Robert Smail's Printing Works is a fully functional

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...

letterpress Letterpress printing is a technique of relief printing. Using a printing press, the process allows many copies to be produced by repeated direct impression of an inked, raised surface against sheets or a continuous roll of paper. A worker comp ...

printing works Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabonidus. The ea ...

in the small

Scottish Borders The Scottish Borders ( sco, the Mairches, 'the Marches'; gd, Crìochan na h-Alba) is one of 32 council areas of Scotland. It borders the City of Edinburgh, Dumfries and Galloway, East Lothian, Midlothian, South Lanarkshire, West Lothi ...

town of

Innerleithen Innerleithen ( gd, Inbhir Leitheann) is a civil parish and a small town in the committee area of Tweeddale, in the Scottish Borders. It was formerly in the historic county of Peeblesshire or Tweeddale. Etymology The name "Innerleithen" comes ...

, now preserved by The

National Trust for Scotland The National Trust for Scotland for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, commonly known as the National Trust for Scotland ( gd, Urras Nàiseanta na h-Alba), is a Scottish conservation organisation. It is the largest membership organ ...

as an

Industrial Heritage Industrial heritage refers to the physical remains of the history of technology and industry, such as manufacturing and mining sites, as well as power and transportation infrastructure. Another definition expands this scope so that the term a ...

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

showing visitors the operation of a local

printer Printer may refer to: Technology * Printer (publishing), a person or a company * Printer (computing), a hardware device * Optical printer for motion picture films People * Nariman Printer (fl. c. 1940), Indian journalist and activist * James ...

around 1900 while still carrying out orders for printing and

stationery Stationery refers to commercially manufactured writing materials, including cut paper, envelopes, writing implements, continuous form paper, and other office supplies. Stationery includes materials to be written on by hand (e.g., letter paper) ...

History

The firm was established in 1866, carrying out print jobs for the local community as well as operating a stationer's shop, and between 1893 and 1916 published a weekly newspaper. It remained in the ownership of the Smail family, who made little effort to keep up with twentieth-century advances in technology, and, through an initiative from Innerleithen Community Council, led by Iain Henderson and Nettie Watson, was run by the third-generation owner Cowan Smail until he retired and the property was acquired by the

in 1986 and opened to the public in 1990. Visitors are given a one-hour tour showing the various stages of the process as well as a chance to try hand typesetting, and at certain times the opportunity to print their own work. The building is protected as a category C(s) listed building.

The Printing Works

The ground floor of a two-storey building on the main shopping street of the town is divided into a shop, now a

gift shop A gift shop or souvenir shop is a store primarily selling souvenirs, memorabilia, and other items relating to a particular topic or theme. The items sold often include coffee mugs, stuffed animals, toys, t-shirts, postcards, handmade collect ...

and the entrance for visitors, and the printer's office. This has a connecting door to the shop as well as its own door to the street which leads to a counter for serving customers. A large desk at the office window has the clutter typical of the early twentieth century, drawers contain

including writing slates, pencils,

sealing wax Sealing wax is a wax material of a seal which, after melting, hardens quickly (to paper, parchment, ribbons and wire, and other material) forming a bond that is difficult to separate without noticeable tampering. Wax is used to verify something su ...

, pen nibs and bottles of ink. Wall shelves store job dockets,

invoice An invoice, bill or tab is a commerce, commercial document issued by a sales, seller to a buyer relating to a sale transaction and indicating the product (business), products, quantities, and agreed-upon prices for products or Service (economic ...

s, wages books and

ledger A ledger is a book or collection of accounts in which account transactions are recorded. Each account has an opening or carry-forward balance, and would record each transaction as either a debit or credit in separate columns, and the ending or ...

s dating back to the start of the business. Framed photographs show how little the office has changed since 1900, and a certificate shows the authority to issue tickets for

steamships A steamship, often referred to as a steamer, is a type of steam-powered vessel, typically ocean-faring and seaworthy, that is propelled by one or more steam engines that typically move (turn) propellers or paddlewheels. The first steamships ca ...

to America.

Paper store and caseroom

A door leads out the back to the paper store, a large room now housing an archive of nearly every printed job for a century. At one end the undershot

water wheel A water wheel is a machine for converting the energy of flowing or falling water into useful forms of power, often in a watermill. A water wheel consists of a wheel (usually constructed from wood or metal), with a number of blades or buckets ...

which originally powered the works has been reconstructed. Stairs lead up to the caseroom, a large rooflet room for

typesetting Typesetting is the composition of text by means of arranging physical ''type'' (or ''sort'') in mechanical systems or ''glyphs'' in digital systems representing ''characters'' (letters and other symbols).Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random Ho ...

with racks around the perimeter of drawer-like

letter case Letter case is the distinction between the Letter (alphabet), letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (or more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (or more formally ''minuscule'') in the written representation of certain lang ...

s. The racks are up to a worktop height, with the pairs of cases in use by the ''compositors'' on top so that the case of

minuscule Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (or more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (or more formally ''minuscule'') in the written representation of certain languages. The writing ...

(lower-case) letters is at a shallow angle, and the case of

majuscule Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (or more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (or more formally ''minuscule'') in the written representation of certain languages. The writing ...

(capital or upper-case) letters stands above and behind it at a steep angle leaning against the wall. The letters are cast metal sorts, and visitors are shown by the compositor how to set this

movable type Movable type (US English; moveable type in British English) is the system and technology of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document (usually individual alphanumeric characters or punctuatio ...

by hand into a metal

composing stick In letterpress printing and typesetting, a composing stick is a tray-like tool used to assemble pieces of metal type into words and lines, which are then transferred to a ''galley'' before being locked into a ''forme'' and printed. Many composing ...

. He then binds the type ''forme'' set by each visitor in a ''galley'', and (time permitting) prints these using a hand-operated

printing press A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a printing, print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in wh ...

to make a

galley proof In printing and publishing, proofs are the preliminary versions of publications meant for review by authors, editors, and proofreaders, often with extra-wide margins. Galley proofs may be uncut and unbound, or in some cases electronically tran ...

of each for the visitor. The room also has many ''galleys'' which were made up and set aside for possible future use, including the last job set by Cowan Smail, "Closing Down Sale from Today".

Machineroom

The machineroom is also rooflet, and the

es include a hand-fed pedal-operated ''platen press'', a large belt-driven ''Wharfedale Reliance'' print machine bought in the 1870s which was originally powered by

belt drive A belt is a loop of flexible material used to link two or more rotating shafts mechanically, most often parallel. Belts may be used as a source of motion, to transmit power efficiently or to track relative movement. Belts are looped over pulley ...

from the

, and an automated ''Heidelberg Platen'' bought in 1952. A printer demonstrates the operation of these machines to the visitors.

Events

Robert Smail's Printing Works has printing workshops in the winter, and participates in events such as the ''Innerleithen Honey Festival'' at St Ronan's Wells. In September 2007 "living history tours" were introduced on the occasion of the celebrations of 500 years of printing in Scotland.

References

;Sources *''Come & Visit'', pamphlet printed at Robert Smail's Printing Works, 2007.
Property Page for Robert Smail's Printing Works
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