Whether you’ve got access to an allotment or window ledge, you can get into gardening and enjoy the fruits or flowers of your labour, not to mention the benefits to mind, body and spirit.
Central Lending Library has a fantastic new collection of gardening books which are currently on display and available to borrow.
Pop into Central Library to browse the collection or explore the full list of gardening titles online.
Climate change is one of the biggest, most urgent issues affecting us all today.
If you live in Edinburgh, you may be aware that our city has a lot of climate related activity going on. There are many organisations and community groups working to tackle climate issues on a local level, and City of Edinburgh Council is leading the way with the 2030 Climate Strategy, which aims to deliver impactful change to issues such as our energy use, green economy and public transport.
To provide local residents with the opportunity to discuss these topics and to share questions and concerns, Central Library will be running two free climate events. These will be delivered by two of our partner organisations and you are warmly invited to attend.
Edinburgh Community Climate Action Network (ECCAN) will host a Climate Meet-Up event fortnightly on Tuesday evenings from 30 April. You will be able to speak to well-informed volunteers and find out about local projects and initiatives. Teas, coffees and biscuits will be available. The sessions will last an hour and a half from 6pm and will take place in the ‘Warm and Welcoming’ space on the Mezzanine floor (one level down from the ground floor, accessible by lift).
This is not a drop-in event. If you’d like to attend, please register for the ‘Meet Up’, and then book your free place each session.
For more information, contact ECCAN
The Climate Psychology Alliance (CPA) will host a Climate Café-style Listening Circle on Tuesday 7 May from 6 to 7.30pm, with more sessions to follow depending on demand. The event will be held in the Boardroom (one level up from the ground floor, not accessible by lift). Teas, coffees and biscuits will be available.
A listening circle is a warm, friendly space to meet and talk about your responses to an issue such as the climate crisis. There will be no leading, advice-giving, blaming – just time to explore.
We can all feel unheard, even in the places where we act to make a difference. A climate listening circle aims to be an open, safe place where you can say what you want about the climate crisis and how it affects you.
The Group is facilitated, to organise and help keep the space safe for expression, allowing time for everyone present. There are no guest speakers, no lectures, just space to talk.
This is not a drop-in event. Book your free space online.
For more information contact edinburghclimatecafe@gmail.com
Did you know that at Edinburgh Libraries we have three different downloadable audiobook services? Want to know why and the reasons you need to check them all?!
Bottom line is check all our audiobook services if you are looking for audiobooks! If you have any questions about our audiobook services please get in touch at informationdigital@edinburgh.gov.uk
Throughout April and May in our staircase exhibition space at Central Library we are showcasing one of our special collections’ books, Baby’s Own Aesop, by Walter Crane (1845- 1915).
First published in 1887, it is a book for children which leads the reader, and the onlooker, through a series of beautifully elaborate pictures and rhymes. The wood-engraver William James Linton (Walter Crane first knew Linton as an apprentice in his workshop), wrote the verse in imitation of the ancient Greek fabulist Aesop, and the rest – the covers, the endpapers, the frontispiece, lettering, and layout – Walter Crane designed and the printer Edmund Evans printed. Behind it all was the belief that art and design could stimulate a child by being interesting and therefore it could help them learn.
As an artist Walter Crane was affiliated with the Arts and Crafts Movement, which elevated craftsmanship in the face of increasingly mechanised production techniques. Aestheticism and “art for art’s sake” are other common associations. The formal qualities of an artwork were important to him, as was his socialism, especially from the 1880s. His wish was to popularise the arts and make them a part of everybody’s daily lives.
You can also browse all the illustrated pages from Baby’s Own Aesop on our online image library, Capital Collections.
What we know about Aesop is murky at best. He belongs to the oral tradition of storytelling and he reportedly lived in Ancient Greece between 620 and 564 BCE. It is said that he may have been a slave, also that he was strikingly ugly, and that he was tongue-tied until the goddess Isis granted him the power of speech and storytelling prowess… Multiple versions of him exist and no original sources survive to tell us. As a storyteller he is as much a story himself as the stories he tells. The Greek historian Herodotus mentions him in the 5thc. BCE – and other ancient writers refer to him; Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, and more. His name was well known, and yet we still know very little about him factually. He is very much a legendary figure, and has become the associative, encapsulating name for the animal fable in general.
There is so much variety in what a fable is but broadly, it is a short, fictitious story, where everyday animals, objects, plants, or natural phenomena are the central protagonists. They are given thought and speech, and treated as if they are human. Fables are also usually thought of as having an element of morality to them, with religious, social or political themes; some kind of truth, and this reflects back onto the communities and time period in which they are told. For example, a fable is a bottom-up way of talking truth to power in a highly hierarchical society like Imperial Rome. Fables are very fluid texts and are used by different ideologies and for different agendas. Often, they are strange and contradictory, with many meanings.
Over the centuries fables have been used for pedagogy as well as entertainment, and especially from the Renaissance onwards, they have been very much associated with children. A moral from the mouth of an animal is more persuasive somehow. Also, there’s something about using an animal as a character that can specify more in a narrative than using a human perhaps; using a fox to denote a cunning person tells us more than using a human for that same character.
What does being an animal say about being a human and human society? As we know from our own culture, the animal fable holds the means to discuss so much.
The animal fable tradition stretches back much further than Aesop’s Greece, and indeed fable stories have been found on Sumerian tablets from c.3000 BCE. They have grown out of the oral tradition; Aesop never wrote anything himself.
In the late 4th c. BCE Demetrius of Phalerum is credited with putting together the first collection of fables that we know about, but our oldest surviving manuscript that is a collection of fables dates from the 1stc. CE and was written by the Roman poet Phaedrus in Latin verse. In Greece, the poet Babrius wrote another collection in Greek verse – again this was a literary work.
In the European written tradition, the fables travelled over the centuries in both Greek and Latin – and around 1476 they were translated into German by the humanist writer and doctor, Heinrich Steinhöwel. From there they were translated into Italian, French, English (the Caxton edition from 1484), Czech, and Spanish. In the 16thc. Portuguese monks took Aesop to Japan; and in the 17thc. the fables were brought to China. They have spread into majority and minority languages all over the world.
With the invention of moveable type in the 15th c. Aesop’s Fables were among the first books to be illustrated, and they have been so enduringly popular they can almost be read as a history of the printed book and a showcase of printmaking techniques.
On display are examples of early woodcuts, and finer, more detailed copperplate etching – by Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder in the 16th c., and Wenceslaus Hollar and Francis Barlow in the 17th c. (most of Hollar’s etchings were based on drawings by the artist Franz Cleyn.)
Other notable illustrators of Aesop’s Fables were John Tenniel (he was unhappy with the work and redrew some of the tales for a later revised edition), Randolph Caldecott, Ernest Griset, and Harrison Weir. Arthur Rackham published a collection of fables in 1912 with a new translation by V.S. Vernon Jones, and more recent examples from the wonderful world of children’s book illustration include Lisbeth Zwerger, Brian Wildsmith, Jerry Pinkney and Charlotte Voake.
Laura Gibbs, who translated the fables for the 2002 Oxford World Classics edition, also has a comprehensive web presence which includes selections from all major Greek and Latin sources.
