Rosslyn Castle

Location type

Station

Names and dates

Rosslyn [Penicuik Railway] (1872-1874)
Rosslyn Castle (1874-1951)

Note: text in square brackets is added for clarity and was not part of the location's name.

Opened on the Penicuik Railway.

Description

This was a single platform station built beside Roslin Lee farm, about a mile to the south of the village of Roslin and over the River North Esk. The platform, with a single storey small station building (akin to the shelter at Drem) was on the north side and there was a goods yard to the west on the north side of the line, accessed from the east.

The goods yard served the local area and the Rosslyn Gunpowder Works which had a dedicated siding. An elevated inclined tramway connected the siding to a quarry and this was later adapted and rerouted to serve the gunpowder works. The works was served internally by a tramway and gunpowder mills were on both sides of the river. Alignment of the tramways varied over time with the needs of the works. Also on the valley floor was the Rosslyn Carpet Factory, to the east of the gunpowder works.

A section of the line was built within a tube to the south west of the station, where the line ran above the explosives works, to arrest sparks which could ignite the explosives. The explosives company had to take legal action to make the railway put the line in the tube as per an earlier promise.

The station closed to passengers in 1951 but the line remained open until 1967. The explosives works closed in 1954.

The platform remains with 'Rossyln Castle' picked out in the former station garden. A railway cottage still stands to the north. The railway trackbed is now a cyclepath.

Rosslynlee would have been a better name for the station but the nearby Rosslyn [Peebles Railway] station was given this name. This latter station was quite some distance from Roslin being further south again than the Penicuik Railway's station.

Local

The station was not very convenient for Rosslyn Castle. A passenger would walk down Rosslyn Glen Cottages and then cross the River North Esk by footbridge to reach the grounds of the castle.

Tags

Station footpath

External links

NLS Collection OS map of 1892-1914
NLS Collection OS map of 1944-67
NLS Map
NLS Map




Chronology Dates

16/02/1874Penicuik Railway
Rosslyn re-named Rosslyn Castle.
10/09/1951Penicuik Railway
Penicuik [2nd] to Rosewell and Hawthornden (Hawthornden Junction) closed to passengers. Rosslyn Castle and Penicuik [2nd] closed.

Books


An Illustrated History of Edinburgh's Railways

Forgotten Railways: Scotland

Old Penicuik