Welcome to your midweek edition of The Inquirer.
For today’s long read we report on the abrupt closure of St Margaret’s House at Meadowbank as the home of 200 of the city’s artists and artisans.
If you don’t rcognise the name, you’ll know the building by the huge white sign on its wall declaring ART.
The building has long been earmarked for development as part of the transformation of that part of the city. Housing and more student accommodation is in the pipeline.
However, with negotiations for the sale of the propety close to conclusion, the tenants have been thrown into a race against time with just weeks to find new premises ahead of the festive break.
More on that below, but first your regular midweek news roundup and your cultural highlights for the week ahead.
Your Edinburgh Briefing
HEXAGON HOTEL: The landmark former Scottish Widows HQ on Dalkeith Road will be turned into a 385-bedroom hotel after councillors approved plans for its conversion. Seven of its 12 distinctive hexagons modules will be turned into either one or two hotels, while the remaining five will be demolished for housing development. Historic Environment Scotland was among supporters of developer Vita’s plans for the A-listed building, designed by Brutalist master Sir Basil Spence, despite objections about internal alterations, transport links and parking.
VAN TILLO TRIBUTES: Tributes have been paid to Ally Van Tillo, founder of the UK Aids Memorial Quilt, following his death at the age of 67. Ally (formerly known as Alastair Hume) grew up in Edinburgh, attending George Heriot’s School, before a career which encompassed running the Key West gay bar in Jamaica Street in the 1980s and activism for gay rights and HIV/Aids awareness. As well as founding the UK branch of the memorial quilt movement from Leith, he helped establish Milestone Venture Trust, the forerunner to the city charity Waverley Care. The charity has paid tribute to his “humility and generosity” and his legacy of compassion and understanding. The Guardian’s obituary can be found here.
GOING FORTH: A row of New Town townhouses will be turned into a 53-bedroom apartment-hotel after councillors approved plans for the conversion on Forth Street.
MUSSELS BLUES: Falling salt levels in seawater – caused by climate change bringing warmer, wetter winters - could be contributing to driving blue mussels from parts of the Firth of Forth according to scientists at Heriot-Watt University. While other factors are in play – including pollution – the researchers who have been studying mussels in the Forth for 20 years have found that baby mussels are especially sensitive to fresher water, with their growth and development badly affected when the seawater becomes diluted. The areas of greatest loss include Cramond and Musselburgh.
RISING PROPERTY PRICES: Edinburgh has recorded the highest rises in prices and rents of any of the UK’s Big Six regional cities, which includes Birmingham, Bristol, Glasgow, Leeds and Manchester, according to global property consultants JLL. Average prices of new-build flats in the city rose by 6.1% over the past year, while rents increased by 3.6%, with limited supply and high demand identified as major factors.
POLITICAL STRIFE: The city’s Lib Dems are not the only ones who can do internal battles in the capital, Labour are at it too. Serial rebel Katrina Faccenda, the councillor for Leith, is appealing a party decision to block her from standing at next May’s local elections. Fairmilehead and Colinton councillor Conor Savage is also facing deselection.
SEASIDE BOOK FEST: Best-selling crime writer Doug Johnstone is one of the stars of this year’s Portobello Book Festival which runs from Friday until Sunday.
COUNT US OUT: Fife and the Borders don’t want to become part of the same regional authority as Edinburgh, the Scottish Parliament has been told. Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid-Scotland and Fife, told a parliamentary debate about the Scottish Government’s plans to establish new regional councils that the two areas were concerned about their interests being overlooked by an authority centred on the city.
Your Pick of the (Cultural) Pops
Greetings, Pop Pickers!
The autumn wind is picking up, but Edinburgh’s stages are in blistering form. Before that, let’s pause to appreciate La Clique’s announced return to town. After their beloved 106-year-old Famous Spiegeltent home was unceremoniously locked out of this year’s Fringe, they’ve simply borrowed another vintage canvas - the Palais du Variété - and will pitch up in Bristo Square for Christmas. Pure impudence! It seems you can’t keep a great troupe down. Yes, indeed!
Over in Tollcross, the King’s Theatre is officially open for business, with Jasmin Vardimon’s Lullaby having properly baptised the newly flattened stage with world-class dance. Out on the streets, Edinburgh University lecturers are on strike over the threat of compulsory redundancies, though with construction hammers ringing across the capital’s latest luxury student blocks, developers don’t seem to have noticed. What’s that? Get on with the entertainment picks? Well, OK!
Right then, pop pickers - let’s count them down!
