Somewhere I've Never Been

L and I went for a short walk this afternoon, down to the waterfront and along to the harbour at Granton, where we walked out along the Eastern Breakwater. Unlike the western half of the harbour which has been significantly filled in over the past fifty years, the eastern half remains a proper harbour and the breakwater juts out for over half a mile into the Firth of Forth. This is L right at the end of the pier where we sat for a while with terns diving for fish just in front of us.
I looked up the harbour when we got home. Apparently the Eastern Breakwater was started in 1853, using stone from the nearby Granton Quarry, and wasn't completed until 1863. Craigleith sandstone from the area has been used for in buildings for centuries, including in the construction of Holyrood Palace in the sixteenth century. The 'sea quarry' was opened by the Duke of Buccleuch in 1835 to help to build the new harbour. Stone from the quarry was also used to build the Granton Hotel, where rail passengers could stay overnight before crossing the Forth on the world's first 'roll-on-roll-off' railway ferry. Elsewhere it was used to make the statue of James Watt that once stood in Chambers Street before being moved out to the new campus when Heriot Watt University moved to the west of the city.
However there is a more famous use of Granton Stone that was something I hadn't heard before. Apparently the statue of Nelson on top of the column in Trafalgar Square, London was carved from Granton Stone. The original idea had been to cast Nelson in bronze but that was ruled out when it was too expensive. Instead it was decided to use Portland stone from the south of England but as the statue was to be 17 feet high it proved impossible to obtain large enough pieces of stone. The organising committee then consulted their former chairman, the Duke of Buccleuch, and a sample of Granton stone was sent to London by steamer in October 1840. There were problems in getting large enough blocks out of the quarry but this was eventually achieved and the stone was delivered in July 1842. After the blocks had been carved by the sculptor, Edward Hodges Baily (1788 – 1867), they were lifted into position on top of the column on 3 November 1843.
This blip marks four years worth of blips. I did consider a specific '1460' or 'fourth blipday' image but like last year in the end decided an 'ordinary' blip was the best way to mark the occasion. Well, not completely ordinary as my wife L doesn't often let herself be featured as my blip subject.
Thanks as ever to Joe and the rest of the good folks at Blip Central and to all my blip friends across the world.

PS And relevant because of the title for this blip, I've just noticed that today is the 45th anniversary of the first men walking on the moon on 20/21st July 1969. I have vague memories of being woken up by my parents in the middle of the night to watch the grainy pictures of men walking on the moon's surface. I was only five, but my parents must have thought it was important that I saw it, there in the living room of our semi-detached house on a cul-de-sac street in a small new estate in Dundee.