Lastly, in our special collections we hold a number of important editions: including a 1676 Latin edition printed in Edinburgh by George Swinton; a 17th c. English translation with illustrations by Francis Barlow (1687); and an 1887 edition translated by George Fyler Townsend (a popular 19th c. translation) with Harrison Weir illustrations. Also copies in Greek and Italian; translations by Samuel Croxall and Sir Roger L’Estrange; some of the John Tenniel illustrations; and a beautiful Ernest Griset copy.
Please do come in and browse our many many books!
A recent addition to our Edinburgh Collected community archive is an online scrapbook of fabulous photos gathered together by the Living Memory Association from a collection from Dorothy Law and Christine Couper, two avid followers of the Edinburgh Monarchs speedway team in the 1960s.
Speedway was, and still is, a popular Friday evening family sport with clubs competing up and down the country. Our collection focuses on Edinburgh Monarchs which was founded in 1928 and operated from Marine Garden in Portobello for several years into the 1930s.
After the Second World War, Marine Gardens was not available for use and the team moved venue to Old Meadowbank. The team raced there until the stadium was redeveloped for the Commonwealth Games in 1970. The team then moved to a new track at Cliftonhill, Coatbridge in North Lanarkshire and operated as the Coatbridge Monarchs for the later part of the 1960s.
They returned to Edinburgh in 1977, racing at Powderhall Stadium until 1995. When Powderhall was sold to a housing company, the Monarchs were on the move again. In 1997 their home was Armadale Stadium, West Lothian, where they remain. And for anyone wanting to catch this sport, the Scottish speedway season has just restarted this month!
View the full collection of fantastic 60s era Edinburgh Monarchs photos on Edinburgh Collected.
Find out more about the current Edinburgh Monarchs Speedway.
As part of the Traditional Dance Forum of Scotland’s Pomegranates 2024 festival of international traditional dance, a new exhibition, Dance Around the World, is on display at Central Library until 30 April 2024.
Dance Around the World displays over 100 items on loan from public and private collections of world traditional dance books and artefacts. It features items from over 20 different countries including Scotland, Greece, Estonia, Poland, Bali and Japan.
Our collaboration with Edinburgh Central Library began in June 2023 when we brought trad dance performances to the library, possibly for the first time, while celebrating the feisty women-tradition keepers and dance innovators as part of the 10th anniversary of the Harpies, Fechters and Quines Festival. We even recorded one of our Trad Dance Cast video podcast episodes at the library with the legendary trad dance artist and costume maker Margaret Belford. It was then when we pencilled and penned our love letter to the library – this very dance exhibition and all the related festival activities, including the craft workshops and the walking tour.
Iliyana Nedkova, Co-curator of the Dance Around the World exhibition
Some of the exhibition highlights include an Ukrainian folk dance headdress commissioned for their inaugural Pomegranates Festival 2022 in tribute to the millions of displaced Ukrainians around the world (pictured in the exhibition poster and the installation view above); an original Estonian dance dolly ‘rescued’ from a Finnish flea market and a full outfit worn at Scottish country dances since 1978 by a lifetime member of the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society.
This year’s festival commission is a Barbie doll clad in a tartan frock! It is by their fashion designer-in-residence Alison Harm of Edinburgh’s Psychomoda brand, whose solo exhibition Vengefully Changed Allegiance offers further insight into her sustainable fashion practice while exploring the role of tartan in Scottish trad dance.
Alongside the numerous books on display selected from seven private collections, as well as the catalogue of the Edinburgh City Libraries, there are rare artefacts, including a pair of exquisite lacquer Geta shoes and an Obi bow and sash belt worn as part of the traditional wrap-around costumes for the Bon Odori summer dance festivals in Japan, and at our inaugural Pomegranates Festival 2022 in Scotland.
Look out for the Vengefully Changed Allegiance exhibition at the Scottish Storytelling Centre from 23 to 30 April 2024, as well as the Pomegranates festival programme of craft workshops, dance, shows and walking tours.
Phase 2 of the statutory consultation and review of the Scheme for Community Councils and their Boundaries is underway and we welcome your views on how Edinburgh’s scheme can be improved to best represent and support your community. To encourage participation and feedback, the timescale to provide views has been extended up till 3 May 2024.
Community Councils are voluntary organisations set up by statute and by the Local Authority to act on behalf of their areas. They are involved in a range of activities which promote and protect the well-being and identity of their communities; and help bring local people together to make things happen. They advise, petition, influence and advocate numerous causes and cases of concern on behalf of local communities. Community councils also have a statutory right to be consulted on planning applications and are statutory consultees in terms of licensing.
Edinburgh currently has 46 community council areas. All local authorities must provide a Scheme for Community Councils, which is a document that outlines their governance arrangements and also includes details on boundaries for Community Council areas too.
The last review and public consultation of the scheme was carried out in 2019.
As the city’s population increases the Council needs to review the scheme to make sure that our Community Councils are the right size to fairly represent our new and growing neighbourhoods.
At a Special Meeting on 8 February 2024, Council agreed to initiate Phase 2 of the statutory consultation and the review of the Scheme for Community Councils and their Boundaries. Phase 2 closes on 3 May 2024.
There are three phases to the public consultation process.
Phase 1 sought initial thoughts and views on the existing Scheme for Community Councils and their Boundaries and completed on 8 December 2023.
Phase 2 is seeking views on the proposed changes to the scheme and boundaries. The proposals are detailed on the consultation hub and are based on the initial feedback received during Phase 1 and the decision made by Council at a Special Meeting on 8 February 2024. Phase 2 closes on 3 May 2024.
Phase 3 will give the opportunity to make any last comments before the final scheme is adopted.
Please note that consultation timescales are indicative and subject to change and a Public Notice of the period of the statutory consultation has been posted.
Complete the online survey via the Consultation Hub. The survey will close on 3 May 2024.
Come along to one of the drop-in sessions where you can provide feedback on the proposals directly to an Officer.
Find out the location and times of the drop in sessions.
Or you can also submit feedback directly by
If you have an accessibility need and would like help to provide feedback please email the Governance Team at community.councils@edinburgh.gov.uk or call 0131 529 4494.
You can find out more information by visiting the Council’s public website.
This is a public consultation and we would encourage you to widely share this information with all interested parties in your communities.
In the meantime, if you have any questions or feedback then please do not hesitate to contact community.councils@edinburgh.gov.uk
For the most part, over the ages, histories or perhaps his-stories, have been written by men, about men. From the tweed-jacketed dons in their dreaming spires, back through the ages of the frock coated Victorian, or the cod-pieced court historian to the cassocked priest or monk appointed to record their version of their times, for education of future students of the past.
It follows that history may be the opinion of the person that records that history and it is more than possible that their account was/is biased in favour of opinions of the time or who the audience was. Histories or his-stories mirror the times and are voiced by a servant of the times. The commentators on the past were mostly from a certain sex and class, it follows that people and things out with their “sightlines” were not part of their history. It is hard to say, at this distance of time, whether this was by design or circumstance.
With all that said and repeated in different ways, just to labour a point, the next thing to say is for every famous artist, every Titian, Da Vinci, Rembrandt, Goethe, Wordsworth, Mozart, Beethoven or Paganini, there are artists, writers, musicians, singers, composers, poets, who are women, who are of equal, if not greater, talent than those mentioned above.