Honourable Mentions: Wallace, Future Acts, Eurydice & The Void
Bubbling just under the chart, there is terrific stuff across town. Over at The Studio, catch Rob Drummond and Dave Hook’s furiously funny hip-hop musical Wallace (until Saturday), which gleefully skewers the Braveheart mythos to ask who Scotland’s legendary rebel really was. Down on Lothian Road, the Filmhouse hosts Future Acts (Saturday), a screening of six short films uniting stage and screen from the NTS and BBC Scotland. As I’ve noted over at The Quinntessential Review, it is a thrilling, ambitious project which will hopefully capture the raw immediacy of live performance on a cinematic scale. Meanwhile, the Assembly Roxy welcomes Eurydice (until Saturday) from a buzzy “new(ish)” local outfit, offering a fresh, heroine-centred spin on the classic underworld myth of Orpheus. Finally, Traverse Fringe smash The Void (October 6th – 7th) makes a welcome return - I missed it in August, but I’ll be in the stalls this time. Don’t miss ‘em!
Staying at Number 5 is... A Play, a Pie and a Pint: The Whaler’s Wife (Traverse Theatre, until Saturday)
Holding firm in the fifth spot from last week is Scotland’s undisputed hothouse of new writing, continuing its autumn diet at the Traverse. If you can catch even one lunchtime offering this season, make time. Beth Morton directs Izzy Gray’s The Whaler’s Wife - a tale of 1820s Orkney packed with sea shanties, ribald humour, and three rebellious women keeping things afloat while the men are off hunting the Arctic ice. A cracking forty-five minutes of theatre, a pie, and a pint. Total lunchtime perfection!
New in at Number 4 is... RSNO: West Side Story (Usher Hall, October 9th)
Swooping into fourth place is an absolute feast of American orchestral firepower. For the uninitiated, the RSNO - the Royal Scottish National Orchestra - is one of Europe’s premier symphonic heavyweights, with a Grammy-nominated, Gramophone Award-winning reputation and a fearsome brass and string section that could lift the roof off the Usher Hall. Rising piano sensation Jeneba Kanneh-Mason takes the keys and conductor Thomas Søndergård leads a dazzling stateside trip: Copland’s open-air Appalachian Spring, Florence Price’s sumptuous Piano Concerto, and William Grant Still’s soulful warmth, all building to Bernstein’s electrifying Symphonic Dances from West Side Story. When this world-class ensemble cuts loose on those iconic Broadway rhythms, expect pure magic.
New in at Number 3 is... The Steamie (King’s Theatre, October 5th – 10th)
Grabbing the bronze medal is an undisputed Scottish classic. Tony Roper’s 1987 play became an instant legend on television in 1988 - the Quinn family VHS was practically played to transparent ribbons. Set in a 1950s Glasgow washhouse on Hogmanay, it follows four working-class women scrubbing clothes, trading gossip, and dreaming of the future as they race to finish their laundry before the bells. Fresh from triumphs in Stirling and Aberdeen, this joyful celebration of community spirit lands in Tollcross. A quick tip: the newly restored Gods in the King’s are vastly improved, but legroom remains a pinch for the long-limbed. Don’t dawdle on tickets!
Rising to Number 2 is... Legally Blonde The Musical (Edinburgh Playhouse, until Saturday)
Up to number two this week! There is barely a hotter ticket in the city judging by the handful of seats left on the board. You practically need a second mortgage to take the family along, but Amber Davies is riding a monster wave of acclaim for her Elle Woods. Just like its originating movie, the musical follows the bubbly sorority president as she trades her pink-scented stationery for Harvard Law School to win back her pompous ex, only to discover her own formidable legal brilliance along the way. Think big tunes, blistering routines, and pure pop energy.
Straying at Number 1 is... The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Royal Lyceum Theatre, tomorrow until October 18th)
Keeping the top spot of the pops this week, this remains hands-down the theatrical event of the Scottish autumn! Muriel Spark’s classic arrives via a powerhouse triple alliance: the National Theatre of Scotland, The Lyceum, and Pitlochry Festival Theatre. David Harrower adapts, Vicky Featherstone directs, and the astonishing Gayle Rankin stars as the magnetic, dangerous schoolmistress moulding her “crème de la crème”. Fresh from The Incomer opposite Domhnall Gleeson, Rankin taking on Brodie a stone’s throw from Spark’s own school days is absolute theatrical dynamite. Did I say most of this last week? Yes I did. Nothing has changed — Brilliant stuff? Yes, indeed! Not ‘arf!
And that’s your Top 5!
