... THE sr. CLAIRS. 349
Lords Sinclair of Herdmanston. The second son,
also called William, continued the ...
Vol. 6 p. 349 (Rel. 2.85)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street
other services, Charles Philip Count d’artois,
brother of the ill-fated ...
Vol. 2 p. 262 (Rel. 1.77)
![High Street.] THE EARL OF ROSSLYN. 273
worn-out with the fatigues of a long and active.
career, he retired from public life.
When visiting his native capital for the last time,
after an absence of nearly fifty years, with an
emotion which did him honour, he caused himself
to be camed in a sedan chair to Elphinstone Court,
in that now obscure part of the city, that he might
again see the house in which his father dwelt, and
where his own early years as a boy and as a bamster
had been spent. He expressed particular anxiety
to know ‘if a set of holes in the paved court before
his father’s door, which he had used for some youthful
sportwere still in existence; and finding them still
there intact, it is related that as all the past came
upon him, the veteran statesman burst into tears.
North in forming the celebrated Coalition Ministry,
in which he held the appointment of first Commissioner
for keeping the Great Seal. On its
dissolution, he joined the Opposition under Fox ;
but, amid the alarm of the expected French invasion,
he gave in his adhesion to the Administration
of Pitt, and on succeeding Lord Thurlow as Lord
High Chancellor, in April, 1801, was created Earl
of Xosslyn in Midlothian, and then, when nearly
and was interred in St. Paul’s Cathedral at London.
Shortly after the death of his father, Lord
Chesterhall, which occurred in 1756, he sold the
old mansion in Elphinstone Court to John Camp
bell, a senator under the title of Lord Stonefield,
who succeeded Lord Gardenstone as a justiciary
judge, and who retained his seat upon the bench
till his death in June, 1801. It is somewhat remarkable
that his two immediate predecessors
occupied the same seat for a period of ninety
years ; Lord Royston having been appointed a
judge in 1710, and Lord Tinwald in 1744. By
his wife, Lady Grace Stuart, daughter of John
third Earl of Bute, he had several sons, all of whom
pre-deceased him. The second of these w+s the
The memory of the early friendships he formed
with the “ select society ’’ of Edinburgh, including
Darid Hume, Robertson, Adam Smith, and Blair,
he cherished with unceasing fondness. ‘‘ His
ambition was great,” says Sir Egerton Bridges,
“and his desire of oflice unlimited. He could
argue with great ingenuity on either side, so that
it was difficult to anticipate his future by his past
opinions.” He died of an apoplectic fit in 1805~
THE EARL OF SELKIRK’S HOUSE, HYNDFORD’S CLOSE (south W-#).
(From fke Engraviwin Sir Wa&rScotfs “Rrd‘axntki,“ byfirmission of Messn. A. and C. Black.)](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p093.gif "Volume 2 Page 273")
... Street.] THE EARL OF ROSSLYN. 273
worn-out with the fatigues of a long and active.
career, he retired from ...
Vol. 2 p. 273 (Rel. 1.66)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith
chapel of St. Jamey at Newhaven, belonged to
the preceptory at Leith; and also ...
Vol. 6 p. 216 (Rel. 1.58)
![Liberton] ST. KATHERINE’S WELL 3 29
when Cromwell’s soldiers not only defaced it, but
almost totally destroyed it. It was repaired after
the Restoration, Hard by this well,” he continues,
“a chapel was erected and dedicated to St. Margaret.
St Katherine was buried in the chapel, and the
dists not one suits the epoch ofSt. Margaret of Scotland,
and St. Katherine of Sienna, with whom it is
rather identified, was born in 1347. The probability
is, that a woman named Katherine brought the
oil from the tomb of St. Katherine of Alexandria,
LIljERTON TOWER.
place where her bones lie is still pointed out, and
it was observed that he who pulled it down never
prospered. The ground around it was consecrated
at Mount Sinai, and dying here was locally canonised
as a saint by name or reputation.
The following is the chemical analysis of the - - -
for burying, and it was considered the most ancient
place of worship in the pariSh. After the nunnery
at the Sciennes was founded, the nuns there made
an annual procession to this chapel and well in
honour of St. Katherine.”
