Machine Room, Robert Smail's Printing Works, Innerleithen

A whole small-town jobbing printer's, kept as it worked. Founded in 1866 on this Scottish Borders high street, the firm took print jobs for the local community, ran a stationer's shop and even published a weekly newspaper from 1893 to 1916. The National Trust for Scotland acquired the works in 1986 and opened it to visitors in 1990. The machine room in this photo holds presses dating from the 1860s, including a Wharfedale from 1886, with belts and shafting once driven by a water wheel; the wheel there now is a reconstruction. Upstairs in the caseroom, a compositor shows visitors how to set type by hand and, time allowing, prints a proof of what they set.