Edinburgh in Scotland

   Flax was grown in Edinburgh’s Physic Garden, the precursor to today’s Botanics, as far back as 1670.

   In times past, the merchandising of processed flax and woven linen from the vast mills offering fine cloth, sacking, sailcloth and tarpaulin were the foundation for one of the Scotland’s first banks – the British Linen Bank. The parts of the flax plants not used for linen allowed Edinburgh to create some of the world’s biggest rope factories. he making of ropes, twines, and sail cloths forms one of Leith’s largest and most specialized industries. The well-known Edinburgh Roperie and Sailcloth Company was founded in Leith in 1750 by a number of Edinburgh and Leith merchants who combined to advance the interests of the industry. The company was encouraged in its enterprise by obtaining at reasonable rates grants of land at the north-east corner of the Links. From a small beginning the trade has now reached immense proportions, the enormous development of the Company’s business having given to Leith a celebrity in the manufacture of ship rigging unsurpassed in any country in the world. During the hundred and seventy years that have elapsed since the establishment of the firm, the scene of their earliest operations has from time to time been extended, till now the works in Bath Street cover an area of twenty-five acres.
   In 1805 the company established the Malleny Mills, eleven miles from Edinburgh, where abundant supplies of water for bleaching purposes existed, and where the flax and yarns were prepared for the manufacturing operations of the Leith works. These mills were used for this purpose for many years, until the increased supply of water brought in by the Edinburgh and District Water Trust enabled the company to concentrate their whole works in Leith. About the same time the works at Glasgow (where fishing lines, etc., were principally made) were also transferred to Leith, so that the whole business is now housed in the Port, local control and economical management being thus secured.