Woodburn Homepage
Welcome to Woodburn!
This website provides details of what is going on in the Woodburn area - community groups, events and local businesses, as well as giving local people a chance to 'have their say' on local issues and concerns.
A brief history of Woodburn...
The area of Woodburn was formally the estate of Woodburn House. Woodburn Estate and House was owned by the Marquis of Lothian, but was purchased by Dalkeith Town Council in 1934 for £5,500 with the view of building up to 400 new homes on the land.
At the time of purchase, Dalkeith had 256 homes unfit for human habitation & 239 overcrowded families (more than 3 people to one room), so there was a big need for new housing developments.
House building began in November 1934, at the time there was high unemployment and so one of the conditions of the building contract was that 75% of the men on the site must be local. The scheme continued to expand, even during the War, and some of these houses were used to accommodate miners from the West of Scotland and their families.
The first houses built were Spalding Crescent, Woodburn Drive and part of Woodburn Road, this was followed by houses in James Lean Avenue and Newmills Road.
Only two traces of Woodburn House remain. Part of the garden wall still stands between James Lean Avenue and Woodburn Drive, and the gate pillars still stand in Woodburn Road (albeit not in their original position).
Woodburn is a relatively common name for a house and is likely to have been chosen without much connection to the surroundings, given that the South Esk cannot really be described as a ‘burn’.
Source: The Origins of Street Names in Dalkeith (1996) Dr May G Williamson
Thank you to the Dalkeith Historical Society and Councillor Craig Statham for their help in compiling this information.
