Quality Yard

With its combination of niche interests and pop art expressions, Quality Yard represents the modern-day identity of a gentrifying Leith.

The building is home to a few institutions that might make for an odd combination. One of them is the 1958-founded Scottish Mineral and Lapidary Club, the other is a series of four studios for leading Edinburgh street artists.

Quality Yard has new street art typically two or three times a year. In 2024, they held a Palestine Solidarity Jam to raise funds, a Leith Festival Pride Jam, and in August will once again open up the yard for their 360-degree Street Art Exhibition as Venue 470 in the Edinburgh Fringe.

Previously eight artists spearheaded an initiative for the 2018 Leith Festival that saw all walls that line the central court of this building, as well as its entrance and some outer walls, transformed with street art to create a full-surround experience of color.

The building itself is representative of the industrial architecture of traditionally working-class Leith. The original artwork of Quality Yard followed the style of a continuous mural, where color threads and elements connect the pieces of eight artists and collectives (Ursula Cheng, Colour Therapy Unit, Elph, Shona Hardie, Duncan Peace, PurshOne, Surface Noise and TrenchOne).

A new set of artwork was put up in time for the 2019 Edinburgh Fringe and Leith Festival, in this case showcasing 11 female artists from Scotland and abroad. This iteration is more individualized, with the pieces appearing next to each other and unconnected. The only repeat artist from the 2018 version is Shona Hardie.