Comments

'And finally, not everyone’s being doing topical. In fact, here’s the rather lovely 6 Oxgangs Avenue devoted to the history of the development of the area, this week highlighting how the block of flats came into being. Could have been prompted by Who do you think you are? Or just a timely reminder that not everything worth blogging about is in the here and now.'

Kate Higgins, Scottish Roundup 26/08/2012



Saturday, 13 July 2013

'Ox-Gangs'

We at The Stair grew up knowing only flats at Oxgangs Avenue 




and for those with longer memories also the old prefabs.


However before either were built it was only farmland at Oxgangs in the first part of the twentieth century. The oxgang represented the amount of land which could be ploughed using one ox, in a single annual season. 


Oxgangs Mains Farm-Ploughing in November

As land was normally ploughed by a team of eight oxen, an oxgang was thus one eighth the size of a ploughland - thus Oxgang(s).


Oxgangs Police Station-formerly Oxgangs Mains Farmhouse-I remember climbing in to the building through the door/window on the far right hand side!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Had an interesting time reading many of the posts here, great fun and brought back a lot of memories.
Got me thinking about my "Stair" on Oxgangs Ave, number 2. The families I can re-call in Stair 2 are:
the Kellocks - Neil (that's me) brothers Willie and Graeme.
Miss Hood, the old spinster who live opposite us on the ground floor.
The Strachans, can't re-call all the kids but there was a David and a couple of Strachan girls.
The Burns, I think Irene and John were the Burns kids.
Lynn Steer or Mitchell.
I'm missing some here but it's who comes to mind so far.
Neil

Anonymous said...

I can remember Neil Kellock and also Lynn Steer. Countless days spent at the Pentland community centre, Ewarts the newsagents, Alan Hanlon, Midge,Stevie Devine and just year's of happy memories.
From Alex Le Grice at alexanderlegrice64@gmail.com as I'm not on Social Media.