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Royal Victoria Hospital Farm Colony at Polton
Unknown, 1905, Photograph
Item
of 107
Royal Victoria Hospital Farm Colony at Polton
Royal Victoria Hospital Farm Colony at Polton
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About this image
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Location
Category
Library Item
Item no
9483
Title
Royal Victoria Hospital, Edinburgh, Farm Colony at Polton - potato gathering
Description
An image of the potato harvest at Polton Farm Colony, Midlothian.A pair of horses are pulling a potato digger (or tattie spinner) whilst men and women gather potatoes behind them. The men are all wearing waistcoats and white shirts and the women have white aprons over their long skirts.
Artist / maker
Unknown
Date
1905
Size
29.1 x 37.1 cm
Type
Photograph
Location
Edinburgh and Scottish Collection
The "pair o horse" are pulling a tattie spinner or potato digger. The undug dreil or drill of potatoes lies between the two horses. The digger has a wheel with protruding "fingers" mounted cross-wise at the back, which breaks open the drill and throws the crop out sideways against the suspended screen of sacking, so that they fall in a neat row for lifting. The mechanism is driven by the two lugged wheels. The man in the right is driving the machine, the others are filling skulls or baskets made from spales or broad and thick interlaced wooden shavings.
Robert Willan Philip founded the Victoria Dispensary for Consumption and Diseases of the Chest in 1887. The Royal Victoria Hospital was founded in 1894, and Polton Farm Colony in 1910. Altogether these formed the nucleus of the "Edinburgh Scheme" for fighting tuberculosis. The Dispensary, Hospital and Farm Colony were given to the City of Edinburgh in 1914 and the Royal Victoria Tuberculosis Trust was created.
The Royal Victoria Hospital is located just off Craigleith Road in the west of Edinburgh, immediately to the south of the Western General Hospital. The hospital began life as a private residence, Craigleith House, which was converted in 1894 into a hospital for the treatment of tuberculosis. The Craigleith House building was demolished in the 1960's. The hospital now provides care for the elderly with a 200 bed medical assessment / rehabilitation unit and a 47 bed psychiatry unit.
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Related subjects
Agriculture and fisheries
>
Agricultural and fisheries facilities
>
Farms
Agriculture and fisheries
>
Equipment
>
Baskets
Agriculture and fisheries
>
Landscape
>
Fields
Agriculture and fisheries
>
Processes
>
Harvest
Animals
>
Mammals
>
Horses
People
>
Adults
>
Men
People
>
Adults
>
Women
People
>
Agriculture and fisheries
>
Agricultural labourers
Places
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Scotland
>
Midlothian
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