In a letter to Felix Mendelssohn in 1825, Goethe, the German writer and polymath, states: “Give my regards to your equally talented sister”.
The further back we go in history the less we know, and unfortunately the less we have to demonstrate the talents of women composers. It can be a remarkable set of circumstances that the names and pen portraits we have, have survived. Even more remarkable that we have any of their music.
Clara Wieck was a prodigious talent from an early age, making her debut at the age of 9 and maintaining a 60 year career as a soloist, accompanist and a piano teacher. For many years apart from her solo career, she toured far and wide with the violinist Joseph Joachim. She played in Edinburgh and Glasgow in a 1867 tour. She was outspoken about the musicianship in England and critical of the lack of rehearsal time given for a performer and orchestra to prepare a concerto for performance.
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In 1840, Clara Wieck married the composer Robert Schumann and became Clara Schumann. For the rest of their marriage and her working life it would seem that Clara was an adviser and an a emotional and musical support to Robert and their musical friends such as Johannes Brahms, Joseph Joachim. Robert Schumann became unwell in 1854 and a breakdown and an unsuccessful suicide attempt saw him hospitalised for the last two years of his life. While the Schumanns’ friend, the composer, Brahms, was able to visit with Robert regularly, the doctor in charge of the sanatorium felt that any contact with either Clara or their 8 children might agitate the patient, and they were forbidden from ever visiting. Robert died two years later, in 1856, without ever seeing his wife or children again.
There are threads of discussions in different articles that, unfairly, suggest that Clara’s career was due in part to Robert’s illness and her successes were due to forbearance shown in the period of his final decline.
Fanny Mendelssohn was the eldest of four children born to Abraham and Lea Solomon Mendelssohn. Fanny’s first piano teacher was her mother until the family moved to Paris in 1816 when both Felix and Fanny both began to study with Marie Bigot. The Mendelssohn family begin a Sunday concert series in the family home in 1822 which continued until Fanny’s death in 1847.
Living and growing up in a patriarchal society and in a family where there was a great respect for that Pater. Pater’s opinion was listened to and respected. Fanny’s father wrote in an often quoted letter to her in 1820,
“Music will perhaps become his [i.e. Felix’s] profession, while for you it can and must be only an ornament and can and never should become the ground bass of your being and doing”.
In all that is written of Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn it is often stated that she was a great adviser to her brother and on occasions aided how he presented certain works, he set great store in her advice. In a letter to Lea Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Felix and Fanny’s mother, Felix writes that “she has neither the inclination nor the vocation for authorship.” He also says “publishing would only disturb her in these (management of household duties), and I cannot say that I approve of it”. Although he says this to his mother, it would seem that his private view on Fanny publishing her works was quite opposite.
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In a comment on Fanny’s abilities as a player the German composer, Carl Zelter, in a letter to Goethe, in 1831 wrote, “She plays like a Man”. Hopefully, we live in more enlightened times and that kind of description to critique a performance wouldn’t be considered today.
Fanny died at the very young age of 42, she was rehearsing one of her brother cantatas for performance when she had a stroke and never recovered.
Sophia was born in Edinburgh to Domenico Corri and Francesca Bachelli, who moved to Edinburgh in the early 1770s and quickly became mainstays on Edinburgh musical life. Sophia born in 1775 was given a musical education by her father. Her father entered into a publishing partnership with the composer, Jan Ladislav Dussek. When the business became bankrupt Jan Ladislav left the country never to return. Sophia continued her musical life but was unable to remarry until Dussek her estranged first husband passed away. The news of Dussek’s passing came through in 1812 and Sophia married the violist, John Alvis Moralt they lived together in Paddington London, where they started a music school and Sophia continued to write and perform.
Marie Antoinette, Archduchess of Austria, Queen of France, 1755 – 1893
Marie studied with the composer Gluck, played the harp, sang and composed songs. Most people know two things about Marie. The quote “let them eat cake”, most probably wrongly attributed to her, and for being beheaded. Now we know that as with a lot of gentile ladies of the 18th century, she could write and perform music.
Elisabet was born to the family of instrument maker, organist and harpsichordist Claude Jaquet. Louis XIV undertakes her education with his mistress, Madame de Montespan supervising. She is described in the journal, Mercure Galant, as something of a child wonder and “the marvel of our century”. Elisabeth had a successful career in the French court and beyond, so much so, that she retired from her performing life in 1717 at the age of 61. When she died in1729, she was a wealthy women accorded royal and critical recognition and a medal struck in her honour by Louis XV.
Isabella was born into a noble family and she entered the Convent of Saint Ursula of Novara where she stayed for the rest of her life. She became Mother Superior in 1686 and Madre Vicaria in 1693. For the most part, Isabella’s output was sacred music but she is recorded as the first women composer to write a sonata for violin and continuio.
Born to the poet, librettist and dramatist, Giulio Strozzi and his maid, Isabella Briega or Garzoni or Griegha, Barbara Strozzi’s date of birth is not recorded but her baptism was recorded as the 6 August 1619. Giulio and Isabella remained unmarried but Giulio, the poet continued to support Barbara, his only daughter. Barbara Strozzi studied composition with Cavalli who was a pupil of Monteverdi. The details of Barbara’s life are vague but she seemed successful, admired and much sought-after. Her death is recorded in 1877 at the age of 58. However, it is possible she was older at the time of her death as an account by an attendant places her age at nearer 70.
Francesca Caccini was born in Florence to a musical family, father, a composer and mother, a singer. Her early studies were with her father in singing, lute harpsichord and composition. She entered the court of the Medici in 1607, a sought-after singer and composer. In 1645, the guardianship of guardianship of her son is passed to his uncle, suggesting that this may be the year of Francesca’s death. In some records of her life, this date is given as 1640, in one it is 1627, a date possibly confused with the year she gave up her position with the Medici Court.
Hildegard was an abbess, composer, poet, mystic, teacher, consultant to Popes and politicians, writer and visionary.
Born into a noble family who had pledged the life of their tenth child to God, Hildgard was placed in a convent at the age of eight. Hildegard led a significant life and so we have a good amount of writing on her and much of her work survives. It is only in recent years that her musical output was transcribed from a form of medieval notation to a more traditional 20th century notation.
Discover music by all these talented women and many more in our Music Library collections and via our Naxos music streaming services and Medici.tv.
The Forth Rail Bridge was officially opened on 4 March 1890 after an 18-year construction. The new bridge had to withstand the strong currents of the narrows between North and South Queensferry, and when completed, the Forth Bridge was the longest bridge of its type, a single cantilever, in the world.
The foundations of the bridge lie on the bed of the Firth of Forth and island of Inchgarvie. One of the earliest stages of construction was to create huge wrought iron blocks, known as caissons, into position to effectively hold back the water and allow the workers, known as the Briggers, to the bed to lay the foundations. The 6 caissons were assembled on land and towed out by barges to be sunk into place. This was an exceptionally dangerous phase in the construction; caissons were known to burst, flooding the space inside, and access to the site involved unsteady transfers from barge to pier in the swirling tides of the Forth. The first caisson was launched 140 years ago this year.