Unfortunately for this popular legend, of five St.
Katherines whose memoirs are given by the Bollan-
138
-
water by Dr. George Wilson, F.S.A., as given in
Daniel Wson’s “ Memorials” “ The water from
St. Katherhe’s Well contains, after filtration, in
each imperial gallon, 28.11 grs of solid matter,
of which 8-45 grs consists of soluble sulphates
and chlorides of the earths and alkalies, and
19-66 g s . of insoluble calcareous carkonates.”](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p147.gif "Volume 6 Page 328")
... ST. KATHERINE’S WELL 3 29
when Cromwell’s soldiers not only defaced it, but
almost totally destroyed ...
Vol. 6 p. 328 (Rel. 1.42)
![North Bridge.] LADY GLENORCHY. 361
they dispensed with the ‘moderation of the call,’
a form about which they stickle zealously, if by it
they could get a minister presented by the legal
patron to be rejected; while they did not insist
upon the stipend being properly secured ; while
they agreed to permit Lady Glenorchy to dispose
without control, upon those pious offerings which
should have been applied towards the support of
the chanty workhouse; while they, in fact, eluded
that right of patronage over all churches in this city,
the chapel to all the privileges it had enjoyed
by the countenance and protection of the
Presbytery.
In 1776 Lady Glenorchy invited Dr. Thomas
Snell Jones, a Wesleyan Methodist, to accept the
charge of her chapel, and after being ordained to
the office of pastor by the Scottish Presbytery of
London he became settled as incumbent on the
25th of July, 1779, and from that date continued
to labour as such, until about three years before his
holding communion with the Established ministers,
which is vested in the magistrates of Edinburgh ;
and while they had no powver to depose from the
benefice in this chapel the minister installed by
them in case of his errors in life or doctrine !”
To avoid unpleasantness, Mr. Balfour, like Mr.
Grove, declined the charge.
It was now that the matter came before the
Synod, which not only gave judgment in the
matter, but forbade all ministers or probationers
within their bounds to preach in this unlucky
chapel, or to employ the minister of it in any
capacity. From this sentence the Presbytery of
Edinburgh appealed to the next General Assembly
of the Church, which reversed it, and restored
46
death, which occurred on the 3rd of March, 1837,
a period of nearly fiRyeight years.
He preached the funeral sermon on the demise
of Lady Glenorchy on the 17th July, 1786, in
her forty-fourth year. She was buried, by her
own desire, in avault in the centre of the chapel
By a settlement made some time before her death,
she endowed the latter with a school which wac
built near it. Therein, a hundred poor children
were taught to read and write. It was managed
by trustees, with instructions which secure its perpetuity.
Lady Glenorchy’s Free Church schooI is
now at Greenside.
In I 792 Dr. Jones had as a colleague, Dr. Greville
Ewing, afterwards editor of 2’’ Missionary](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p181.gif "Volume 2 Page 361")
... Bridge.] LADY GLENORCHY. 361
they dispensed with the ‘moderation of the call,’
a form about which they ...
Vol. 2 p. 361 (Rel. 1.31)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH .
~
PACE
Leith Roads. 1824 . . . . . . . 276
Tlu East and West Piers. Leith . . To ...
Vol. 6 p. 402 (Rel. 1.3)
![Pottobello.] CHURCHES AND CHAPELS. I47
burgh, Portobello returns one member to the
House of Commons.
The Established parish church was built in
1810 as a chapel of ease, at the cost of only
A2,650, but was enlarged in 1815. The Relief
Chapel, belonging to a congregation formed in
1834, was built in 1825, and purchased in the
former-named year by the minister, the Rev. David
Crawford. St. John’s Catholic chapel (once Episcopal)
in Brighton Place, was originally in 1826 a
school is situated in the Niddry Road, about
half a mile from the centre of the town, and was
erected in 1875-6 at the cost of L7,ooo. It is a
handsome edifice in the collegiate style for the
accommodation of about 600 scholars.
In form Portobello is partially compact or continuous.
