Shops
Around 1900 and at the height of its prosperity Innerleithen could boast shops containing everything required by its inhabitants for day to day living. The main shopping centre was the High Street followed by Chapel Street and Waverley Road. Trading went on in Peebles Road, Leithen Road, Bond Street, the Strand and Traquair Road.
It was quite common for small businesses to be conducted from the front room of a dwelling house – the selling of chips in the High Street and sweeties in Leithen Road being cases in point. Most shops, their frontage little altered in a hundred years, have changed ownership and function many times although a few still serve their original purpose: notably, a printers, the Post Office (at the moment), a fruit and vegetable shop and a confectioners.
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Innerleithen Shops - The Same But Different (article by Ted McKie)
86 High Street