With the news that Leith Walk's Boundary Bar is to be temporarily resurrected for the upcoming new series of BBC Scotland drama Guilt, we thought it would be worthwhile to tell the rather intriguing story behind the real pub of the same name.
The Boundary Bar, which is now Bier Hoose, is being brought back from the dead to star in the new thriller starring Mark Bonnar - but not at the original location. Instead, another bar, Robbie's, which is situated just round the corner on Iona Street, will bear the name of the famous watering hole.
A mainstay for generations of Leithers, the lost capital pub was so-called as it straddled the exact boundary on Leith Walk where Edinburgh became Leith, and there was a time when drinkers took advantage of this imaginary line - or so it is often claimed.
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According to numerous modern-day sources, at the point in the night that last orders were being called in Edinburgh's public houses, there would be a mass migration of Boundary Bar patrons crossing over to the Leith side of the pub where they could supposedly enjoy and extra half-hour of boozing after 10pm. The peculiar practice, it has repeatedly been said, only came to an end in 1920, when Leith and Edinburgh were merged together.
Since 1833, the old port had been a separate municipal burgh from the capital, boasting its very own provost, magistrates, council, and police force. However, when it came to alcohol licensing laws, particularly pub closing times, the watering holes of Leith and Edinburgh have jointly observed the exact same law of the land for way longer than many would have you believe.
Alcohol has long been blamed for societal problems such as unemployment, crime, poverty and domestic violence, and at the end of the 19th century there were numerous calls in Scotland to place limits on its sale.
Things came to a head with the passing of the Licensing (Scotland) Act 1903 which stipulated that public houses across the land must close their doors at 10pm at the latest. For the majority of Leith's pubs, this meant closing an hour earlier than before.
While the opening times of pubs had previously been decided by town magistrates, this new blanket ruling meant every Scottish burgh was forced to follow suit - Edinburgh and Leith included. Scotland's pubs continued to observe the 10pm closing time until 1976, when the rules were relaxed.
And it's with all this information in mind that we are inclined to re-evaluate the long-held Leith-Edinburgh drinking divide tale. The notion that merry punters could drift from one side of Leith Walk's Boundary Bar to the other to bag an extra 30 minutes of intoxication at 10pm each night is debatable, at the very least.
There was, however, one brief instance between 1903 and 1920 when the Boundary Bar did experience a late night influx of Edinburgh drinkers.
At 10pm on Saturday , May 28, 1904, the new licensing restrictions came into effect in Edinburgh's pubs - a full 48 hours earlier than those same laws came into being in Leith. The delay sparked a mass exodus of thirsty patrons into the port, with the Boundary Bar being one of their first stops.
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The Edinburgh Evening News reported: "Directly on the closing of the Edinburgh public-houses there was a movement for Leith which rapidly grew in volume.
"The public-house which stands on the east side of Leith Walk just on the boundary line, opposite Pilrig Street, but which is licensed by Leith magistrates, was the first to be choked full. About twenty minutes past ten, the doors had to be shut against the thirsty ones, the shop being to its fullest capacity."
The report added: "The people were taking their customary late drink, having been unable all at once to adapt themselves to the changed conditions. Ten o'clock closing begins in Leith to-night [Monday, May 30, 1904]."
While it may have been unpopular with much of the general population, on the whole, the 10pm closure of pubs in Scotland was heralded as a great success, with police forces up and down the country reporting reduced levels of late-night drunkenness.
In March 1914, as the tenth anniversary of the radical ruling approached, the Aberdeen Evening Express provided an update from various burghs - Leith included - and whether or not the 10pm closing of pubs had been worthwhile.
The paper reported: "Leith - Since ten o'clock closing came into force the streets are cleared an hour earlier, and the police get to examine properly on their beats much earlier than they were able to do under 11 o'clock closing. This clearing of the streets an hour earlier has a tendency to better order and is a great improvement."
Although the story of customers shifting from one side of the Boundary Bar to the other come 10pm may well be fabricated, there is some evidence to suggest that the oddity occurred at an earlier time in the day.
Tweaks to the licensing law after 1903 did enable pubs to apply for early opening permits, and with Leith being the workplace of thousands of dockers, railway workers and factory workers, there were a number of establishments in the area that decided to open early in the morning. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Boundary Bar was one such pub that lifted its shutters at 5am - or 50 per cent of them at least.
Former Boundary Bar co-owner Agnes Davies told the Herald in 2001: ''If you stood at the Leith end you could drink at 5am. But if the local bobby caught anyone drinking in the wrong half of the bar they would be hauled in.''
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