To mark the anniversary of this key date, Museums & Galleries Edinburgh have published on Capital Collections a book listing all the accidents taking place during the early phase of construction of the Bridge in the 1880s.
The book was recently donated to Queensferry Museum and is a perfect compliment to the existing collections telling the story of the three Forth bridges. Its plain cover belies the detail of its contents; a catalogue of injuries ranging from mild bruising to some of the most gruesome and painful accidents imaginable. It is a unique insight into the construction of the bridge, the lives of the Briggers working on the iconic bridge and the dangers they faced, and also how they were treated by the earliest ambulance services in Scotland. It records 197 accidents, including nine fatalities, over a 32-month period from 1883 to 1886. As far as we know, it is one of the only surviving working documents from the Bridge’s construction.
Consider for instance Matthew Snowden (listed as accident 61), who was lucky enough to get away with just hurting his right hand after falling off a jetty. He was seen by the doctor and soon returned to work. Or poor William Hawkins, a foreman painter who was crushed by a barge, the Tamar, while coming ashore. His left leg was completely smashed above the ankle and had to be amputated at the knee. He was “removed to Infirmary Edinr. by Ambulance”. Hawkins survived, and was paid until he was able to come back to work.
This wonderful small book has already started to fill in gaps in what is known about the rest of the Forth Bridge collection held at Queensferry Museum; a medal has been linked back to its original owner, Patrick Lee for the first time. Lee was listed in the book when he caught his sleeve on a drilling machine on the 5 February 1886. Thankfully he only sustained a bruised wrist.
Alongside the details of accidents, the book also gives information on sick leave, compensation and any resulting sick pay. It lists the various doctors who attended the injured; among them a certain Dr. Hunter who was one of the Forth Bridge doctors and also the South Queensferry GP.
Collections staff at the City of Edinburgh Museums & Galleries approached a group of Queensferry local historians about the book. Since 2005, The Briggers (taking their name from the nickname of construction workers), have been collecting and researching the history of the Rail Bridge. In 2009 they compiled a list of all known deaths which took place during the bridge’s construction, so it seemed fitting to let them know about the Accidents book.
Thanks to tireless efforts of The Briggers, the book has been entirely transcribed. The full text is now available on Capital Collections, the image library for Edinburgh Libraries, Museums & Galleries. Anyone looking at these pages will be able to search for names of relatives working on the Bridge and find out what happened to them.
The Briggers continue to analyse the book and compare it with other existing records. Already, they are aware of one death previously unrecorded and are starting to put together enough information for an emerging picture of how accidents were treated. Who knows what more questions this book will answer?
Our opening hours over the Easter holiday are
Friday 29 March – closed
Saturday 30 March – open as normal
Monday 1 April – closed
from Tuesday 2 April – open as normal.
Remember, Your Library is always open online to borrow ebooks, audiobooks, magazines and newspapers.
If you took part in the ‘Edinburgh Women’s Mural’ project at Central Library in 2022, or visited the exhibition on tour at one of our community branches, you may like to see the Mural on display again at its temporary new home at the Museum of Edinburgh. During March 2024 this beautiful collaborative work will feature as part of the Museum’s International Women’s Day celebration. Please drop in to see it!
You can learn more about the 2022 project from our previous blog posts and discover all the individual women depicted on the mural on Our Town Stories.
Watch our interview with two of the women depicted on the Mural, Sigrid Nielsen from the Lavender Menace Queer Books Archive, and trailblazing author Ellen Galford in our film Edinburgh Women’s Mural Talks 2022: LGBTQ+ Trailblazers.
Do you run a charity, community group, social enterprise or voluntary organisation? Are you looking for local grants and funding sources for your climate project?
Did you know that you can search through dozens of government, National Lottery, charitable trust and other funds via the Edinburgh4Community funding opportunities website? You’ll need to create an account, but it’s quick and free to sign up and use! If you’re not sure how to get started, please take a look at our handy How to Use Edinburgh4Community guide.
And here’s a handful of funding ideas to get you inspired:
• Scottish Government’s Nature Restoration fund, aimed at projects that restore wildlife and habitats on land and sea, and address the twin crises of biodiversity loss and climate change
• The National Lottery’s Climate Action Fund, for projects that encourage communities to promote energy efficiency and/or use energy in an environmentally friendly way
• The Freshfield Foundation, for charitable organisations working in the areas of sustainable development and climate change mitigation
• Faith in Community Scotland’s Greener Places, Fairer Spaces fund, aimed at local faith groups and other related organisations for projects that address poverty and climate change in communities across Scotland.
When you think of Edinburgh 100 years ago, do you imagine bohemian gatherings of artists and writers in a European-style salon?
To mark LGBTQ+ History Month 2024, Nicky from the Art and Design Library team shares an intriguing journey through Edinburgh history that she stumbled upon thanks to a series of serendipitous events involving books from the Art and Design and Edinburgh and Scottish collections. A small display of books accompanying this blog post can be found in the glass cabinet outside the Art and Design library.
Back in 2019 in a previous job, I first came across the book Rainbow City: Stories from Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Edinburgh. It contains stories and histories gathered during Remember When, a collaborative, community-history project organised by the City of Edinburgh Council and The Living Memory Association in 2004–2006. The book tells how, in 1972, while ‘homosexual acts’ were still illegal in Scotland, the University of Edinburgh’s Catholic Chaplaincy basement café, the Cobweb at 23–24 George Square, became “with the support of the then chaplain, Anthony Ross”, “the meeting place for Scotland’s first official gay and lesbian rights organisation, the Scottish Minorities Group” (1). The book also briefly mentions a John Gray and a Marc-André Raffalovich who “made new lives in Edinburgh after [Oscar] Wilde’s imprisonment for sodomy in 1895” (2). However, these names meant nothing to me at the time.
Fast forward to 2023 and the Art and Design Library, and I was processing a book requested by a reader, Caroline Maclean’s Circles and Squares: The Lives and Art of the Hampstead Modernists. Not knowing exactly who the Hampstead Modernists were, I flicked through the pages. The Hampstead Modernists included sculptors Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth and her husband John Skeaping; painters Ben and Winifred Nicholson and Paul Nash; Bauhaus founder architect Walter Gropius who first sought refuge from Nazi Germany in England; and critic and poet, Herbert Read (all of whom you can find out about in the Art and Design Library).
This book contains a chapter on Read (1893–1968) and his second wife, viola player, Margaret Ludwig (1905–96), known as Ludo. And because of a distant family connection to Margaret Ludwig, I skim-read that whole chapter, and discovered that she and Read had first met at a Sunday lunch party hosted by Marc-André Raffalovich and Father John Gray at Raffalovich’s house in Whitehouse Terrace (3), while Read was the first professor of Art History at the University of Edinburgh (1931–33) and Ludwig was teaching in the University’s music department. Their subsequent affair caused scandal in the city. This story is confirmed in more detail in James King’s The Last Modern: A Life of Herbert Read (4).
