Our next stop is the ghost sign for Archibald Young & Sons surgical instrument makers.
The expansion of medical training centres during the 18th and 19th centuries attracted surgical instrument makers to the vicinity of teaching hospitals. Surgeons and students alike needed a place to purchase high quality surgical instruments. In Edinburgh by 1880 construction of the new Royal Infirmary buildings was completed on Lauriston Place, followed swiftly in 1888 by the University of Edinburgh’s Teviot Medical School built nearby. In premises on Forrest Road opposite the new medical school, renowned surgical instrument makers Archibald Young & Son Limited set up trading.
In 2020, the owners of the Paolozzi restaurant on Edinburgh’s Forrest Road announced that they would be keeping a ghost sign revealed on the frontage of the building whilst renovating the premises. The sign reads ‘Surgical Instrument Makers’, set on a green background, and is a remnant of when Archibald Young & Sons Limited traded at the location. The close proximity of Archibald Young & Sons to the Teviot Medical School - still part of the University, although it now serves the History, Classics and Archaeology department - and new efforts to preserve the ghost sign, serve as an important visual reminder of the integral and long-standing relationship between medical professionals and their instrument makers.
