47 Albany Street
1899 – 1904 The Edinburgh House of Rest
This Boarding house was run by the Campbells who had five children. The 1901 census records that boarding there were a widow with private means, a retired teacher, a watch and jewellery salesman, a chemist, and a physician. Looking after the twelve residents were a cook and a maid. The Campbell’s advertised their lodgings as ‘a Christian resort’.
1905 – 1906 George Robertson
George Robertson was, a civil engineer who had moved to Edinburgh from England in 1863 to become the Resident Engineer in charge of constructing a large dry dock at Leith. In 1885 he and his wife, Lucy, returned to live in England but it is likely they retained the house, and leased it. Lucy died in 1898 and George returned to live here, dying in the house in 1906.
1909 – (at least) 1980 St Mary’s Cathedral Hall
In 1907 the building was purchased by St Mary’s Cathedral (faded sign), and a hall was built in the garden behind the house.
The hall was regularly used for meetings. In 1911, the annual meeting of the Catholic Total Abstinence Society took place here, and in 1914, the hall was the venue for the Conference of the Catholic Young men’s Societies of Great Britain (and one can only wonder at how many of the young men attending the latter event were to die during the next four years of war). In 1915, there was a ‘Belgian concert and entertainment’ in honour of the Feast day of King Albert of Belgium with an address entitled, ‘Heroic Belgium and her Hero King’. Not all the meetings were linked to the Catholic Church. In 1917, the members of the Scottish Horse and Motormen’s Association met to discuss the following day’s strike planned by the Edinburgh carters in protest at being paid less than those in other parts of Scotland.
In 1932, the hall was used for a Requiem Mass for two teenagers, Robert Burns and Alice Ramsay, who had been killed when their motorbike collided with a car. Burns was a young up and coming Hearts Football Club player, and it was reported that Albany Street and Broughton Street were thronged with mourners, many weeping as the cortege passed.
The hall also was used for school concerts and shows, and as a youth club. One person recalls attending the Youth Club in the 1960s: ‘With my mates we used to play snooker in the 1st floor rooms, with the curtains open as we were too mean or penniless to put a shilling in the meter for the lights.’George Dickson, who lived at Number 22 and also owned the Kingsway Hotel at Number 24, was a Dancing Teacher and from the 1920s to the 1940s used the hall for his Dancing Academy. In 1942 he advertised: ‘New Cavendish Bands. Delicious Meals Available in Cafe. Dickson’s Academies of Dance.’In the 1960s and 1970s the hall continued to be used for dances. In 1968, the Sundowners Show Band, from Ireland, (photo) played at one of the dances. From the 1960s to the 1980s, the hall was a venue for companies performing at the Fringe. In her book, The Edinburgh Festivals: Culture and Society in Post-war Britain, Angela Bartie recounts that at the 1960 Festival, a young theatre company had booked the hall for their performances of Desire Caught by the Tail, written by Pablo Picasso, only to be told that the Catholic priests had read the script and did not feel it should be presented as it was too ‘spicy.’
The National Student Theatre Company rented the hall over a number of years for their Fringe seasons. In 1979, they mounted eight different productions here, including The Tale of Randy Robin - 'a procession of hilarious fantasies'.
This 1983 review of a play at the Hall is by the theatre critic of The Scotsman, Joyce MacMillan
1975 – today The Albany Hotel
The hotel was established by Patrick Maridor, a Swiss, and his Scottish wife, Pauline. Later they expanded the hotel by taking over numbers 39, 41, 43, 45 and 47. Patrick previously had worked as a general sales manager for Dunlop and Pauline in banking, before they decided to open a hotel. It began as a bed and breakfast hotel, although a bar and restaurant were added later. In its early years it was a winner in the Scottish Tourist Board’s Awards; coming out top in the ‘Hotels up to 10 Rooms’ category.
It was sold at some point and revamped in 1997, and for a number of years the basement housed Haldanes restaurant, run by George Kelso. The hotel is now owned by the Ballantrae Group, owned by the Sharma family.