Its entire length is traversed by the High
.Street (or line of the old Musselburgh Road), is
called at its north-west end and for the remaining
part Abercorn Street; and what-were the town an
PLAN OF PORTOBELLO.
villa, purchased in 1834 by the Bishop of Edinburgh
for A600. The United Secession chapel is of
recent erection, and belongs to a congregation
formed in 1834. The Independent chapel was
built in 1835, and belongs to the congregation
which erected it. St. Mark’s Episcopal chapel is
private property, and used to be rented at A40
yearly by the congregation, which was established
in 1825. It was consecrated by Bishop Sandford
in 1828. Another church, with a fine spire, has
recently been erected in the High Street, for
a congregation of United Presbyterians. A Free
church stands at the east end of the main street.
It was erected in 1876-7, and is a handsome
Gothic edifice with a massive tower. A public
old one and a marketing community-would be
the Cross, is a point at which the main thoroughfare
is divided into two parts, and where Bathgate
goes off to the sea, and Brighton Place towards
Duddingston.
The suite of hot and cold salt-water baths was
erected in 1806 at the cost of A4,000, and overlooks
the beach, between the foot of Bath Street
and that of Regent Street.
Much enlargement of the town eastward of the
railway station, and even past Joppa, to comprise
a crescent, terraces, and lines of villas, was planned
in the spring of 1876, and a projection of the new
Marine Parade, which is 26 feet wide, was planned
300 yards eastward about the same time. At right](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p158.gif "Volume 5 Page 147")
... CHURCHES AND CHAPELS. I47
burgh, Portobello returns one member to the
House of Commons.
The ...
Vol. 5 p. 147 (Rel. 1.27)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Craigmillar.
CRAIGMILLAR CASTLE.
I, The Hall ; 2, The Keep ; 3. Queen Mary's Tree ; 4, ...
Vol. 5 p. 60 (Rel. 1.24)
... AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Newhaven. ST.JAMES’S CHAPEL. 297
a manufactory of ropes and cables as having existed
in ...
Vol. 6 p. 297 (Rel. 1.13)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. frhe Cowgate.
The skinners would seem to have been created
into a corporation in 1474, ...
Vol. 4 p. 264 (Rel. 1.12)
... Secession congregation. It was then seated
for 1,792, with a stipend of LZIO and LIZ allowance
for ...
Vol. 4 p. 249 (Rel. 1.11)
... Giles’s Churchyard.
INTERIOR OF THE HIGH CHURCH, ST. GILES’S.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF ST. ...
Vol. 1 p. 148 (Rel. 1.1)
... 48 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. LCowgate.
the historian) became senior minister of the Cowgate
chapel.
One of his ...
Vol. 4 p. 248 (Rel. 1.08)
... end we might pass to Heaven with all this
gear! But fie on the knave Death !-that will
come whether ye will ...
Vol. 3 p. 68 (Rel. 1.04)
... ’ OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
remainder of the structure cannot be earlier than
the close of the sixteenth ...
Vol. 6 p. 252 (Rel. 1.04)
![High Street.] DR. CULLEN. 271 -
it jure tan‘io hyfotheca till he was paid the price
of it.”
The same house was, in the succeeding century,
occupied by Dr. William Cullen, the eminent
physician; while Lord Hailes lived in the more
ancient lodging in the south portion of the Mint,
prior to his removal to the modern house which
he built for himself in New Street, Canongate.
William Cullen was born in Lanarkshire, in
1710, and after passing in medicine at Glasgow,
made several voyages as surgeon of a merchantman
between London and the Antilles; but tiring of
thesea, he took a country practice at Hamilton,
and his luckily curing the duke of that name of an
illness, secured him a patronage for the future, and
after various changes, in 1756, on the death of Dr.
Plummer, he took the vacant chair of chemistry
in the University of Edinburgh. On the death
of Dr. Piston he succeeded him as lecturer in
materia medica, and three years afterwards resigned
the chair of chemistry to his own pupil,
Dr. Black, on being appointed professor of the
theory of medicine.
As a lecturer Dr. Cullen exercisedagreat influence
over the state of opinion relative to the science
of medicine, and successfully combated the specious
doctrines of Boerhaave depending on the
humoral pathology ; his own system was founded
on the enlarged view of the principles of Frederick
Hoffnian. The mere enumeration of his works on
medicine would fill a page, but most of them were
translated into nearly every European language.
