that I decided to
delve into the newspaper clippings to thoroughly
debunk the notion for the record and perhaps
establish what these structures actually were.
There are two reinforced concrete “huts” or
shelters constructed on the leeward side of the
Eastern Breakwater. It is the one furthest from
shore which has collapsed. There is a larger
structure closer to the shoreline. Both have been
variously used in recent years as shelters/ toilets/
drinking dens by fishermen, teenagers etc. andwere in an appalling state, absolutely stinking
and full of rubbish. Both have been bricked up,
with the doors and window shutters welded shut
in recent years, and there has been a campaign
to have them removed.
A 1929 aerial photo shows the second,
larger, of the structures, so clearly it is at
least 10 years older than WW2. It also shows a
pair of steps down to the water, and if you look
closely, what appears to be a floating platform
just offshore.
It didn’t take long to find out what purposes
this had been built for in the newspaper
archives. The hut was built by the Corporation
as a bathing shelter in 1928, opening to
swimmers for the summer season in May 1929.
The shelter had an attendant and a charge wasmade for its use. In August 1935, the Evening
News reported a 12 year old girl who had been
playing on the beach in her swimming costume
had been saved from drowning after falling off
the breakwater at the foot of the bathers’ steps.
She was saved by two men, including Mr C.
Homer, the hut attendant. He told the News‘
reporter that it was his third rescue in a month.
From good anecdotal evidence, I’m
reasonably confident the purpose of the
structure was as a starter’s/race marshal’s hut,
built in the early 1960s, for races organised by
the Royal Forth Yacht Club and is aligned with
the starting line across Wardie Bay. The
balustrade around its top certainly suggests that
the roof was meant to be stood on.
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