Midsteeple Quarter reaches a milestone in Dumfries Town Centre
Primary school children participated in a colourful procession.
The name's been announced for the newly-refurbished Midsteeple Quarter building in Dumfries.
The Standard was the winner of a public vote for this development at 135-139 High Street.
Phylip de la Maziere, Dumfries’ Town Crier declared the name as part of a colourful celebration unveiling a temporary public art installation surrounding the construction site.
Loreburn and St Andrews RC primary schools had nearly 90 pupils attend the event who were accompanied by Provost of Dumfries, Councillor Maureen.
The children kickstarted the celebrations by joining in the procession led by piper Callum Watson walking from the Plainstanes up to The Standard.
One of the young students from St Andrews Primary said:
“I learnt lots about art and the community and stuff. We done some printing and cut things out and stuck them on – just whatever we felt like!”
This site, formerly the Baker's Oven, is undergoing a multi-million pound transformation turning it from empty ruins into modern flats and enterprise spaces, releasing new life into the town centre.
The work is expected to be completed by summer this year.
Midsteeple Quarter Executive Director Scott McKay hopes the building marks a new way of doing things in the town.
“We want the community to feel a sense of ownership of it so that they support it. It’s also a way of acquiring the buildings into ownership that’s then reflecting what the town need, what the people of the town feel they want in their high street.”
The new name was amongst chosen at a community engagement where there a public vote saw over 676 votes being cast for a selection of suggested names.
It’s hoped that this will not only reflect the history of the building as this was once where Dumfries and Galloway Standard printed many issues years ago, but also reviving the high street once more and becomes a place where people live, work and visit because of its community-led work and action.
McKay hopes this creates a new level of community-led regeneration:
“It reflects the history of the site which has previously been related to The Standard and the newspaper printing and also about it being a marker, a banner for the aspirations of the town for what people can achieve. This is the quality that we’re aiming for.”
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Hannah Fox, one of the artists, explains the colourful artwork on the hoardings:
“So behind us and on the flags and even some of the shop windows, you can see many different peoples artworks designed by children and adults who came along to the workshops. We did a lot of print making which is another way of making images. You can see all their ideas represented in the work behind us. Quite a lot of workshops, people used words that represented home to different people so in the artwork, you can see some of the examples.”
Kate Drummond, who worked alongside Hannah, added: "We put their things and work together to create the hoardings, the flags and the blinds so it was a joint combination of everybody’s input.”
They both hope that this is something that can be enjoyed by everyone walking along the High Street and that this is the new and exciting beginning chapter for Dumfries town centre.
The bright and colourful designed exterior will be on show until the construction work is complete.