Edinburgh Department Stores Heritage in Pictures: Here are 20 amazing photos of the spectacular shops of the Capital's past

These shops offered a full day out for families more than six decades ago.

If you wanted to buy anything from a new shirt to a radio in the Scottish Capital in the 1950s or 1960s you didn’t have the option of ordering over the internet, or even popping to an out-of-town shopping centre.

Instead a trip to the city centre was required to satisfy your consumer urges – a journey to Princes Street, Lothian Road, Leith Walk, or one of Edinburgh’s other shopping areas.

The 1950s and 1960s was a time of new inventions, electrical gadgets, contemporary fashion, and changing habits – and it was the golden age of the department store.

These huge shops filled multiple floors with everything you could want to buy, with restaurants, cafes and even milk bars for when you needed a break.

The most famous example is probably the much-missed Jenners, on Princes Street, which finally closed for good in 2021.

But there were plenty of other famous names in Edinburgh that attracted hordes of shopper, particularly at Christmas and for the traditional January sales, including the likes of Binns, Goldbergs and R.W. Forsyth.

Here are 20 pictures to take you back to the heyday of the Edinburgh department store.

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13. Going up

A new escalator inaugurated by the Oppenheim family at Grants Department Store on North Bridge in July 1959. It was Edinburgh's first escalator and an attraction in its own right. | TSPL