If you’ve wandered down Marchmont Road in the last year, you may have found your eye drawn to a bright red façade and one of many whimsical window displays The Bothy Boutique has become known for. Opened last summer to support the vital work of The Breakfast Bothy, a charity founded by the team at Carlowrie Castle to provide free breakfasts for homeless people, the boutique has quickly become a destination charity shop in Edinburgh. ‘The idea was to be as different as we could be in terms of being a charity shop,’ says chair and trustee Keith Taylor. ‘You don’t have any control over what stock you get coming in, but we deliberately pick the interesting pieces. We try to make the inside of the shop look a little bit different and a little bit funky. We wanted it to have a sense of fun so that when people walk in it’s bright and cheerful.’ 

The Bothy Boutique is distinguished from other charity shops not only through its careful curation but also the strong sense of community it fosters. Many who have previously or still use The Breakfast Bothy, a colourful police box on the edge of the nearby Meadows, now help out in the boutique. ‘Some of our guests helped with building shelves and putting the place together,’ says Taylor. ‘There’s a guy who used to be an electrician and is now the handyman for the boutique. We’re trying to grow their confidence just through getting them regularly involved.’

Edinburgh locals will likely be familiar with The Breakfast Bothy itself, but many might not know that its work goes far beyond providing free breakfasts. Using funds from the boutique, the bothy is able to partner with local businesses and offer services such as free haircuts, laundry and bicycle repair.

As the boutique grows, so too can the work it supports. ‘We have aspirations to provide a sort of drop-in hub, somewhere where people can come in, get a tea or a coffee, sit down at a laptop and maybe get help filling in forms for housing or banking.’ Taylor explains that while these services are available for homeless people in Edinburgh, they are spread out across the city. ‘People will go and fill in a housing form in one part of Edinburgh and then go and see about employment in another part. We want to centralise things and just make access slightly easier by having one location.’

The Bothy Boutique, 134 Marchmont Road, Edinburgh.