. He continued his practice as a physician as well as
his medical lectures till a few months before his
death, when the infirmities of age induced him to
resign his professorship, and one of many addresses
he received on that occasion was the following :-
“ On the 8th of January, 1790, the Lord Provost,
magistrates, and Council of Edinburgh, voted a
piece of plate of fifty guineas of value to Dr. Cullen,
as a testimony of their respect for his distinguished
merits and abilities and his eminent services to the
university during the period of thirty-four years,
in which he has held an academical chair. On the
plate was engraved an inscription expressive of the
high sense the magistrates, as patrons of the university,
had of the merit of the Professor, and of
their esteem and regard.”
Most honourable to him also were the resolutions
passed on the 27th of January by the entire
Senatus Academicus ; but he did not survive those
honours long, as he died at his house in the Mint,
on the 5th of February, 1790, in his eightieth year.
By his wife-a Miss Johnston, who died there in
1786-he had a numerous family. One of his
sons, Robert, entered at the Scottish Bar in 1764,
and distinguishing himself highly as a lawyer, was
raised to the bench in 1796, as Lord Cullen. He
cultivated elegant literature, and contributed several
papers of acknowledged talent to the Mirror and
Lounger; but it was chiefly in the art of conversation
that he shone. When a young man, and
resident with his father in the Mint Close, he was
famous for his power of mimicry. He was very
intimate with Dr. Robertson, the historian, then
Principal of the university.
“TO show that Robertson was not likely to be
imitated it may be mentioned from the report of a
gentleman who has often heard him making public
orations, that when the students observed him pause
for a word, and would themselves mentally supply
it they invariably found that the word which he did
use was different from that which they had hit upon.
Cullen, however, could imitate him to the life, either
in the more formal speeches, or in his ordinary discourse.
He would often, in entering a house which
the Principal was in the habit of visiting, assume
his voice in the lobby and stair, and when arrived
at the drawing-room door, astonish the family by
turning out to be-Bob Cullen.”
On the west side of the Mint were at one time
the residences of Lord Belhaven, the Countess of
Stair, Douglas of Cavers, and other distinguished
tenants, including Andrew Pnngle, raised to the
bench, as Lord Haining, in I 7 29. The main entrance
to these lodgings, like that on the south, was by a
stately flight of steps and a great doorway, furnished
with an enormous knocker, and a beautiful example
of its ancient predecessor, the nsp, or Scottish
tirling-pin.
The Edinhqh Courant of August 12,1708, has
the following strange announcement :-
‘I George Williamson, translator (i.e. cobbler) in
Edinburgh, commonly known by the name of Bowed
Geordie, who swims on face, back, or any posture,
forwards or backwards, and performs all the antics
that any swimmer can do, is willing to attend any
gentlemen and to teach them to swim, or perform
his antics for their divertisement : is to be found at
Luckie Reid’s, at the foot of Gray’s Close, on the
south side of the street, Edinburgh.”
Elphinstone’s Court, in the close adjoining the
Mint, was so namedfrom Sir James Elphinstone, who
built it in 1679, and from whom the loftytenement
therein passed to Sir Francis Scott of Thirlstane.
The latter sold it to Patrick Wedderburn, who
assumed the title of Lord Chesterhall on his elevation
to the bench in 1755. His son, Alexander
Wedderburc, afterwards Lord Loughborough, first
Earl of Rosslyn, and Lord High Chancellor of](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p091.gif "Volume 2 Page 271")
... Street.] DR. CULLEN. 271 -
it jure tan‘io hyfotheca till he was paid the price
of it.”
The same house was, ...
Vol. 2 p. 271 (Rel. 1.04)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [North Bridge
they occupied when obtained, that we are tempted to
conclude the ...
Vol. 2 p. 360 (Rel. 1.02)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Weat Port.
~~ ~
the dreadful Irish murders in 1828; but its repute
was very ...
Vol. 4 p. 224 (Rel. 0.99)
![The Saennes.] ST. KATHARINE’S CONVENT. 53
“Papingo,” makes Chastity flee for refuge to the
sisters of the Sciennes.
