Robert Smail's Printing Works

Robert Smail’s Printing Works is a working Victorian letterpress in Innerleithen, a small town in the Scottish Borders. The two-storey building sits on the main shopping street and still prints orders for stationery and local businesses. It was founded in 1866 by the Smail family and ran a weekly newspaper from 1893 to 1916. The firm avoided modern printing methods and stayed in family hands until 1986. That year the National Trust for Scotland took over and opened the works to visitors in 1990. The building is protected as a category C(s) listed structure. The works show how a local printer operated around 1900. Visitors follow a one-hour tour through the shop, office, paper store and caseroom. In the office a large desk holds early 20th-century clutter and drawers full of stationery. The paper store holds an archive of nearly every job printed over a century. Upstairs the caseroom has rows of letter cases and metal sorts for hand typesetting. A compositor guides visitors through setting type and printing a small sheet on a hand press. The machineroom contains three presses, including a Wharfedale Reliance from the 1870s and a Heidelberg Platen from 1952. A printer demonstrates how each machine works. The works also hosts seasonal printing workshops and takes part in local festivals. Framed photographs and ledgers show the office unchanged since 1900, and a certificate records its authority to issue steamship tickets.