35 Albany Street

1892 – 1960s Catholic Cathedral School, later renamed St Mary’s Roman Catholic School

This house was purchased to extend the school at Number 37; then a Catholic Girl’s School. With the addition of Number 39 the school catered for both girls and boys. On St Andrews’s Day in 1892, as part of Catholic celebrations in the city, an audience of over 2,300, including the Archbishop and about 40 priests from all parts of the diocese, attended a concert given by the school’s 450 pupils at St Mary’s Cathedral. It was reported that ‘that the young ladies attending the upper class school, Albany-street, performed the "Reaper's Song and Drill" in character, and so successfully as to elicit unbounded approval.’ In 1894, the Sisters of Charity took charge of the schools. Ae newspaper reported the imminent arrival of ‘Sisters from Paris and London whose peculiarities of dress - the white hood with streaming cornettes – are well known.’ In 1907 a large hall was built in the garden areas behind, and contained a stage, dance-floor and balcony. In 1913, there was a fire at the school. The alarm was raised early on a Saturday morning by two passing policemen who noticed smoke issuing from the roof. When they and the caretaker inspected the building they discovered that a top floor room on fire. Smoke swiftly began to fill the building and an evacuation of the children sleeping in the building took place. Neighbours spilled out into the street, some still in nightclothes and some carrying possessions in case the fire spread. After two hours the fire brigade contained the fire, though there was substantial damage to the upper part. The newspaper report added: ‘the curious spectacle was seen of tables and chairs floating about in the basement.’In 1914, a group of Roman Catholics met at the school to appoint a committee to challenge the recent decision by the Edinburgh School Board to refuse to grant free books to children attending Roman Catholic schools. Edinburgh had been the only Scottish council to do so and after pressure, the decision was over-turned.

Around 1935, the school was re-opened after refurbishment and renamed St Mary’s Roman Catholic School. (Photo of two of the children in the school playground)

In the 1970s the premises appear to have lain empty.

1993 – 1998 Demarco European Art Foundation

Richard Demarco was born in 1930 into a Scottish-Italian family and studied at Edinburgh College of Art. He was appointed art master at Duns Scotus Academy in 1957 and taught there until 1967. In 1957, he married Anne Muckle, also a graduate of Edinburgh College of Art. In the 1960s, as well as exhibiting his own art work, Demarco became involved in organising exhibitions and events. In 1963, he was a co-founder of the Traverse Theatre, and in 1966, set up the Richard Demarco Gallery. The gallery, which doubled as a performance venue during the Edinburgh Fringe, ran from 1966 to 1992, though its location moved through various addresses, including Melville Crescent, Great King Street, Canongate (Gladstone’s Court), and Blackfriars Street. Demarco also presented events during the Edinburgh Fringe in a range of spaces, including Inchcolm Island in the Firth of Forth. Demarco brought artists and performing groups of international reputation to Edinburgh, including a number from Eastern Europe, and assisted Scottish artists to create links across Europe. Of particular note was Demarco’s involvement with the artist Joseph Beuys.

In 1998 the venue presented A Little Requiem for Kantor. 'Richard DeMarco set Edinburgh on its ear by inviting Tadeusz Kantor's Cricot2 company for one of our first views of eastern European theatre, a production that has taken on mythic status in Fringe folklore. Now an actress from that company has devised a salute to Kantor, who died in 1990. Inspired and accompanied by a string quartet, composed by Bartek Chajdecki, Zofia Kalinska and a small company evoke the spirit of Kantor and his work. Familiar images and concerns of Kantor's appear in essentially non-linear form symbols of bondage and freedom, of independence and connectedness, of the stultifying and comforting power of religion. Modesty, in the trappings of Poor Theatre, stands side by side with egotism, as Kantor is equated with Beethoven and Bums. Touches of the ridiculous appear in the sublime. Finally, Kantor's ghost, appropriately played by a young actor, rises and dances. Like the best of Kantor's work, the Requiem is less communicative than evocative, with visual and aural images that promise to haunt one's dreams.'

In 1992, Demarco established the Demarco European Art Foundation, and the following year the Foundation took over the former St. Mary’s School building. There, it continued to present a diverse range international art activity, including lectures, exhibitions, events and ‘happenings’.

In 1998, the building was ear-marked for development into flats, and Demarco, supported by a wide range of artists, mounted a campaign to stop the development and enable the arts centre to continue. (The photo marks that time). Unfortunately, the campaign was unsuccessful and the Demarco European Art Foundation was forced to close, A space at the New Parliament House complex on Edinburgh’s Calton Hill, provided an office and space for the Foundation’s archive, but the event space was lost to the city.

The property, together with mews properties in York Lane was converted into a townhouse and flats.