The convent was erected under a Bull of Pope
Lax., and also by a charter of James V. This
Bull informs us that the convent was created
hough the influence of the families of Seton,
Lord Seton, refusing all offers of mamage, became
a nun at the Sciennes, and dying in her seventyeighth
year, was buried there, according to the
history of her house.
The chapel of St. John the Eaptist became
that of the new convent, which, up to the middle
MR. DUNCAN MCLAREN. (Froma Pkofo~roph &y/. G. Tunny.)
Douglas of Glenbervie, and Lauder of the Bass,
the land being given by the venerable Sir John
Crawford. The first prioress was the widowed
Lady Seton ; “ ane nobill and wyse Ladye,” says
Sir Richard hlaitland, “sche gydit hir sonnis
leving quhill he was cumit to age, and thereafter
she passit and remainit at the place of Senis, on
the Borrow Mure.” There she died in 1558, and
was buried in the choir of Seton church, beside
her husband, whose body had been brought from
Flodden.
Katharine, second daughter of George, fourth
of the skteenth century, received various augmentations-
among others, a tenement in the Cowgate.
The nuns made annual processions to the altar
of St. Katharine in St. Margaret’s Chapel at Liberton;
and it was remarked, says- the editor of
ArcAauZqia Scutica, that the man who demolished
the latter never prospered after.
In 1541 the magistrates took in feu from the
nuns their arable land, lying outside the Greyfriars’
Port, and, curious to say, it is on a portion of this
that the new Convent of St. Katharine was founded,
about 1860. Within the grounds on the north side](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p064.gif "Volume 5 Page 53")
... Saennes.] ST. KATHARINE’S CONVENT. 53
“Papingo,” makes Chastity flee for refuge to the
sisters of the ...
Vol. 5 p. 53 (Rel. 0.98)
... past there, and how to betray his mistres;
for they could not chuse a more fitte man than
him to do such ...
Vol. 2 p. 261 (Rel. 0.96)
... ix
CHAPTER XLVII.
MOULTRAY'S HILL-HER MAJESTY'S GENERAL REGISTER HOUSE. PAGE
The Moultrays of that ...
Vol. 2 p. 391 (Rel. 0.94)
![Leith] ST. NINIAN’S CHAPEL 251
the eighty-seventh year of his age, and was able
to transact business until a very short time before
his death. He was succeeded in the baronetcy
by his eldest son, Sir Thomas Gladstone, of Fasque
and Balfour, M.P. for Queenborough and other
places successively in England.
Gladstone Place, near the Links, has been
so named in honour of this family.
From the top of the Sheriff Brae and Mill Lane,
Great Junction Street, a broad and spacious
thoroughfare, extends eastward for the distance of
two thousand feet to the foot of Leith Walk.
Here, on the south side, are the United Presbyterian
church, the neat Methodist chapel, and a
large and handsome edifice erected in 1839 as a
school, and liberally endowed by Dr. Bell, founder
of the Madras system of education, at a cost of
f;IO,OOO.
C H A P T E R X X V I I I ,
NORTH LEITH.
The Chapel and Church of St. NiniaPParish Created-Its Records-Rev. George Wishart-Rev. John Knox-Rev. Dr. Johnston-The Burial-
Ground-New North Leith ChurchlFree Church-Old Grammar SchoolXobourg Street-St. Nicholas Church-The Citadel-Its
Remains-Houses within k--Beach and Sands of North Leith-New Custom How-Shipping Inwards and Outwards.
ON crossing the river we find ourselves in North
Leith, which is thus described by Kincaid in
‘787 :-
“ With regard to North Leith, very little alteration
has taken place here for a century past. It consists
of one street running north-east from the bridge,
six hundred feet long, and about forty in breadth
where broadest. On each side are many narrow
lanesand closes, those on the south side leading
down to the carpenters’ yards by the side of the
river, and those on the north to the gardens belonging
to the inhabitants. From the bridge a
road leads to the citadel, in length 520 feet ; then
IOO feet west, and we enter the remains of the old
fortification, on the top of which a dwelling-house
is now erected. The buiIdings in this place are in
general very mean in their appearance, and inhabited
by peopIe who let rooms during the summer
season to persons who bathe in the salt water.”
