£500
Oblong folio, ff. 32. Original black pebble-grained black roan by Henderson & Bisset, front board lettered direct in gilt, edges gilt. A litlle dampmarking to fore-edge margin, stitching a little strained, one leaf clipped to bottom edge. Some rubbing to extremities. Some plates titled in manuscript.
A photographic record of the reconstruction of the building now known as Charlotte House, built as a four-story tearoom and retail space for MacVitties, Guest and Co., the catering arm of the bakers MacVities, best-known for the digestive biscuit. The reconstruction involved the subsumption of the corner building into the 1905-built block which surrounded it; a further extension was added in 1935. The facade survives, with what the Category B listing note describes as an 'extraordinary aediculed niche breaking apex' on the corner of Princes Street; the building was designed 'incorporating one of the countries [sic] first self service cafeterias (which survives in idea, if nothing else, in the present coffee house)': the ground floor at time of writing houses a Pret a Manger.
This book is composed of 32 hand-numbered large photographic plates detailing the construction and finished form of the building, with several views of the metal frame being assembled, and the completed interior, many dated by hand in the margin. The plates bear the embossed mark of Drummond Young, Edinburgh to the margins, and are bound in an attractive leather binding by local binders Henderson and Bisset. Despite the professional standard of production, this was not a commercial venture, and likely produced for company archival or management presentation purposes, although the lack of any inscriptions or stamps make this hard to verify.