So whether you fancy trading washhouse gossip in the newly minted King’s Gods, soaking up American orchestral brass under the Usher Hall dome, or watching Miss Brodie mould her impressionable crème de la crème on Grindlay Street, your diary ought to be groaning.
Until next week: Stay bright!
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Artists refused six months grace as developers move in
200 creative enterprises face race against time to find new homes in under-pressure city property market
by David Forsyth
Around 200 artists, creatives and community groups have been given just three months to find new homes after being told to leave their base in Meadowbank to make way for development.
St Margaret’s House on London Road has been used as a creative hub since 2008 but with owners Caledonian Trust in talks to sell the property the tenants have been given notice to quit.
The Inquirer understands that tenants who had agreed a six-months notice period with social enterprise Scot-ART, which has been operating the former office block as a creative hub, have been told they need to be out by the end of the year.
That leaves them scrambling to find alternative accommodation at a time when there is an acute shortage of space for creative businesses in the city.
The many tenants include the Lavender Menace Queer Books Archive which survived a recent threat to its future thanks to supporters including literary stars Val McDermid and Jackie Kay.
“Plenty of time”
Caledonian Trust, which says it has let the property under “generous” terms to the creative community, insists the tenants are being given “plenty of time for people to plan ahead.”
A Trust spokesperson told The Herald: “We have fully communicated that St Margaret’s House has been on the market for some time.
“We’re in discussions with a preferred party, but the process isn’t finished and it would be inappropriate to provide any more detail.”
And added: “St Margaret’s House has been an important home for independent artists and freelancers in Edinburgh and we have been proud to support them.
“However, the building is decades old and no longer meets the standards needed for its long-term future.”
Space at a premium
Finding affordable space will be challenging. Some venues, notably The Bunker in Leith, have a few spaces available, but there are limited options for such a large number of enterprises. Bigger providers of creative spaces, such as Edinburgh Wasps and Out of the Blue, which both operate in a number of buildings around the city, have very limited availability. Little has changed since The Inquirer reported on a waiting lists of 1,000 artists at Out of the Blue.
Chris Murray, the MP for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh, is due to meet today with both Caledonian Trust and Scot-ART to discuss the potential sale and the arrangements being proposed. He told us: “St Margaret’s House is a treasured part of the community and a base for organisations and creatives that make a massive contribution to Scotland. This news is hugely disappointing, its closure will be felt by communities across Edinburgh and beyond.
“I am contacting those based there and those involved to see what can be done, and will be meeting with both Scot-ART and the landlord. Every effort now must be made to ensure all those impacted are supported with finding new premises and any impact on them is felt as minimally as possible.
“Edinburgh is at risk of losing a hub central to many people. Simply put, more now needs to be done to support community spaces like St Margaret’s House, spaces that are so vital to so many across Edinburgh.”
Not up to standard
Planning permission was received as far back as 2020, renewed in 2023, for redevelopment of the site involving the demolition of the existing building and its replacement with three new blocks – one housing student accommodation and two apartment blocks.
A Caledonian Trust spokesperson added: “The building is decades old and no longer meets the standards needed for its long-term future.”
Scot-ART has held a lease for several years and sub-lets to tenants as well as managing the building. Caledonian Trust’s most recent accounts show a rental income of £186,750 or around £2 per square foot excluding VAT.
One of the tenants Calum MacDonald of animation studio Gibbet FX confirmed the news on social media, saying: “Everyone is getting kicked out of the Edinburgh Scot-ART/St Margaret’s House building.
“All so developers can convert the building into another student block of flats/hotel. Apparently Edinburgh doesn’t really want long term residents and artists.”
Thank you for the time
Bob Orr, director of the Lavender Menace Queer Books Archive, said the arts hub had played a crucial role in allowing the collection to survive and thrive.
He told The Inquirer: “Finding the space in St Margaret’s House some years ago, gave the Lavender Menace Queer Books Archive the opportunity to establish itself and provide a safe, public space for the LGBTQ+ community. It also gave us the chance to expand our collection of rare and out of print queer titles from the 1970s and 2000s and beyond. For that opportunity everyone in the Archive will always be grateful.”
Scot-ART reconfigured the space at Meadowbank House to accommodate space to more than 200 artists, artisans, entrepreneurs and galleries. It also offers community arts spaces, a theatre, rehearsal space, a martial arts dojo, and meeting rooms amongst other things. The Scot-ART website says it remains 100% occupied with a waiting list for any space that becomes available. Scot-ART also operates from Summerhall and Lochside View.
No one at Scot-ART was available for comment.