One of the leading features of North Leith, when
viewed from any point of view, is the quaint spire
of its.old church, on the west bank of the river,
near the end of the upper drawbridge, abandoned
now to secular purposes, separated from its ancient
burying-ground (which still remains, With its many
tombstones, half sunk amid the long rank grass
of ages), and lifting its withered and storm-worn
outline, as if in deprecation of the squalor by which
it is surrounded, and the neglect and contumely
heaped on its venerable history.
North Leith, which contains the first, or original
docks, and anciently comprehended the citadel
and the chief seat of traffic, was long a congeries
of low, quaint-looking old houses, huddled
into groups or irregular lines, and straddling their
way amid nuisances in back and front, very much
the style of a Spanish or Portuguese town of the
present day; but since 1818 it has undergone great
and renovating changes, and, besides being disenambered
of the citadel and masses of crumbling
houses, it has some streets that may vie with the
second or third thoroughfares of Edinburgh.
As stated in our general history of Leith, Robert
Ballantyne, Abbot of Holyrood, towards the close
of the fifteenth century, built a handsome bridge
of three stone arches over the Water of Leith, to
connect the southern with the northern quarter of
the rising seaport, and so011 after its completion he
erected and endowed near its northern end a chapel,
dedicated to the honour of God, the Virgin Mary,
and St. Ninian, the apostle of Galloway, Having
considerable possessions in Leith, €he abbot a p
pointed two. chaplains to officiate in this chapel,
who were ta receive all the profits accruing from a
house which he had built at the southern end of
this bridge, with A4 yearly out of other tenements
he possessed in South Leith.
In addition to the offerings made in the chapel,
the tolls or duties accruing from this new bridge
were to be employed in its repair and that of the
chapel, but all surplus the charitable abbot ordained
was to be given to the poor; and this charter of
foundation was confirmed by James IV., of gallant
memory, on the 1st of January, 1493. (Maitland.)
This chapel was built with the full consent of
the Chapter of Holyrood, and with the approbation
of William, Archbishop of St Andrews ; and-as a.
dependency of the church of the Holy Crossthe
land whereon it stood is termed the Rudest&
in a charter of Queen Mary, dated 1569.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p070.gif "Volume 6 Page 251")
... ST. NINIAN’S CHAPEL 251
the eighty-seventh year of his age, and was able
to transact business until a very ...
Vol. 6 p. 251 (Rel. 0.92)
![Burghmuir.] ST. ROQUES CHAPEL. 47
Greenhill, whereon stood an old gable-ended and
gableted manor-house, on the site of which is now
the great square modem mansion which bears its
name. In a street here, called Greenhill Gardens,
there stands a remarkable parterre, or open burialplace,
wherein lie the remains of more than one proprietor
of the estate. A tomb bears the initials
J. L. and E. R., being those of “John Livingstone
and Elizabeth Rig, his spouse,” who acquired
the lands of Greenhill in 1636 ; and the adjacent
thoroughbre, named Chamberlain Road, is so
called from an official of the city, named Fairholme,
who is also buried there.
A dispute-Temple and Halliday with Adam
Cairns of Greenhill -is reported before the
lords in 1706, concerning a tenement in the
Lawnmarket, which would seem to have been
“spoiled and deteriorated” in the fire of 1701.
(Fountainhall.)
In 1741 Mr. Thomas Fairholme, merchant in
Edinburgh, married Miss Warrender, daughter of
Sir George Warrender of Bruntsfield, and his death
at Greenhill is reported in the Scuts Magazine for
1771. There was a tenement called Fairholme
Land in the High Street, immediately adjoinicg
the Royal Exchange on the east, as appears from
the Scuts Magazine of 1754, probab!y erected by
Bailie Fairholme, a magistrate in the time of
Charles 11.
