New Distillery in Edinburgh’s South Side!

19th September 2018/Ally Reid
Holyrood Park distillery artists impression

When I was a child and youth in the late 50s, 60s and early 70s, my mother’s family lived in Parkside Street in the South Side of Edinburgh, just off the Pleasance.  My grandmother’s home was a flat on the second top floor of number 14, and I can clearly remember looking out of her sitting room window (the best room – only used for visitors and family events) over the high wall opposite the tenements, and into the “coal station”.

Trains coming into and out of the coal station serviced Usher’s Brewery in nearby Henry Place/The Pleasance, where both my grandfather and uncle worked as coopers.  I mentioned in a previous blog that my uncle went on to manage Auchentoshan Distillery in Dalmuir, near Clydebank, in later years.

It was therefore with pleasure that I learned the news that the 180 year old Engine Shed Building on St. Leonard’s Lane, situated next to Holyrood Park is to be renovated to accommodate a distillery and visitor centre, which promises a ” hands-on, sensory, educational experience that will enlighten and delight people as they explore the world of flavour while touring a working distillery.”   Hopefully, some Holyrood Distillery single malt will be drunk from a Quaichshop quaich in the not-too-distant future!

The Project notes that: “Holyrood Distillery’s home in the Old Engine Shed is a B-listed building, built in 1835 as part of the Edinburgh & Dalkeith Railway (E&DR). The E&DR was known as ‘The Innocent Railway” and much of the original right-of-way still exists as a bike and pedestrian path, including an atmospheric 1/3-mile tunnel under Holyrood Park. The E&DR pre-dated steam locomotives and the carriages were initially pulled by horses until they reached an incline after the tunnel. The Engine Shed, housed the two 25 horse power steam engines which were used to pull the carriages the rest of the way up the incline.”
The Holyrood Distillery will be Edinburgh’s first single malt whisky distillery for 90 years – earlier in 2018, the project reported that it had successfully completed a £5.8 million funding drive. This successful fundraising effort marks a key milestone in the distillery’s development, following the City of Edinburgh Council’s decision in 2017 to approve development of the historic Engine Shed building and site on St Leonard’s Lane. Holyrood Distillery will begin construction on the site in 2018, with the aim of opening its doors to the public in spring 2019.

Ally Reid