Lamb's House, Leith

I was in Leith this evening and came upon this building by chance. I checked it out later and found that it dates from the 17th century and is an example of a combined dwelling and warehouse. It was built, unsurprisingly, for the Lamb family who were wealthy landowners and had lived in Leith since the 14th century. The building stands on the site of an earlier dwelling (also owned by the Lamb family) which was visited by Mary Queen of Scots (who seems t0 have visited most of the buildings in Scotland in her time).

The property remained in private ownerhsip until the 20th century. It was subdivided to form homes for eight families but by 1933 the building had deteriorated and was in grave danger of being demolished. This nearly occurred accidently in 1936-37 after some children broke into the house and lit a bonfire. An article about this caught the eye of Robert Hurd, Honorary Secretary of the Saltire Society and he subsequently suggested to the Marquess of Bute that the house should be saved. The Marquess bought it in 1938 for £200 and spent thousands of pounds on its restoration.

In October 1958 The National Trust for Scotland wrote to Lord David Stuart, the son of the Marquess of Bute, that they had decided to accept his kind offer of Lamb`s House and the building became Trust property.

In 1961 Lamb`s House was leased to the Edinburgh and Leith Old People`s Welfare Council, who helped to raise money to restore the building and convert it into a Day Centre for retired people. In 1962 the building was formally opened for its new use by Qiueen Elizabeth The Queen Mother.

The house was bought in 2010 by the architect, Nicholas Groves Raines, to become a residence and office for the GRA practice. It is currently being restored and is surrounded by security fencing. There was a fair amount of building materials around, so I had to compose photos which avoided all this.