Kay gives us a portrait of George Fairholme of
Greenhill (and of Green-know, Berwickshire), who,
with his younger brother, William of Chapel, had
long resided in Holland, where they became
wealthy bankers, and where the former cultivated
a natural taste for the fine arts, and in after life
became celebrated as a judicious collector of
pictures, and of etchings by Rembrandt, all of
which became the property of his nephew, Adam
Fairholme of Chapel, Berwickshire. He died in
his seventieth year, in 1800, and was interred in
the family burying-place at Greenhill.
In a disposition of the lands of the latter estate
by George Fairholme, in favour of Thomas Wright,
dated 16th, and recorded 18th February, 1790, in
the sheriffs’ books at Edinburgh, the preservation of
the old family tomb, which forms so singular a
feature in a modern street, is thus provided for :-
“ Reserving nevertheless to me the liberty and
privilege of burying the dead of my own family,
and such of my relations to whom I, during my
own lifetime, shall communicate such privilege, in
the burial-place built upon the said lands, and
‘Teserving likewise access to me and my heirs to
repair the said burial-place from time to time, as we
shall think proper.”
’ Greenhill became lztterly the property of the
Stuart-Forbeses of Pitsligo, baronets.
After passing the old mansion named East
Morningside House, the White House Loan joins
at right angles the ancient thoroughfare named the
Grange Loan, which led of old from the Linton
Road to St. Giles’s Grange, and latterly the Causewayside.
On the south side of it a modern villa takes its
name of St. Roque from an ancient chapel which
stood there, and the ruins of which were extant
within the memory of many of the last generation.
The chapels of St. Roque and St. John, on the
Burghmuir, were both dependencies of St. Cuthbert’s
Church. The historian of the latter absurdly
conceives it to have been named from a French
ambassador, Lecroc, who was in Scotland in 1567.
The date of its foundation is involved in obscurity;
but entries occur in the Treasurer‘s Accounts for
1507, when on St. Roque’s Day (15th August) James
IV. made an offering of thirteen shillings. “ That
this refers to the chapel on the Burghmuir is
proved,” says Wilson, “ by the evidence of two
charters signed by the king at Edinburgh on the
same day.”
Arnot gives a view of the chapel from the northeast,
showing the remains of a large pointed window,
that had once been filled in with Gothic tracery;
and states that it is owing “to the superstitious
awe of the people that one stone of this chapel has
been left upon another-a superstition which, had
it been more constant in its operations, might have
checked the tearing zeal of reformation. About
thirty years ago the proprietor of the ground
employed masons to pull down the walls of the
chape! ; the scaffolding gave way ; the tradesmen
were killed. The accident was looked upon as a
judgment against those who were demolishing thk
house of God. No entreaties nor bribes by the
proprietor could prevail upon tradesmen to accomplish
its demolition.”
It was a belief of old that St. Roque’s intercession
could protect all from pestilence, as he was
distinguished for his piety and labours during a
plague in Italy in 1348. Thus Sir David Lindesay
says of-
1‘- Superstitious pilgramages
To monie divers imagis ;
Sum to Sanct Roche with diligence,
To saif them from the pestilence.”
Thus it is, in accordance with the attributes ascribed
in Church legends to St. Roque, that we find
his chapel constantly resorted to by the victims of
the plague encamped on the Burghmuir, during the
prevalence of that scourge in the sixteenth century.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p058.gif "Volume 5 Page 47")
... ST. ROQUES CHAPEL. 47
Greenhill, whereon stood an old gable-ended and
gableted manor-house, on the ...
Vol. 5 p. 47 (Rel. 0.89)
... Cowgate. 262 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
Chapel, and quhat expensis he makis thaeron
sal be allowit to him in his ...
Vol. 4 p. 262 (Rel. 0.88)
... --
CHAPTER I
THE KIRK OF ST. MARY-IN-THE-FIELDS.
YhCD
Memorabilia of the Edifice-Its ...
Vol. 6 p. 393 (Rel. 0.87)
![High Street.] ST. MARY’S CHA4PEL. 247
made out by Latinising his name into Nz’choZaus
Ea’wfirtus. It occupied the western side of Lockhart’s
Court, and was accessible only by a deep
archway.
