Bought by the Admiralty in 1916 as the site of a future Naval base, the pier at Port Edgar had been regularly used by
Royal Navy ships since the 1850s. Shortly after its purchase, the wounded of the
Battle of Jutland were landed at Port Edgar for the Royal Naval Hospital at Butlaw, Queensferry. The dead of the battle were buried in the local cemetery. In 1917 the completed base was commissioned as HMS
Columbine, a depot for
Torpedo Boat Destroyers of the
Grand Fleet. HMS
Columbine and the naval hospital at Butlaw were closed in 1938. In 1939, at the outbreak of the
Second World War, Port Edgar was commissioned as HMS
Lochinvar, a training establishment for the Royal Naval Patrol Service. In 1943 HMS
Lochinvar relocated to
Granton Harbour just a few miles along the coast. Port Edgar became the home to HMS
Hopetoun, a
Combined Operations training centre for British and
Allied navies training for the
D-Day landings in
France. After the war, HMS
Hopetoun closed and in 1946 HMS
Lochinvar returned to Port Edgar. It was now home to the Royal Navy
minesweepers clearing the Firth of Forth and the eastern coast of Britain of its wartime
minefields. In 1958 the Royal Navy Fishery Protection Squadron was moved to HMS
Lochinvar. By 1960 the port also became the Navy's only minesweeping training establishment. In 1975 HMS
Lochinvar closed and all its operations moved across the Forth to
HMS Caledonia in the rebuilt naval base at
Rosyth. Today Port Edgar is owned by Port Edgar Holdings Ltd and is a marina for pleasure craft and a base for other watersports. It sits just west of the Forth Road Bridge, within sight of the 1890 Rail Bridge, and in the shadow of the new
Queensferry Crossing. In 1988 the Algerines Association unveiled a memorial at Port Edgar to the minesweepers and fishery protection vessels based at Port Edgar and Granton between 1939 and 1975.
HMS Temeraire From 1955 to 1960 Port Edgar was the home to the
stone frigate HMS
Temeraire, the training location of the
Upper Yardman Scheme. ==Gallery==