Written on 11th April 2026
I got a communication from a companion today which peruse alongside the lines of "I cognize we were going to encounter in Edinburgh today, but do you fancy gathering in Portobello alternatively and trying to fix the clock in the old constabulary position alongside me?"
I don't cognize concerning you, but clambering about the dusty nineteenth hundred years clock tower of an abandoned constabulary position appears an ideal way to expend a Saturday midday to me, so I jumped at the chance.
The fairly expansive Portobello Police Station building.
This was in reply to a communication from Action Porty:
"Can you assistance keep Portobello on time? Action Porty has lately bought the Police Station for the community, but we can't activity out how to alter the period on the clock tower! We wondered if there was anyone in the community alongside ability that could advise us of the particulars for changing the time? Or who finest to communication for help?"
The bit I hadn't figured out was that clocks are elevated up. If we were to fix the clock we would be next to it and so we would additionally be elevated up. And being elevated up involves heights, and steep lengthy ladders are needed to get up high.
I suppressed my whimpers at climbing up the fairly high, steep ladder into the apt spider-infested gloom and was rewarded alongside an examine of the attic, which guide to another set of steps which went to the clock tower itself.
Once there we were rewarded alongside the magnificent perspective of the clock scheme and its three clock faces:
Construction of the construction apparently started in 1877 and it seems fairly feasible that this was an first mechanism. Modifications had been made - electric motors powered the scheme and a authority box allowed the clock chime to be turned off overnight.
The construction was built to home meeting, administration and courts for Portobello burgh council. After Portobello was absorbed into Edinburgh the construction became a library, and afterward a constabulary station.
The Scottish Land Fund has since enabled it to be purchased for community ownership and whenever I went there many volunteeers were removing the 1970s polystyrene ceiling tiles and wood-chip wallpaper to disclose the first grandeur of the building.