By 2023, I hadn’t remembered my previous encounter with the names Raffalovich and Gray, but the descriptions in these two books of their lives in London and friendships with other men in Oscar Wilde’s circle, and close friendship in Edinburgh, sent me back to Rainbow City where I rediscovered their names. By this time, my curiosity was well and truly sparked, and I wanted to find out more and whether there were any books about Raffalovich and/or Gray in our library catalogue. It turns out that there are books, at least eight about Raffalovich and Gray, and of Gray’s prose and poetry.
But who exactly were Raffalovich and Gray and what were their Sunday lunch parties in Whitehouse Terrace all about?
Marc-André Raffalovich (1864–1934) and John Henry Gray (1866–1934) were both incomers to Edinburgh, arriving in the early years of the twentieth century.
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Raffalovich was born in Paris, youngest of the three children of Herman, who became a successful banker, and Marie, whose salon attracted famous creative names of the day such as actress, Sarah Bernhardt, and writer, Colette. Herman and Marie were also philanthropists. The Jewish Raffalovich family had emigrated from Odessa in the Russian Empire (today in Ukraine) to Paris the year before Marc-André’s birth rather than convert to Christianity. Aged 18, Marc-André himself moved on, with his former governess Florence Gribell (1842–1930), to England with the intention of studying at Oxford. However, he ultimately settled in London and became part of the literary, artistic homosocial and homosexual circles including Oscar Wilde and artist Aubrey Beardsley among others and wrote poetry and essays. It was here that he and Gray met (5).
Gray was the eldest of the nine children of John, a carpenter at Woolwich Arsenal, and Hannah, who converted to Catholicism in the 1890s. Gray left school in south-east London aged 13 for an apprenticeship at the Arsenal and later moved on to its drawing office, all the while continuing his own learning in literature, French and German. This led to work as a civil servant and in the library at the Foreign Office. By late 1880s, Gray was writing and translating poetry, his own poems appearing in literary magazines, and he was a regular at literary clubs where he became friends with contemporary writers and artists including Wilde for whom Gray is widely believed to have inspired the character Dorian Gray (6).
During the 1890s, Raffalovich and Gray continued to write and together penned and produced a play, and Raffalovich wrote a defence of alternative sexualities, Uranisme et Unisexualité; ‘uranism’ was the word used medically and otherwise in various European languages at the time to describe male homosexuality, and both men were increasingly interested and involved in Catholicism. In 1898, Gray moved to Rome to train as a Catholic priest at the Scots’ College in Rome and was ordained there in 1901. A year later he had arrived in Edinburgh as curate for the impoverished city-centre parish of St Patrick’s, Cowgate. Meanwhile, Raffalovich had visited his friend in Rome and had also converted to Catholicism. He became a lay brother of the Dominican order (Blackfriars) and followed Gray to Edinburgh in 1905, where he bought no. 9 Whitehouse Terrace, with Florence Gribell as his dedicated housekeeper. There, he quickly developed a salon after his mother’s model in Paris (7).
From 1905 until the early 1930s, Raffalovich, Gray and Miss Gribell co-hosted Sunday lunches and Tuesday evening dinners at no. 9 Whitehouse Terrace. Attendees and atmosphere are recollected by poet and regular visitor, Margaret Sackville (herself another cause of local and national scandal due to her long-term liaison with widowed prime minister Ramsay Macdonald). In her contribution to Two Friends, ‘At Whitehouse Terrace’, published in 1963, she noted the presence of: Walter Sickert (1860–1942), painter; Gordon Bottomley (1874–1948), poet; Max Beerbohm (1872–1956), writer and caricaturist; Charles Saroléa (1872–1956), lecturer from 1894 and professor of French at the University of Edinburgh from 1918 to 1931, Belgian consul in Edinburgh and book collector; Compton Mackenzie (1883–1972), writer of fiction, histories and biographies; James Pittendrigh McGillvray (1856–1938) sculptor, poet, painter, printmaker and photographer; Peter Anson (1889–1975) writer and Catholic convert; and Father Hugh Benson (1871–1914) writer and Catholic priest (brother of E. F. Benson, author of the Mapp and Lucia stories); as well as numerous international visitors (8). She continued by describing the society and atmosphere at Whitehouse Terrace and Raffalovich’s hospitality:
“These and sundry other artists, writers, professors, some famous, some forgotten, who enjoyed that friendly atmosphere of sophisticated simplicity, if I may so call It, form a Gallery notable in any city, but in Eastwind-swept Edinburgh certainly unique. André’s gifts as a discerning host were evident in the care with which he chose his guests. He shrank from anything, whether human or inanimate, which was out of scale with his own preferred dimensions. This sensitive selection suggested his careful arrangement of the small flowers he loved so well and displayed with true affection to a responsive guest. … This happy appreciation of exquisite detail gave his hospitality the quality of a work of art: art saved from mere aestheticism by the human warmth which inspired his generous friendships. Many must still remember these unique gatherings with lasting gratitude” (9).
The nature of Raffalovich and Gray’s relationship over the years is not clear, and it would be wrong to apply our present-day understandings of romantic, sexual and platonic relationships to their lifelong committed and close friendship. Nevertheless, during Raffalovich’s first years in Edinburgh, his generosity as a patron and friend to Gray was demonstrated in his significant financial contribution to the construction of St Peter the Apostle Church, Falcon Avenue, Morningside. Gray was its first parish priest, from 1906 until his death. The church was designed by celebrated Edinburgh Arts and Crafts architect, Robert Lorimer (1864–1929) in a rural-Italian style, perhaps a reminder of churches seen by Gray and Raffalovich in the countryside around Rome (10). The church and presbytery (priest’s house) were constructed and fitted out between 1906 and 1927 and included sculpture and stained glass by frequent Lorimer collaborators, Alice and Morris Meredith Williams, who became friends with Father Gray (11). The community at St Peter’s today has compiled fascinating and detailed resources about the history and art of the church.
The public expression of Raffalovich and Gray’s friendship represented by St Peter’s Church brought, I thought, my discoveries to a close. However, just last month, I opened a book newly arrived in the Art and Design Library, Andrew McPherson’s William Gillies: Modernism and Nation in British Art accompanying the recent exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy. In it, I spotted a chapter titled ‘Bohemian Edinburgh’ and the names Raffalovich and Gray jumped out. Of the Whitehouse Terrace salon, McPherson writes that “[i]ts axis of refinement, Catholicism and homosexual apology attracted a variety of minority interests and tastes, and also scores of young men of various, and sometimes insecure, sexual orientation.” Raffalovich and Gray’s circle
“included many of Gillies’ friends, colleagues, and students. Among them were Willy and Denis, the sons of S. J. Peploe and cousins to Margery Porter, Harry, the son of Henry Lintott, who had taught Gillies, Hew Lorimer, a Catholic convert and son of Robert Lorimer, architect of the National War memorial, Henry Harvey Wood and from an older generation, two of Gillies’ ECA Principals, Morley Fletcher, and Hubert Wellington, both of whom were again Catholic” (12).
Finally, for now, or at least until another book pops up, the contemporary significance and impact of the Whitehouse Terrace Sunday lunch and Tuesday dinner parties are neatly summed up by McPherson:
“For thirty years, the Raffalovich salon was the centre of high cultural life in Edinburgh and a node in the cultural life in Britain, with links to the highest levels of government and society, the elite colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, and two generations of Bloomsbury artists, writers, critics, bibliophiles, and publishers. It was also a perennial subject of Edinburgh gossip that found in the ambivalent celebrity of its habitués a confirmation of the equation, common to other capitals in Europe, of modernism in the arts with decadence in private life. Intellectual Edinburgh loved it.” (13).
