Robert Smail's Printing Works, museum in Scottish Borders

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What is recorded here

Robert Smail's Printing Works is a working letterpress business founded in Innerleithen in 1866 and run by three generations of the Smail family until 1986. Its shop, office, paper store, composing room, presses and extensive job records remain together under the care of the National Trust for Scotland.

What this place is

It is a preserved printing shop and works where customers ordered jobs at the counter and staff composed type, stored paper and ran letterpress machines behind.

People and events

Robert Smail founded the firm in 1866, and three family generations continued it; from 1893 to 1916 the works also printed a weekly local newspaper.

How it was used

Printers selected individual metal letters, locked type into forms and worked hand and powered presses to make tickets, notices, ledgers and commercial jobs.

What survives

The shop, office, paper store, composing room and machine room remain with working presses, type, tools and about fifty guard books recording past orders.

Why it mattered

The survival of machinery and business papers in the original workplace shows both how letterpress printing worked and what an ordinary town asked its printer to make.