The Port of Leith handbook 1937
Cover with the title set in Broadway (ATF, 1927). The publisher info is given in custom drawn Art Deco caps.
From the 1937 official handbook to the Port of Leith, issued by the Leith Chamber of Commerce, and giving a description of the then busy harbour and docks that served Edinburgh and the Lothians. The handbook gives details of the infrastructure, services and sailings from Leith as well as the fishing port at adjacent Newhaven. It also lists various statistics as to the volume, origin and destination of the various cargoes handled by the port.
The cover with the old pre-1922 Burgh coat of arms retained and some ‘new and old’ typefaces!
Shown below is a rather fine aerial view of the harbour, docks and surrounding streets and railway lines of Leith, westwards along the Forth Estuary towards Newhaven and Granton. Needless to say all this has changed massively. After decades of decline and contraction – all the coal shipped from here, for example, via those railway sidings, had vanished and the Docks were almost moribund. In recent years it has become the site of much urban renewal and redevelopment with, for example, the old Royal Yacht now berthed here as a tourist attraction. Currently the Edinburgh tram system is being extended back into the area to help transport links for further development.
The title uses Ehmcke-Antiqua (Flinsch, 1908), which was cast by the Caslon foundry under the name Carlton.
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See also the handbook for 1964: