Out of the Blue Drill Hall

Bought by Out of the Blue Arts & Education Trust in 2003, The Drill Hall is being transformed into a multi-disciplinary arts centre with already 40 individuals and organisations active in Edinburgh's creative industries, rising to 80 when fully converted.

The Drill Hall is a key catalyst in the area's cultural regeneration. The Drill Hall was built as a two storey seven-bay symmetrical classical military hall. Office building to street with polished sandstone ashlar facade. Centre bay is slightly advanced arch with keystone, frieze above inscription "7th B. The Royal Scots" Segmental pediment over eaves with matching bracketed comice, carved coat-of-arms and date 1901 in tympanum. Carved Roman military motifs at 1st floor. 3-bay with single ground floor window flanked by slit windows. 15-panel timber sash and case windows. Two-leaf doors to centre archway. Green-grey slate piended roof.˜

On Friday 22˜ May 1915 a south-bound troop train crashed into another stationary train near Gretna and was then hit by a north-bound express train coming the other way. 227 passengers died including 224 men of the 7th Battalion Royal Scots, all locally recruited soldiers. Relatives of the men congregated outside the Drill Hall seeking news and eventually a list of the dead was read from a window. The bodies were transported from Gretna to Leith Central Station and were taken to the Hall, which was functioning as a temporary mortuary. The soldiers were laid to rest in Rosebank Cemetery, Pilrig.˜