Tartan Weaving Mill Tour

Tartan Weaving Mill FB page

The Tartan Weaving Mill is right next to the entrance to the Castle, which we had to pass up that day because of the crowds.  So we finally got back up there two days later and it was totally worth the climb up the ginormous hill.  Here's a very short advertisement from their FB page:

We didn't actually buy anything from the 5 floors of merchandise, but if I had the money and it was ever so much colder in Texas year-round, I would have bought this:

It's an officially recognized tartan designed by Brian Wilton in 2017.  I can't find it anywhere else online so I'm guessing it must be exclusive to the store, which doesn't have a website, only a FB page.

Tartan Weaving Mill experience

This was a mural at the entrance to the mill so that as you walked in you were reading the panels in order from right to left.  But I've put them in order from left to right, so it might seem confusing.  The first panels are the history of tartan and they lead into the loom viewing area which is in the basement.  The looms are very loud, even though they are behind walls and glass, you can still hear them.  The employees have to wear hearing protection when all four of them are going at once.  Outside of the loom area but still in the basement were seamstresses who were busy sewing bespoke kilts.  The UK word "bespoke" means made to order.

Here's a view from above the basement level of one of the looms.  Even the stairs are tartan!

Check out the giant cones of thread!

Here's another video from their FB page of one of the looms in action.

History of the Kilt

And again the display is set up so that it reads from right to left as you come into the room.  So the figures on the right are the oldest.

The individual figures in the correct order:

The artists' renderings also read from right to left as you walked into the room so that the figures as I've listed them below start in 1910 and go backwards till 1200 is at the end.  I apologize for the confusion.

Rob did get a scarf in his actual Murray tartan, but not at the TWM.  They were way out of our price-range there.  This came from Prestige Scotland, which was also on the Royal Mile, but cheaper.  The address is 187 Canongate and the guy who was working there was super helpful and nice.