Post-war Edinburgh was in flux, with plans afoot to eradicate the slums of old and transform the city for the decades ahead.
One radical idea which attracted much attention was a proposal to raze all existing buildings on Edinburgh's main shopping thoroughfare, Princes Street, and start from scratch.
READ MORE - The forgotten Edinburgh motorway plan that would have destroyed the Old Town
The controversial plan stemmed from a little-known council report published in 1943, which contained a damning quote about the state of the famous street.
It stated: "Finally, there is Princes Street. In the minds of many the jumble of buildings along this street is now irremediable.”
The Abercrombie Plan
The notion that Princes Street had become a "jarring" mish-mash of architectural styles was shared by many leading Edinburgh figures of the day.
It was felt that restoring uniformity to the street - reimagining Princes Street as it was when it was originally laid out in the 1770s - should be a priority.
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By 1949, this germ of an idea had evolved into what would become widely known as the 'Abercrombie Plan'.
Tasked with creating the most radical civic survey since Victorian times, Patrick Abercrombie and Derek Plumstead drew up a scheme that recommended clearing 'slum' districts, including parts of Leith and Gorgie, and the complete reconstruction of Princes Street.
Following suit with similar plans being drawn up in other UK cities, the Abercrombie Plan stated that new "industrial zones" should be created, as well as an inner ring road that would destroy parts of the Old Town and Inverleith, and a railway through the Meadows.
Princes Street would be toppled building by building and forged anew by adopting the brutalist style of architecture which was in vogue at the time.
The roadway of the famous street would be extended to allow for greater traffic flow and the shopping precinct would be maximised by building an upper level walkway the full length between the West End and the top of Leith Street.
Famous buildings such as Jenners would be razed and all remnants of the original Georgian street lost forever.
But, while the highly-controversial scheme was approved, only a small portion of it was ever executed.
Over the course of the 1960s, landmark buildings, including the Italianate-fronted New Club, Life Association of Scotland building and North British & Mercantile Insurance building, would indeed vanish for new concrete and steel structures, but, in the end, the voices of the city's heritage activists would win out.
While Princes Street lost roughly half a dozen of its finest old buildings in the 1960s and '70s, the demolitions would eventually cease, and the money for the Abercrombie project relocated to fund Glasgow's Renfrew Motorway instead.
