Diggers Leith, Edinburgh

The Athletic Arms first opened its doors in 1897; it’s a large, wood-paneled corner bar at the notional boundary between Gorgie and Dalry in the west of Edinburgh. Inside it’s all well-hewn wood and stained glass, short mushroom-like stools, an everchanging selection of cask ales and enough whisky to float a medium-sized ship. Oh, and pies. It’s right round the corner from Tynecastle so it’s a canonical ‘Hearts pub’ down to the various maroon shades around the place, and it’s also sat opposite one graveyard and a block or so from another. This explains why The Athletic Arms is commonly referred to as The Diggers.

Diggers Leith opened its doors in February 2026; it’s a long, thin bar on the wide-paved corner of Bernard Street and Constitution Street that by some measures is right in the middle of Leith. The outside is a nice shade of green (as is the palette-swapped logo), but there isn’t a graveyard in sight. What we do see, on a Monday night a week after opening the doors, are five different groups of folk sat down for a pint, leaving the main bar impressively full for the off-est of off-peak pub times. The beer selection is great, with a good offering of local breweries across cask and keg, the staff are lovely, and the twin Diggers staples of ‘impressive pies’ and ‘an extensive and cheap whisky list’ are in full effect. Show us another pub in which you can get a bumper dram of Tamnavulin or Laphroaig for £3, and you are showing us the other Diggers from the start of this article.

But here’s a thought: picture your favourite pub in your mind. It’s warm but a bit worn; it’s probably Edwardian, Victorian, or Georgian if you’re particularly fancy. It feels lived-in, lightly chaotic, like it’s been decorated by dozens of different people over the years each broadly following on from the last. Now imagine walking into that decades or perhaps centuries-old boozer, in *the week it opened*.

Right now, Diggers Leith is missing a few of those touches that come over time – it all feels very fresh, like someone needs to come in with a bag of bar mirrors and old drinks trays, wearing their biggest boots to help scuff the place up a bit. Some of these things are resolvable fairly quickly, and some of the elements of the decor that don’t quite work would be less obvious on a stowed-out Saturday night. But what the Diggers Leith needs, really, is to somehow become old.

Credit: Diggers.

It’s a trick that only a handful of places have managed from a standing start (Newbarns Taproom, we’re looking in your direction), and we aren’t arguing for some kind of forced nostalgia. As we all know, the most effective and straightforward way to become old is through ‘the passage of time’, and history may be on the side of Diggers Leith, as there have been public houses on this block since they started marking the pubs on the map.

We’ve actually reviewed one of them – Chancho, the former inhabitants of this unit, poured a mean mezcal cocktail, RIP. This venue turnover is just part of life, but there is something uncanny about visiting a venue before it’s fully bedded in, when you can almost smell the freshly-cut edges of the wood, the moment before the first water rings have started appearing on the tables. It goes against what we want, which is our pubs and third spaces to feel like they’ve been here for ages, immovable symbols of the link between past and present, but the kind of immovable symbols that are also completely malleable to our current demands and desires. We’re a fun bunch to deal with, and this line of thinking never leads to venues failing to acquire the coveted place in our hearts and minds that would ensure their continued survival, thereby perpetuating the cycle of places either shutting after six months or staying open for sixty years. That almost never happens!

Looking around the bar, past our lovely pint of Jarl, and down at the well-trodden wooden floorboards – their joins, imperfections, shiny spots and worn patches – offers a glimpse into the future of this and every bar that yearns to stick around. Wear comes from use; age comes with time; nostalgia is history’s absent-minded cousin.

People keep going to the Athletic Arms because of the whisky list and the pies and the warm welcome but they also keep going because it's there, they like it, it's been there for ages, they've liked it for ages, and it feels like it'll always be there. Did the punters feel the same way when the place opened in The Nineteenth Century? In these very early days, the best thing to do is keep it simple: something like getting good beers, an extensive but surprisingly cheap whisky list, and impressive pies. That, plus time, adds up to a very good pub.

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7 Bernard St, Leith, Edinburgh, EH6 6PW; Sun-Thu, midday-midnight; Fri-Sat, midday-1am