Only in Edinburgh by Duncan J.D. Smith

74 Old Town 31 The Dovecot TapestryWeavers EH1 1LT (Old Town), the Dovecot Tapestry Studio at 10 Infirmary Street Bus 3, 5, 7, 8, 14, 29, 30, 31, 33, 35, 37, 45, 49 to South Bridge (note: the Weaving Floor can only be observed on Thursday, Friday and Saturday at appointed times) Old Town’s Infirmary Street (EH1) has quite a story to tell. It is named after the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, which was established in 1736 with just four beds in a small house on the corner with South Bridge. In 1741 after outgrowing these premises it moved down the street to a 228-bed building designed for the purpose by renowned architect William Adam (1689–1748). Here it remained until 1832, when it re- located to the disused Royal High School in nearby High School Yards, then moved again in 1853 to a new building on nearby Drummond Street (thereafter the Infirmary moved in 1879 to Lauriston Place (EH3) and finally in 2003 to Little France (EH16) in Liberton). In 1884 the William Adam-designed building was demolished and replaced by the Infirmary Street Baths. Designed by City Architect Robert Morham (1839–1912), these were Edinburgh’s first public baths, built as part of an ongoing plan to avoid cholera outbreaks by improving public sanitation. It is worth noting that one of Scottish medicine’s unsung heroes is Leith-born Thomas Latta (1796–1833), who pioneered the saline drip to rehydrate cholera patients during the 1832 epidemic. When the Baths eventually closed in 1995, the build- ing stood empty for a decade and was threatened with demolition. Fortunately in 2006 it was sold to the Dovecot Tapestry Studio and transformed into the landmark workshop and gallery seen today. The Studio had been founded in Corstorphine in 1912 by John Crichton-Stuart, 4th Marquess of Bute (1881–1947). The original weavers came from William Morris’ furnishings and decorative arts workshops in London and their first commission was for a series of large tapestries for the Marquess’s home, Mount Stuart House, on the Isle of Bute. Rebranded the Edinburgh Tapestry Company after the Second World War, the Studio evolved constantly. It embraced modernism in the fifties, for example, utilising designs supplied by Henry Moore and Cecil Beaton, and in the sixties associated with artists such as David Hockney and Leith’s Eduardo Paolozzi. In the 1990s the studio wove Britain’s largest ever tapestry, which now hangs in the British Library. New funding in 2001 saw the Dovecot Tapestry Studio name re-es-