East Lothian - Saving the Musselburgh Carriage

In this episode, the experts lend their skills to a community project, hear the story behind a new treasure to be repaired and visit a local crafting hero. 

Will and Kirsten are in Musselburgh, on Scotland's east coast. It's a town boasting a proud heritage that is celebrated each year with a procession led by their elected Honest Lad and Honest Lass. However, for the past few years, the antique carriage these local luminaries ride in has been off the road. Restoring the carriage is a huge job that requires the skills of local signwriter Ross Hastie and wheelwright Greg Rowland, and made more complicated by the impending deadline of this year's festival. 

It's a bit of a musical mystery when the team are faced with Erica's Stroviol. In the family since the 1930s, it belonged to Erica's father, who was a passionate musician who played in several local groups. The distinctive horn has become detached from this turn-of-the-century musical oddity, so it might take more than just the skills of stringed instrument expert Becky Houghton to get a tune out of it once again. 

In nearby Edinburgh, Will stops off at Stewart Christie & Co, Scotland's oldest bespoke tailors, to discover how their handmade tweed clothes balance modern demands with century-old techniques. Will gets an insight into every step of the process, from an initial measuring to getting on the scissors himself and cutting out his own waistcoat pattern from the tweed cloth the company built their name on.