|
1806
The
Society for the Industrious Blind acquired premises in Nicolson Street in
1806. The article in Grant's 'Old & New Edinburgh',
continued:
"
... the public patronage having greatly increased, in 1806, the present
building, No 58, was purchased, and in 1822, another house, No 38 was
bought for the use of the female blind.
The latter are employed in sewing the covers
for mattresses and feather beds, knitting stockings &c.
The males are employed in making mattresses,
mats, brushes, baskets of every kind, in weaving sacking, matting and
"rag-carpets". No less than eighteen looms are employed in this
work."
Nicolson Street is a continuation of South
Bridge, to the south.
Improvements appear to have been made to No 58
Nicolson Street, some time between 1820 and 1890. Several
features of the building described in the 1890 article in 'Old & New
Edinburgh' don't appear on the engraving above:
"a
new and elegant facade, surmounted by stone-faced dormer windows, a
handsome cornice, and balustrade, with a large central doorway, in a niche
above which is a bust of David Johnstone, the founder, from the studio of
the late Handyside Ritchie."
The workshops at Nicolson Street were extended in
1897, and continued to be used until 1923. [RNIB
web site] |
