Ghost Sign on the Royal Mile, Edinburgh – © Steve Kydd
Walk down Edinburgh’s Royal Mile, and it is easy to pass Old Assembly Close without noticing the faded evidence of a business that once operated behind the High Street.
The Ghost Sign at the entrance to the Close, off 172 High Street, surviving lettering recalls Smith, Fletcher & Co., a firm of wirework manufacturers whose works occupied premises behind the Royal Mile.
The building, now known as the Mackenzie Building, has a history extending beyond the wireworks. Designed by Alexander Black and built in 1839–40, it was originally a George Heriot Trust Hospital School. It was later occupied by Smith, Fletcher & Co. and adapted for use as a wireworks.
The business’s roots appear to reach much further back. Edinburgh directory research records Joseph Smith working as a wireworker during the 1830s. By the middle of the 19th century, J. Smith & Son described themselves as wireworkers and weavers and claimed an establishment date of 1823.
Another Edinburgh wireworking concern associated with the Fletcher name operated from addresses including Blackfriars Street and Cockburn Street. The businesses appear to have come together towards the end of the 19th century, with Smith, Fletcher & Co. established at 172 High Street around 1899.
Ghost Sign – Wireworking on the Royal Mile
Smith, Fletcher & Co. produced a surprisingly wide variety of products. Directory descriptions include wire cloth, wire netting, fencing and wire-gauze blinds, alongside ironworking and wire weaving.
The firm remained associated with Old Assembly Close well into the 20th century. In April 1957, the Edinburgh Evening News described Smith, Fletcher & Co. at 172 High Street as Edinburgh’s largest manufacturer of wire goods, noting that handcraft still played an important part in its manufacturing processes.
The old premises subsequently found a very different use. During the 1970s, the former works became the Wireworks Theatre, hosting productions during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
The Faculty of Advocates later acquired the building and refurbished it. Today, as the Mackenzie Building, it forms part of the Faculty’s premises.
Yet the wireworkers haven’t completely disappeared from Old Assembly Close.
Faded traces of the company’s signage can still be seen around the entrance, more than a century after Smith, Fletcher & Co. established its works there. What was originally nothing more than a practical sign directing customers towards a working Edinburgh manufacturer has become a small piece of the Royal Mile’s industrial and commercial history.
It is one of Edinburgh’s surviving ghost signs; an advertisement whose business has disappeared while its name stubbornly remains.
Search