Notes
Books mentioned in this blog post
Galford, Ellen, and Wilson, Ken. (2006) Rainbow City: Stories from Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Edinburgh. Edinburgh: Word Power Books. (Edinburgh and Scottish, HQ 76.3)
King, James. (1990) The Last Modern: A Life of Herbert Read. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. (Art and Design store, N 8375 R28)
Maclean, Caroline. (2020) Circles and Squares: The Lives and Art of the Hampstead Modernists. London Bloomsbury. (Art and Design, N 6768.5.M63)
McPherson, Andrew. (2023) William Gillies: Modernism and Nation in British Art. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Savage, Peter. (1980) Lorimer and the Edinburgh craft designers. Edinburgh: Harris. (Art and Design, NA 997.L87)
Sewell, Brocard. (1963) Two friends: John Gray & André Raffalovich, Aylesford: Saint Albert’s Press. (Edinburgh and Scottish, BR 1844.9.G77)
Sewell, Brocard. (1968) Footnote to the Nineties: a memoir of John Gray and André Raffalovich, London: Cecil and Amelia Woolf. (Edinburgh and Scottish store, BR 1844.9.G77)
Sewell, Brocard. (1983) In the Dorian mode: a life of John Gray 1866–1934, Padstow: Tabb House. (Edinburgh and Scottish, BR 1844.9.G77)
Find out more in archive collections
More information about Raffalovich and Gray can be found in letters and papers deposited over the road from Central Library in the National Library of Scotland manuscript collections, search at https://manuscripts.nls.uk/, and in the University of Manchester John Rylands Library Special Collections LGBTQ+ collections.
… in our Instant Digital Card promotion! If you know someone who would benefit from being able to read a daily newspaper at home or have access to thousands of audiobooks, ebooks and magazines all from the comfort of their own armchair please let them know today! Thousands of best-selling titles for adults, teens and children are available to read on a phone, tablet or computer.During the 1890s, Portobello grew rapidly along the High Street which ran in parallel to the shore road, the Promenade with numerous smaller streets forming a web between them. The population of c3000 in 1800 increased to 8684 in 1891.
As the town grew, in 1833, together with Leith and Musselburgh, it became a Royal Burgh and had a Member of Parliament. Population growth continued and in 1896, Portobello was incorporated into Edinburgh.
Our chosen image from Capital Collections dates from around 1895 and shows Portobello High Street busy with people. The date of the image is approximate and the photographer is unknown. The property we will follow in this article is no. 182 High Street, Portobello which can be seen in the image just before the group of women and children.
Above our chosen property is the photographic studio of William Halkett, who had a studio at 106 High Street and then here at 180, above the ironmongers shop at number 182. He moved to Bath Street in 1909 before living at 37 Wellington Street from 1910 to 1930. Could he be the person who took this photograph?
Below is a zoomed-in view of the same picture –
From 1889 to 1892, the occupant of the shop at 182 was William McVey, a watchmaker and clockmaker. Mr McVey was previously at 137 or 156 High Street and moved to 36 Hillside Crescent in 1892. He died in 1926.
The next occupants of no. 182 were the Baxendine Brothers. The Baxendine family were already well established in Portobello as plumbers, ironmongers and blacksmiths. Father, John Baxendine, originates from Corstorphine and married Jane Brunton, who was born in New Lanark. For a while the family lived in Penicuik before moving to Portobello. They had eight children, five sons and three daughters. Three of the boys continued in various skills relating to ironwork.
John died in 1872 followed by his wife, Jane, in 1875. Although they already had other properties in Portobello, when number 182 became available in1892, their oldest son, John Young Baxendine became owner and established an ironmongers which continued under the Baxendine name until 1937.
From 1938 until 1972 the business is listed as John Pearson, Ironmonger.
The Baxendine name however was not only associated with plumbers and ironmongers. Andrew Baxendine, John and Jane’s fourth son was born in 1863 and followed a more academic route. He went into the bookselling business and eventually opened his own shop at 15 Chambers Street, close to the University.
Andrew Baxendine and Sons booksellers facilitated the sale of a copy of the National Covenant, which was subsequently presented to St Giles Cathedral and which remains on display there.
Are you interested in discovering the history of your home? The Edinburgh and Scottish Collection at Central Library has a vast collection of material which can help you and we also have an array of online resources to help local history research.
Read other articles in this ‘History of the House’ series:
History of the house: King’s Wark
History of the house: Bowhead house
History of the house: Nicolson Square and Marshall Street
History of the house: White Horse Close
History of the house: 94 and 96 Grassmarket
History of the house: Stockbridge Colonies
History of the house: Milne’s Court
History of the house: Melbourne Place
History of the house: Falcon Hall
History of the house: North British Hotel
History of the house: Cammo House
History of the house: Newhailes
History of the house: Gladstone’s Land
History of the house: 4 Balcarres Street
History of the house: Pear Tree House
Here at Edinburgh Libraries we have many free online resources that you can use. One of them is the British Newspaper Archive which is a fabulous archive of newspapers from around the UK and Ireland.
We’ve been having a look at the coverage for Edinburgh on the British Newspaper Archive and found that one of the earliest publications on the site is The Edinburgh Gazette from Thursday 21 September 1699!
Jumping forward a few years to 1750, we have the first edition available online of the Edinburgh Courant, which mentions an act of “Theft and Pickery” by a Dutch soldier and his wife who subsequently petitioned for transportation to America, which was granted.
The Edinburgh Evening Courant of Thursday 29 January 1829 featured the execution of infamous William Burke by hanging. The article describes the numbers of people drawn to watch the event:
“Yesterday, this wretched man terminated his career on the scaffold, and we do not recollect on any former occasion of this nature to have witnessed such an intense popular excitement….
All the windows along the street were filled; and such was the general and ardent curiosity to obtain a sight of this noted criminal, that we observed several well-dressed females in different houses in the Lawnmarket. There were some spectators also on the top of the New North Church.”
On 14 July 1873, the Edinburgh Evening News reported a rather grim find, from a story originating from the Shetland Times.
A fishing boat’s crew at a fishing station in Shetland, had discovered a human hand inside a large fish!
“It was the left hand, and was perfectly entire”, and was suspected to belong to a woman who may have drowned in a wreck possibly many hundreds of miles from Shetland.
“The hand was carefully buried, and the fish destroyed.”
Again in the Edinburgh Evening News, this time from 1939, among its pages were to be found useful tips for housewives…. including this one on how to measure golden syrup on kitchen scales.
In the 2 January 1954 edition of the Edinburgh Evening News, could be found a crossword containing clues to many Edinburgh shops.
Unlike today, in 1982 our television programme choice was restricted to only 3 channels, and a typical Saturday night’s viewing consisted game shows, films and big US programmes like The Dukes of Hazard and Dallas, and not forgetting, Parky.
“City of Light!” in black and white. It would be some years before the Evening News was to start being printed in colour. Here is the front page of the last issue of 1994, which much as the same as now, the city was gearing up for celebrations to bring in the New Year.
The British Newspaper Archive coverage is immense, for regions across the UK and Ireland. At the time of writing, there are over 71 million digitised newspaper pages available to search with even more material being added regularly. 126,992 pages were added in the last 7 days!
Specifically for Edinburgh, the coverage currently stands at
All this is available to you from within any of our libraries via a library computer or on the Wi-Fi!
We’re still discovering lots of interesting finds through our collaborative project with the Old Edinburgh Club in cataloguing Scottish manuscripts. This particular manuscript ties in quite nicely with the family history research conducted regularly by the Edinburgh and Scottish Collection. Today we are putting a spotlight on a collection of documents held within a leather wallet that mostly date back to the mid-19th century.
They trace the genealogy of a reputable gentleman named Robert Adam who, while having no connection to the famed architect of the same name, was related to Dr Alexander Adam (1741-1809). Alexander Adam was Robert’s great-uncle and headmaster of Watson’s Hospital (now George Watson’s College) and then Rector of the Royal High School of Edinburgh. Alexander was reputed as a classical scholar, and his pupils include many men who would go on to have esteemed careers such as Alexander Kincaid (Lord Provost of Edinburgh), Walter Scott, Lord Brougham and Francis Jeffrey. He introduced the study of Greek into the Royal High’s curriculum and achieved many other impressive feats which led to the University of Edinburgh awarding him an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws in 1780.
The relationship between Robert and Alexander is established in a booklet within the collection of documents, titled ‘Genealogy of my Relations’ written in either 1828 or 1846. It gives a thorough account of Robert’s family tree, tracing birthdays, dates of marriage, and dates of death of his lineage going back multiple generations. It is interesting to see such a document created and it is evident that he put a lot of effort into retrieving all the information on his ancestry.
His father was an appraiser and auctioneer and married Jean Stronach in 1806 with whom he had eleven children. Robert was the youngest, with a birth date of 23 June 1824.
He was born in Elgin, Moray, Scotland but several documents within the collection prove that he made the move to Edinburgh to establish a successful career as a city accountant within the town council. One of these documents include a certificate making him a burgess and guild brother of the city of Edinburgh in 1857.
Another is a marriage certificate documenting his union with Sarah Douglas in 1850 at St Cuthbert’s Parish. The document states that he is a City Accountant.
There is also a letter that he sends to his wife in 1858, which is on business headed paper with the City Chambers logo on the left-hand side.
To attain his job at the City Chambers, he would have needed good references, and two certificates of character are included within the document, dating from 1840 and 1841. They paint a very good image of Robert, noting his attentiveness and skills as a clerk.
His marriage with Sarah appears to have been a happy one, and photos of them are proof that they were a handsome and well-to-do couple. The photograph of Robert was taken by George Shaw’s photographic studios on 143 Princes Street, which specialised in large portraits direct from life.
There is an advert found in the British Newspaper Archive, from the Mid-Lothian Journal from 6 March 1896, which promoted the studio’s electric light that was extensively used for photographing in any kind of weather.
Four years before their marriage, Robert dedicated “A new sang to an auld tune” to Sarah, which is what looks to be an altered version of “There’s Nae Luck Aboot The House” a Scottish song written by Jean Adam (1704-1765), which was commonly heard on the streets from the 1770s.
The original song is a tale of a sailor’s wife and the safe return of her husband from the sea. Why Robert would dedicate such a song to a wife, who according to records lived in Edinburgh from at least 1841, is unclear. An envelope enclosing a letter from Robert to his wife in 1846 has a schoolhouse in Stirling as the address. This may indicate that Sarah was a teacher, thus meaning that she may have lived apart from Robert in 1846 before their marriage.
We found Robert and Sarah in the census of 1861 and 1871, but Sarah’s occupation is not listed. Therefore, her career as a teacher may have been short lived or purely a matter of speculation on our part!
Robert and Sarah would go on to have three children named Sarah Jane (1852-1876), Helen (1854-1916) and Alexander (1857-1902). They lived in Gardener’s Crescent according to a document from 1850 which lists all the expenses of furnishing their home. They would go on to move to 19 Meadow Place at some point between 1861-1871 according to the census.
Why not take a leaf out of Robert’s book, and do your own family history research using the resources within our Edinburgh and Scottish Collection? We have many physical records such as valuation rolls, electoral registers, census records, burial records, directories and old newspapers on microfilm. And of course, there is free access to both Ancestry and British Newspaper Archive from within all our libraries! Or if you feel you need a little extra help, come along to one of our monthly family history sessions for beginners which will give you lots of hints and tips for getting started and using our resources. Contact informationdigital@edinburgh.gov.uk to book your place.
Our current cataloguing project with the Old Edinburgh Club means our manuscript collection is searchable on our online catalogue for the first time. We encourage you to pop into the library and give Robert Adam’s Genealogy notes a look if you’re interested in viewing records that chronicle the span of someone’s life back in the nineteenth century.
Over the past few months, children’s and craft groups across Edinburgh Libraries have been busy colouring, crafting, sparkling and decorating to create a large herd of unicorns ready for a mass gathering at Central Library.
And now, the blessing of unicorns has arrived!
Our unicorns were inspired by the Living Knowledge Network and British Library’s current theme and are displayed alongside the Fantasy: Realms of Imagination exhibition. A huge thank you to everyone who took part and contributed their unicorn to the display.
The blessing of unicorns will be on display on the mezzanine at Central Library until 29 February.
Catch them while you can!
For many people, the goal of learning to play a musical instrument has been ever present. The benefits of playing an instrument – physical, mental, social, and emotional – have been well documented but there may still be barriers stopping individuals from learning. Making music can be an expensive business as the cost of instruments is often high even for entry-level items due to their complexity and upkeep. Tuition, sheet music, and available practice spaces add to this, leaving the dream of learning to play unattainable for many.
Well, times are changing. Edinburgh Libraries are delighted to be part of a pioneering instrument library service initiated by We Make Music Scotland and partnered with Tinderbox Collective, and for the past year we’ve been loaning instruments to our members. If you’ve ever dreamt of learning to play an instrument, if you used to play but had to stop, or if you just don’t have access to your own instrument, the instrument library service will open doors to a musical world.
“How does it work?” I hear you ask. Read on to find out!
How much does it cost to borrow an instrument?
It’s completely free to borrow any of our instruments! There’s no hire charge, no deposits, nothing. All you need is an Edinburgh Libraries membership card and you’re good to go. If you don’t have a library membership, you can join online or in person at any of our libraries.
How long can I borrow an instrument for?
Instruments can be borrowed for 3 weeks, just the same as books. Instruments can be renewed up to 3 times unseen before they need to come back to their branch, just like any other item of stock. If an instrument hasn’t been requested, you will be more than welcome to borrow it again.
Which libraries have instruments?
Currently Craigmillar Library, Drumbrae Library, Moredun Library, Muirhouse Library, Music Library and Wester Hailes Library all have instruments available to loan.
How do I find out what instruments you have?
You can find listings for all our instruments on our library catalogue. There are a couple of ways you can do this.
