By Ian McConnell
Business Editor
THE Scottish Design Exchange, which provides a high street presence to hundreds of small, independent producers, is launching its second outlet in Edinburgh as part of a long-term expansion drive, leasing the historic Tron Kirk building on the Royal Mile.
The community interest company has signed a three-year lease with the Scottish Heritage Buildings Trust, which manages the 17th-century building. This will, from July 1, provide a retail space for more than 20 artists, designers, and craftspeople, seven days a week, and there will be occasional events and exhibitions.
The Scottish Design Exchange said “uncertainty” had “surrounded the future of the building, which was once Edinburgh’s main parish church”.
READ MORE: Ian McConnell: Big Brexit cost laid out in simplest of terms amid effrontery of Leavers
It noted the building had been empty for decades after closing as a church in 1952 and had been on Historic Environment Scotland’s Buildings at Risk Register since 2003.
The Scottish Design Exchange said: “Most recently, it was used as a gift and book shop as well as housing the Edinburgh World Heritage Exhibition, but it has been vacant and unused since the pandemic lockdown forced its closure in 2020.”
READ MORE: Ian McConnell: Boris Johnson must heed fears his bonfire could make UK goods ‘unsellable’ in Europe
The community interest company declared it is “bucking the trend of retail market contraction elsewhere” with its “social enterprise model of bringing original, high-quality products made by small, independent local producers to the high street”. The Scottish Design Exchange has generated more than £4 million of income for hundreds of tenants at its stores in George Street in Edinburgh and Buchanan Galleries in Glasgow since it was launched in 2015.
Chief executive Lynzi Leroy, noting she had been inundated with demands from artists to showcase their work at the Royal Mile site, said: “The Tron Kirk is on one of the UK’s busiest thoroughfares and we are delighted at having the opportunity to use this prize location to showcase local artists, designers and makers.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel