A community group is being awarded funds to restore what is said to be Scotland’s last remaining shoemaker’s shop.

Historic Environment Scotland (HES) is providing the Birse Community Trust with £74,500 to help it conserve and re-open the building – which is said to have lain “completely undisturbed” for decades after it ceased trading.

The Souter’s Shop – souter is the Scottish word for a shoemaker or cobbler – was opened in the Aberdeenshire village of Birse in 1897 by local man James Merchant , with the business operating from there, with the help of his son, until the 1940s.

When the business shut down, its tools, ledgers and fittings remained untouched, as if frozen in time.

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