David Stamp, architect and sailor
Born: 12 August, 1943, in Edinburgh.
Died: 18 November, 2006, in North Berwick, aged 64.
David Stamp was an enthusiastic conservationist-turned-developer who played a big part in the renovation and redevelopment of Leith and Edinburgh’s New Town.
Stamp, who was born in Edinburgh in 1943, pioneered the conversion of redundant warehouses in Leith into flats and championed the notion that the basin of the Water of Leith, near its mouth at Leith Docks, might be transformed into a vibrant “floating village” of restaurants, bars, offices and homes.
The elder son of Dr John Stamp – one of the leading veterinary scientists of his day and a world expert on scrapie in sheep – and Margaret Stamp, David was educated at Daniel Stewart’s College and North Berwick High School. He studied architecture at Edinburgh College of Art, winning scholarships that permitted him to embark on study tours to the Netherlands, Turkey, Greece and Italy.
David Stamp, who died on the way back from visiting a new client last month, was one of life’s enthusiasts who delighted in being involved with everything and anything. He was engaging, and full of bonhomie and had a well developed sense of humour.
He was also generous with his time and frequently helped out younger architects who were seeking to start out on their own, or who needed quiet assurance or emotional support when in a tight spot.
John Murdoch, building standards manager for East Lothian Council, said: “His calm, helpful and straightforward attitude, linked to his vast knowledge and experience of buildings and their design, will be sadly missed by all who had dealings with him.”
After graduating, David Stamp studied town and country planning, but architecture remained his first love and he started his career with Richard & Betty Moira Architects in Edinburgh. In 1973 he set up Gilmour & Stamp Architects with Derry Gilmour, who left three years later to join Historic Scotland.
Gilmour & Stamp’s early focus was on conversion projects in Edinburgh’s New Town. The company was also responsible for the conversion of several factories and warehouses in Leith.
One of these, the Cooperage, a late eighteenth century warehouse which Gilmour & Stamp converted into flats in 1985, is recognised as the first of conversion of its kind and hailed as exemplary by the Scottish Development Agency’s Leith Project.
Gilmour & Stamp also took on commissions from across Scotland including a complex of log cabins on Loch Tay and the conceptual work for a marina and leisure village at Craobh Haven, near Oban.
In the 1980s and early 1990s, Gilmour & Stamp focused on common repairs and major tenement conservation schemes in Edinburgh. David Stamp was instrumental in persuading Edinburgh Council to help finance such renovations. When these grants dried up in the mid-1990s, Stamp re-focused on design-and-build projects, often working alongside housing associations, for whose projects Stamp promoted “accessibility” long before this was required.
Gilmour & Stamp’s conservation work on the Lodge Canongate Kilwinning, the oldest Masonic lodge in the world, led to the firm handling a £500,000 project to re-roof Broomhall, near Dunfermline, the ancestral home of the Earl of Elgin.
In the 1970s David Stamp and his friend Fred Multon bought a lengthy stretch of the Water of Leith’s river bed, upstream from the docks at Victoria Quay, and parts of the river’s quayside from the Forth Port Authority (now Forth Ports). Their vision was to create a floating village, but banks turned out to be reluctant to advance loans against a stretch of river bed, and the project has only recently begun to gain momentum.
Three sizeable barges housing office space have recently been moored in the river’s outer basin, two of which are already fully let. They have joined the S.Y. Ocean Mist, a steam yacht formerly owned by the Guinness family, which David Stamp and Fred Multon sailed from the west to the east coast in 1988. Once famously painted canary yellow, this vessel has had a chequered history but will reopen this month as a restaurant and piano bar under the name Cruz.
In 1990. David Stamp also sailed the Motor Yacht Eala Bhan around Scotland and moored her in the Water of Leith, where she served as his office for 16 years. His office manager recalls that on her first day she was met with a laugh and a twinkle as she nervously descended backside-first down the ladder into what is believed to be the only floating architect’s office in Scotland.
David Stamp was an active member of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland (RIAS), on whose council he served from 2002, and the Edinburgh Architectural Association (EAA). He had few qualms about offering his opinions, a tendency which colleagues almost always appreciated. Stamp was also founder-chairman of the Edinburgh Chartered Architects Network (ECAN), which has enabled many sole-practitioner architect firms in Edinburgh and the Lothians to punch above their weight by lending them professional and technical support.
Outside architecture, David Stamp’s biggest passion was sailing, and he was for several decades a member of the East Lothian Yacht Club in North Berwick, the town where he lived for the past 29 years. As the club’s commodore from 1980-82 he organised numerous regattas. In his own boat U2 — a 22-foot “E” boat — Stamp won the relevant class in the 1982 Tomatin Series, narrowly missing the overall title after being dismasted off the coast of Campbeltown. He remained a keen sailor until his death, keeping a Cornish shrimper in North Berwick’s harbour.
David Stamp loved life and people but most of all he was committed to his family. In 1966, at the age of 23 and while still a student, he married Margaret Lee, his girlfriend since schooldays. He is survived by Margaret, their son, John, daughter, Anna, and four grandchildren.
This obituary of David Stamp, architect and seafarer was published in The Scotsman on 13 December 2006