The Marine Gardens

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On 13 March 1941 J. W. Fraser, manager of the Marine Gardens, died.

Fraser had recently undergone an operation for appendicitis. Peritonitis set in and proved fatal.

Fraser was the promoter who introduced Speedway racing to Scotland. He managed the Marine Gardens, Edinburgh and the White City, Glasgow and was responsible for the appearance in Scotland of all the foremost speedway riders. He did not, however, confine his sporting activities to the speedway. He brought the boxer Primo Carnera to Edinburgh, the Italian afterwards going to the United States where he won the World Heavyweight Championship. He reintroduced to Britain the craze for roller skating and old time dancing. On the commercial side he controlled a number of sand pits throughout Scotland.

Since the outbreak of war he had interested himself in ARP and other civil defence services in the Portobello area and was engaged in arranging for a canteen kitchen for Edinburgh just before his illness.
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Home is where the dirt track is

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The death of J.W. Fraser led to the selling off of the assets of the Marine Gardens.

On Monday 10th August 1942 an auction was held in the yard of Messrs Adam Currie & Sons Ltd. West Saville Terrace which saw the sale of :-

One hundred and fifty 2ft square tables. Twenty two round iron tables. Two shop counters. Leather covered and other couches and settees. Goode’s and Avery penny in slot and platform weighing machines. Microphones. Two fireproof sails. Six cigarette machines. Saw with motor and bench. Cross cut saw. Garden roller and tools. Ladders and steps. Sturtevant electric vacuum cleaner. Walnut panel back and tip up chairs. Ham slicing machine by Berkel and Parnell. Potato chip cutter. tea measurer. Tea and coffee urns. Plates teapots. Hot water jugs. Cream ewers. Sugar bowls. Cake stands. Condiment sets. Dinner and tea knives. Forks. Tea, coffee and ice spoons. Large quantity cups and saucers, plates and odd ware. Pint and half pint tumblers. Champagne and other wine glasses. Trays. Kettles. Linen table cloths. Carpets. Minimax Fire extinguishers. Set drain cleaners. Jackson boiler. Mirrors. Roof glass. Barbed wire. Parchment shades. Electrical bulbs. Electrical equipment Tin advertisement sheets. Corrugated iron. Panel doors. Electric lamps. Maple wood and odd timber . Porcelain sinks and urinals. Motor trailer and miscellaneous effects.
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Home is where the dirt track is

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On the afternoon of 2 March 1945, Mr. A.F. Palmer Phillips, the Sales Director of Vauxhall Motors Ltd and ex president of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders Ltd performed the ceremony of launching two landing craft at the SMT war construction factory at the Marine Gardens.
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Home is where the dirt track is

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A fortnight later women welders were chosen by their fellow employees at the Marine Gardens, to launch two landing craft. The ceremony was performed by Miss Margaret Horner, 4 Wellington Place, Joppa, a former waitress at the Liberton Golf Club and Mrs. Jean Mathieson, 16 Craigmillar Castle Terrace, wife of an RAF man.
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Home is where the dirt track is

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In the immediate aftermath of the war the Marine Gardens played its part in the reconstruction.

There was a desperate need for housing and the Government imported prefabricated timber houses from Sweden. The first were brought over from Sweden to Leith by the steamer Porkel on 22 February 1946. She was the first of five or six vessels which were expected at the port within the next week or two.

Altogether 200 houses were delivered. They were stored under cover in the Marine Gardens and there the sections, which were all code numbered, were sorted out ready for distribution to the various sites. The houses were of one storey and two storey types.
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Home is where the dirt track is

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On 15 April 1946 a Luton firm of engineers, Hayward Tyler & Co Ltd. took over premises at the Marine Gardens, for the manufacture of mineral water machinery and oil refinery pumps. The building, used during the war for the construction of landing craft, occupied 100,000 square feet of floor space. The factory was expected, after a year’s running, to give employment to some 500 people. Seventy five per cent of the machinery produced would be for export. It signalled the end of the Marine Gardens as an entertainment complex.

Within a few months Hayward Tyler were joined by Graham Enock Manufacturing Ltd. and by the Scottish Motor Traction Company (SMT).

By September 1948 all of the land had been sold by the Government to business concerns. The Marine Gardens had become an industrial estate.
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Home is where the dirt track is

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The last official event at the Marine Gardens took place on 21 December 1949 when a prototype of a mechanised landing craft built during the war and launched at the Gardens in November 1944 by the then Lady Provost, Miss Diana Falconer, was presented by Mr. C. Cambage, General Manager SMT to Mr. D. McIntyre V.C., Under Secretary of the Ministry of Works.

The craft was engined with two high power petrol Packard motors and was built to carry two small fighting tanks or one large one, complete with infantry platoon.

The prototype was placed beside a model of a landing craft used in the Napoleonic wars in the Scottish United Services Museum, Edinburgh Castle.


After this, there are no further references to the Marine Gardens in the Scotsman Archive.
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Home is where the dirt track is