St Leonards railway station (Scotland)

St. Leonards railway station is a closed railway station in St Leonard's, Edinburgh, on the Edinburgh and Dalkeith Railway. It was Edinburgh's first railway station. The railway was built in 1831 to transport coal from the mining towns south of the city; and the following year opened passenger services. St. Leonards was the terminus for the south of the city and was named after the nearby region.

St Leonards
Surviving goods shed
General information
Location	Edinburgh, City of Edinburgh Scotland
Other information
Status	Disused
History
Original company	Edinburgh and Dalkeith Railway
Pre-grouping	North British Railway
Post-grouping	London and North Eastern Railway
Key dates
2 June 1832	Opened
1846	Closed
1 June 1860	Reopened
30 September 1860	Closed to passengers - site reused as a goods depot
1968	Goods depot closed

Passenger services ceased in 1846, when the North British Railway opened a station at North Bridge which later developed into Waverley station. Services from Dalkeith were re-routed via Portobello. The station reopened briefly between 1 June 1860 and 30 September 1860 when a service was temporarily re-introduced from St. Leonard's to Dalkeith, Portobello and Leith, but it closed again within a few months. The railhead continued to see heavy use in its original intended role as a coal yard until 1968.[1]

Both the coal depot and part of the railway line have been redeveloped as housing. The goods shed is the only surviving building; it has been designated a Category B listed building by Historic Environment Scotland.[2] Since 2019, it has been used as a whisky and gin distillery with an accompanying visitor centre.[3] The remaining trackbed is now a footpath and cycle path, forming part of the National Cycle Network Route 1.[4]

A 1905 Railway Clearing House diagram of Edinburgh railways, showing the location of St Leonards railway station