There are few scheme pubs in Edinburgh that can ever hope to achieve the infamy The Gunner had back in the day.
Situated at the end of Pennywell Road in Muirhouse, the flat roofed boozer had a fearsome reputation and was the kind of place the faint of heart dared not enter.
What The Gunner lacked in windows (rather terrifyingly, it had none), it certainly made up for in atmosphere - just ask any of its former regulars. Everyone knew to be on their guard of course, but as long as you knew folk you were normally alright.
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While older drinkers will have known it as the Penny Farthing, most knew it as The Gunner - a name derived from the HMS 'Gunner' naval base that operated at Granton during wartime.
Resolutely working class, the Boom Boom, as regulars affectionately called it, was at its most lively on the weekends, whether that be during the karaoke or pool competitions or the inevitable argy bargy at chucking out time.
By most accounts, The Gunner was no stranger to a bit of violence, nor was it particularly uncommon for a dodgy-looking individual to try and sell you high value electrical equipment from a black bin bag.
The pub even had to resort to serving pints in plastic glasses for a spell to prevent serious injuries in the event of glasses being thrown when fights broke out. CCTV was installed at the entrance.
Mind you, none of this stop floppy-haired telly host Jonathan Ross from drinking there. The English TV personality is said to have sampled the pleasures of the Gunner in the 90s after having learned of its notoriety from the novels of Irvine Welsh.
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In more recent years, the pub, which was aptly run by Punch Taverns in its latter years, was also frequented by Hibs stars including Anthony Stokes and Derek Riordan.
Have a search on the internet and there are loads of reminiscences relating to The Gunner. Some of them recall fond memories and amusing stories of what was a good old community boozer, while others are slightly more unnerving to say the least.
Writing on the Muirhouse Memories page on Facebook, Sam McIntosh said: "Loads of funny stories from the Gunner. A friend years ago was sold a leather coat in there by someone who rapidly disappeared only to find the owner of the coat had been in the toilet!"
Gordon Guthrie commented: "Worked for Punch Taverns in here! Walked in, in a high viz jacket and a mobile radio on! Cleared the bar in seconds."
Half joking, Jackie Doig added: "If your house was robbed in the area you could go there and buy it back."
Over on Twitter, @Camthebam66 said of The Gunner: "This place had a fabulous, but unused and slightly decrepit, function suite upstairs. With some TLC would have made a great small venue for live music."
The Gunner was often making headlines for all the wrong reasons. In 2015, the Daily Record covered the story of a chancer who tried to punt Rolex watches in the pub hours after having committed an armed robbery on an Edinburgh jewellers.
One local said at the time: “No one could believe it. You’d think if it was connected to the robbery he’d have waited until things calmed down.”
The Gunner called last orders for the final time in 2015 and the pub was subsequently demolished.
Heartbroken landlady Maria McGovern said she'd done everything in her power to keep the pub going but lay the blame at regeneration plans in the area which had knocked down much of the old community and left The Gunner starved of customers. New housing now stands on the site of the former boozer.
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