The drill hall was designed by Sir Robert Rowand Anderson as the headquarters of the 5th Volunteer Battalion Royal Scots and was completed in 1901. This unit evolved to become the 7th Battalion, The Royal Scots in 1908. The battalion was mobilised at the drill hall in August 1914 before being deployed to Gallipoli. In 1915 the Gretna disaster, the worst crash in the history of British rail travel, killed 227 people and injured 246 others. 102 of those killed were young men from the 7th Battalion of the Royal Scots, on their way to Liverpool, where they were to leave for Gallipoli. The bodies of the victims were laid out in the drill hall prior to burial in Rosebank Cemetery, across Leith Walk inPilrig. The drill hall is therefore connected to one of the greatest tragedies to affect the community of Leith. The battalion amalgamated with the 9th Battalion to become the 7th/9th Battalion, The Royal Scots, with its headquarters at the Dalmeny Street drill hall, in 1922. The drill hall was shared with 226 and 227 Medium Batteries of the 57th Medium Brigade, Royal Artillery, which had been formed from the former 6th and 8th Battalions, Royal Scots. In 1938 the 7th/9th Battalion formed a new 8th Battalion as its duplicate. The 7th/9th Battalion and the 8th Battalion amalgamated to form the 8th/9th Battalion in 1961 and the 8th/9th Battalion was reduced to company size as A Company of the 52nd Lowland Volunteers, still at the Dalmeny Street drill hall, in 1967. This unit in turn evolved to become HQ Company, Lowland Volunteers. The 52nd Lowland Volunteers moved to the East Claremont Street drill hall, as A Company, 52nd Lowland Regiment, in 1999.
Present use
The Dalmeny Street drill hall was decommissioned and sold to the charity Out of the Blue Arts and Education Trust in 2003. The group, with the aid of City Architecture Office, transformed the drill hall into an arts and education centre. The centre, which was fully completed in 2010, incorporates a café, gallery space, artist studios, rehearsal rooms and performance spaces. As of 2019, the drill hall has been a venue in various various cultural and arts festivals, including the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Leith Festival and the Forest Fringe and has hosted art installations, performances, markets, live music events, exhibitions and community forums for over a decade.
