Old Junction Road Hall

The hall as shown on the Ordnance Survey large scale town plan ‘Edinburgh and its Environs’ for 1894. It was entered from Great Junction Street, in the block between Bowling Green Street and Bangor Road.

Extracted from Ordnance Survey large scale town plan sheet 16 published 1852. Original scale 1:500. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland.

The hall is thought to have opened around 1868. It was behind the tenements on Great Junction Street, and was entered through a pend under the tenements. During the 1870s, it was used as a dance hall, a concert theatre and a meeting place and was reported to be very dark because of the tenements that surrounded it.

A report from 1877 tells how the hall as packed to hear men of the 11th company of 1st Midlothian Rifle Volunteers give a performance of ’Midnight Sentinel’, with a scene adapted from the French of ‘a fortress near Marseilles’! A balcony seat was 3/- (15p) and a seat in the upper gallery was 6d (3p).

The hall was then used by the Salvation Army, who later moved to new premises in Bangor Road, and from 1895 by the Ebenezer United Free Church. he hall and surrounding tenements were demolished in the 1970s and replaced by The Quilts housing development.

A commemorative plaque at The Quilts housing development, near the location of the hall.

Photo: D King, 15/11/2018.