1. You can type in the name of the instrument you’re looking for and “We Make Music Scotland” into the search box, e.g. “violin we make music scotland”.
This will return the listings for violins.
2. Alternatively, you can use the Advanced Search tool. Select ‘Other material’ from the Media Type list. If you’re looking for a specific instrument, type in the instrument you’re looking for in the Keywords field. If you’d like a general list of the instruments available, type “We Make Music Scotland” in the Author field.
Of course, you’re always welcome to speak to a member of staff at any of the instrument libraries, who will be happy to help you search for any instrument you’re looking for.
How can I find out more about an instrument?
If you’ve found a particular instrument on the catalogue that you’d like to know more about, it’s best to contact the library that holds that instrument as they’ll be able to see it and relay any specifics to you. Each branch may also have a physical listing of the instruments they hold, e.g. the Music Library has a paper catalogue of its instruments for borrowers to consult.
Are any of your instruments for children?
Yes! Whilst there are many instruments that are suitable for children and adults alike, there are smaller versions of certain instruments – such as guitars and string instruments like violins – that are better suited to children and we do have some of these in stock. We also have percussion sets available that are perfect for young, budding musicians. If you’re at all unsure, speak to a member of staff or pop into one of the instrument libraries to have a look at the instruments in person.
Can I return an instrument to any library?
Unfortunately not. Due to the fragile nature of the instruments, they are not transferred between branches so they must be borrowed from and returned to their home branch.
Can I reserve an instrument?
Instruments can’t be reserved on the online catalogue as they can’t be transferred between branches. If you’d like to reserve a particular instrument, please get in touch with the branch that holds it and staff will be able to put the instrument aside for you. If the instrument you’re looking for is currently out on loan, staff from that branch will note your request so the instrument will be set aside for you upon its return and you will be notified.
Can I borrow an instrument if I don’t live in Edinburgh?
Absolutely! As long as you have a Edinburgh Libraries membership card, you’re able to borrow an instrument. The only stipulation is that instruments need to be borrowed from and returned to their home branch directly.
The instrument I’m looking for isn’t listed on the catalogue. Will you be acquiring one soon?
Almost all of the instruments available have been generously donated to the instrument libraries scheme so this determines the range of instruments we have available for loan.
Are the instruments checked and cleaned before they are issued?
Yes. Staff from Tinderbox Collective check over all the instruments before they are added to the library catalogue ready for borrowing. All woodwind and brass instruments have their mouthpieces cleaned before they are next used.
Can I donate an instrument to the libraries?
Of course, we’re very grateful for instrument donations! Please contact one of the instrument libraries for more information.
Do you have any guides for how to play available instruments?
Yes, each instrument library will have a selection of how-to guides very soon. The Music Library has a more comprehensive collection of stock to help you learn to play, as well as a huge variety of sheet music available to borrow.
Do you have any space where I can practise?
Central Library has a Music Room that can be booked free of charge for you to practise in. This space also has an electronic drum kit and digital piano that can be used, whilst the Music Library has another digital piano and digital keyboard that can be booked for playing. If you’d like to make a booking or would like more information on these services, please contact the Music Library.
So, what are you waiting for? Embark on a musical journey – whether it’s completely new territory or roads well-travelled – and borrow an instrument!
If you have any further questions, please get in touch with one of the music instrument libraries.
With spring just around the corner and our hopes for better times, our Music on the Mezzanine spring season is also, just around the corner and with a great selection of music to entertain us, the better times are here!
From 10 February, we’ll be hosting a variety of musicians every fortnight, right through till 15 June.
We’ve ten dates for your diary and ten quite different performances.
At the start of Chinese New Year. Zijuan Yu, Chinese flautist will introduce us to the historic opera form, Kunqu, the oldest extant opera in China and recognised by UNESCO on their List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. In performances of this form of opera, one of the featured instruments in the accompanying orchestra is the side blown, bamboo flute, on which Zijun Yu will lead us through a programme of music from these beautiful operas, music which is wonderfully described as shuimodio (water-polished music).
Seating is limited for this first event so booking via Ticketsource is essential to guarantee your place.
Eilidh Paterson, Calum Wight and Steph Humphreys respectively, violin, guitar and clarsach, will join us to play a programme of traditional and modern Scottish Folk Music. This day will be the end of a week of Gaelic events across the library service and Eilidh, Calum and Steph will be adding some Gaelic tunes to their programme.
Singer and pianist, Martina Petrova will lead us through a programme of jazz favourites.
The Gal Trio members, Emma Cairns on violin, Elinor Roderick on violin, and Serenna Maclellan on flute, initilally formed themselves in this trio to perform the Hayton Suite by Hans Gal. They will be sharing their passion for all genres of music from classical to folk.
In one of his first public performances, Vinodh Jayakrishnan will introduce a programme of South Indian classical music. Vinodh will be performing with his small company of musicians.
Dan Abrahams is a composer, guitarist and double bassist. He regularly performs with Scottish folk duo Dowally, old-time band, the Wayward Janes and the soul/R&B group, the Foo Birds.
If ambient, post-rock is your choice, Tayus will be joining us in May. If you are new to post-rock or ambient music, think French Romantics like Ravel, Debussy, Satie et al, meets American minimalists like Reich, Glass, Riley, then play the music through a synth and/or on an electric guitar. This is just this writer’s opinion, you might hear it differently, come along and see!
Django’s Swing evoke the jazz clubs of the 1930s in Paris, recreating the exuberant sound of Django Reinhardt and his gypsy swing sound.
The Accidentals have been playing together since 2003. Their all encompassing programmes of classical guitar music dips travels through time like Dr Who, if he was a classical guitarist not a Time Lord.
For our last concert of the season, we welcome the Edinburgh Recorder Ensemble. They’ll be playing music, ancient and modern on the full recorder family, from the teeny tiny sopranino to the giant contrabass recorder.
This is our third season of Music on the Mezzanine. The performers you will see during this season and in the previous year have given of their time and their talent for free. Performers in Edinburgh find it hard to locate venues which are affordable. The cost of venue, the cost of rehearsal rooms and the cost of publicising an event can price some groups out of performing in public and the sharing of their art. In providing a small rehearsal room and a safe, secure, warm, welcoming performance space – both free of charge – we hope we will enable some performers who do not normally perform in public to consider a step on stage. Central Library’s music studio can house a small group of about 5 to 6 musicians to play or rehearse together. The room is home to our digital drum kit and second digital piano. We also have a lovely collection of musical instruments to borrow.
We’re very excited to welcome some old friends and some new friends to the Mezzanine to share their music with you. Come along, if you can for the first session on 10 February and then every second Saturday, at 1pm on the Mezzanine. Pour yourself a cup of tea and sit back and enjoy, what we think will be ten very interesting, enjoyable, musical events.
All events are now bookable online via Ticketsource or just come along on the day!
We are now off to plan the autumn season! If there is someone you have particularly enjoyed let us know and we will try and have them back. If you wish to join us on the Mezzanine to play, or if you know a group or a musician looking for somewhere to play, contact me, Douglas Wright, or anyone in the Music Library and leave your contact details.
Get in touch at
musiclibrary@edinburgh.gov.uk
or phone 0131 242 8050.
Tales of One City 
