Edinburgh at Work

Speedspools

Gayfield Place Lane

The last hot metal monotype printers in Edinburgh

1992

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Speedspools

Monotype Caster

Here are the photos taken at Speedspools, a small printing works at Gayfield Place Lane, Edinburgh in 1992.  I believe that the company then only had about three or four workers at the time that I took this photo.

Speedspools were then still using the old hot metal monotype methods to produce commercial output, including some of the legal booklets for The Standard Life Assurance Company, based nearby in Edinburgh.

Monotype Caster

The old equipment, still in use in the photograph above, is very similar to that illustrated in the lower photograph on this page of a book published in 1939:

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I photographed this book in 1993, but I cannot now recall the name or the publisher of the book.

Speedspools

Edinburgh at Work