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Kinleith Paper Mill

Kinleith Paper Mill
Kinleith Paper Mill
This exhibition features photographs taken in the early 1900s of Kinleith Paper Mill which was situated in Currie on the outskirts of Edinburgh.

The paper mill was founded in 1792 and was the largest of the three paper mills in Currie, expanding very rapidly due to its huge output of top quality paper for books. During the 1800s, Kinleith was one of the largest operating paper mills in the UK. At the end of the 19th century the parish was largely rural, and its population declining due to developments in agriculture.

Its location on the Water of Leith however led to the development of mills, especially paper mills. It made the owners, the Bruce family, rich enough to build a mansion for themselves at Glenburn in the hills above Currie. The manager and some of the workers lived in Blinkbonny. Kinleith had its own railway siding, an enormous chimney known as Willie's Lum, and rows of windows lighting the "salle" in which women piece workers stood at long tables in thick felt aprons inspecting the paper for flaws, flicking rapidly through the sheets, scrunching up the imperfect ones and stacking the flawless sheets in reams ready for cutting by the guillotine man. It was acknowledged that women were better at the finishing work than men because they could chat and work efficiently at the same time, thus making endurable what was otherwise a repetitive boring job.

Kinleith went on making paper until it closed in 1966 and the workers received their redundancy notices.

The site lay vacant until its demolition in 1996 when the ground was bought by a development company, and now contains 98 homes.