Mr Cranston's Waverley Temperance Hotels – a link between Edinburgh and London

I've just returned from a long weekend in Edinburgh. Lots of walking. Lots to see. And, of course, I took lots of photos. 

As I was walking back towards the Old Town along Spring Gardens last Friday I noticed a ghostsign on the side of a building overlooking the railway line, the largest visible words 'WAVERLEY HOTELS'. 

Although I'd spotted lots of old hand-painted signs across the city I'd decided to restrict myself to just looking at them. But this sign was so huge and inviting – I had to try and get closer!

This end wall sits a little over a metre from the viaduct that carries the tracks and with my back pressed against the railway wall I managed to take a couple of oblique upwards shots but my old phone isn't really the best device for taking pics like this. 

I have today tried find a better quality image, because surely someone must have got there first, but I can't find reference of it anywhere which is probably because trees obliterate the sign for most of the year.

I have therefore done my best to enhance and stretch one of my dodgy pics in order to read the content:

CRANSTON'S

WAVERLEY

Temperance

HOTELS

EDINBURGH

Princes Street

AND

Waterloo Place

GLASGOW

WAVERLEY

182(?) Sauchiehall Street

LONDON

WAVERLEY

37 Kings St, Cheapside

(CRA.... ALL.... NO... S)

(Bottom left)

FOR TEA

DINNER 2/-

ROOM 1/-

(Bottom right)

PRIVATE PARLOURS 3/-

SERVICE 1/-

STOCK ROOMS From 2/-

(and two more lines full length across the bottom edge that I can't decipher)

The London Waverley hotel at the corner of Cheapside is no longer there but it reminded me that I'd found this ad in a 1935 Ward Lock London guidebook for three Temperance hotels near the British Museum, one of which was called The Waverley. You'll can still find it today at 130-134 Southampton Row, near Russell Square, though no longer part of the temperance movement, ditto The Ivanhoe and The Kenilworth which sit opposite each other at the junction of Gt Russell St and Gower Street the former since rebranded The Bloomsbury Street Hotel.

But who was Mr Cranston? Well, it turns out we have another link between Edinburgh and London because Abney Park's website makes good mention of Robert Cranston within this entry for Elizabeth Elliott Scott who worked at one his hotels in Lawrence Lane, Cheapside – it includes a marvellous 151 advertisement for Cranston's hotels 

As for the Waverley Hotel in Edinburgh – on Monday, with time spare before my train back to London, I'd stood opposite the building and wondered whether I should go for a look inside to see if there was anything left of its Victorian interior. Having not started this research until today, I had not at that time made the connection to the Temperance movement and simply thought that t was named after Edinburgh's Waverley railway station. I instead sat on a bench in the sunshine and did a bit of people watching. Having googled the hotel's history, I can now see that I would have been disappointed –the hotel's fancy, albeit grubby, façade belies its interior which has been stripped of all historical decoration, making it almost indiscernible from many other hotels of this ilk.

Robert Cranston is buried in Grange Cemetery, Edinburgh.

Almost forgot – the sign is painted on the side of a Victorian social housing block at 10 Brand Place which retains its access from the street via an open staircase, very similar in design to the developments erected by Sidney Waterlow and his IIDC friends in London.