In an Act passed in 158r, ‘<Anent the Cuinzie,”
Alexander Clark of Balbirnie, Provost of Edinburgh,
and Nicol Edward, whose houses were both
in this wynd, are mentioned with others. The
latter appears in 1585 in the Parliament as Commissary
for Edinburgh, together with Michael Gilbert;
and in 1587 he appears again in an Act of
Parliament in favour of the Flemish craftsmen,
whom James VI. was desirous of encouraging ; but,
!est they should produce inferior work at Scottish
prices, his Majesty, with the advice of Council,
hes appointit, constitute, and ordainit, ane honest
and discreit man, Nicolas Uduart, burgess of Edinburgh,
to be visitor and overseer of the said craftsmen’s
hail warks, steiks, and pieces . . . the said
Nicolas sal have sic dueties as is contenit within
the buke, as is commonly usit to be payit therfore
in Flanderis, Holland, or Ingland ; I’ in virtue
of all of which Nicholas was freed froin all watching,
warding, and all charges and impositions.
In that court dwelt, in 17534761, George Lockhart
of Carnwath One of the thirteen roonis in his
house contained a mantelpiece of singular magnificence,
that reached the lofty ceiling; but the
house had a peculiar accessory, in the shape of (‘ a
profound dungeon, which was only accessible by a
secret trapdoor, opening through the floor of a
small closet, the most remote of a suite of rooms
extending along the south and west sides of the
court. Perhaps at a time when to be rich was
neither so common nor so safe as now, Provost
Edward might conceal his hoards in this massy
more.”
The north side of Lockhart’s Court was long
occupied by the family of Bruce of Kinnaird, the
celebrated traveller.
In Niddry‘s Wynd, a little below Provost Edward’s
house on the opposite side, stood St.
Mary’s Chapel, dedicated to God and the Blessed
Virgin Mary, according to Arnot, in 1505. Its
foundress was Elizabeth, daughter of James, Lord
Livingstone, Great Chamberlain of Scotland, and
Countess of Ross-then widow of John Earl of
Ross and Lord of the Isles, who, undeterred by
the miserable fate of his father, drew on him, by
his treasonable practices, the just vengeance of
James III., and died in 1498.
Colville of Easter U‘emyss, and afterwards
Richardson of Smeaton, became proprietors and
patrons of this religious foundation ; and about
the year 1600, James Chaliners, a macer before the
Court of Session, acquired a right to the chapel,
and in 1618 the Corporations of Wrights and
Masons, known by the name of the United Incorporations
of Mary’s Chapel, purchased this subject,
“where they still possess, and where they hold
meetings,” says Arnot, writing in 1779.
In the CaZedonian Mercury for 1736 we read
that on St. Andrew’s Day the masters and wardens
of forty masonic lodges met in St. Mary’s Chapel,
and unanimously elected as their grand-master
William Sinclair of Roslin, the representative of
an ancient though reduced family, connected for
several generations with Scottish freemasonry.
For this ancient chapel a modern edifice was
substituted, long before the demolition of Niddry’s
Wynd; but the masonic lodge of Mary’s Chapel
still exists, and we believe holds its meetings
there.
Religious services were last conducted in the
new edifice when Viscountess Glenorchy hired it.
She was zealous in the cause of religion, and conceived
a plan of having a place of worship in
which ministers of every orthodox denomination
might preach; and for this purpose she had St.
Mary’s Chapel opened on Wednesday, the 7th
March, 1770, by the Rev. Mr. Middleton, the
minister of a small Episcopal chapel at Dalkeith ;
but she failed to secure the ministrations of any
clergyman of the Established Church, though in
1779 the Rev. William Logan, of South Leith, a
poet of some eminence in his time, gave his course
of lectures on the philosophy of history in the
chapel, prior to offering himself as a candidate for
the chair of civil history in the University.
On the east side of Niddry’s Wynd, nearly opp0-
site to Lockhart’s Court, was a handsome house,
which early in the eighteenth century was inhabited
by the Hon. James Erskine, a senator, better
known by his legal and territorial appellation of
Lord Grange, brother of John Earl of Mar, who
led’ the great rising in 1715 on behalf of the
Stuarts. He was born in 1679, and was called to
the Scottish bar in 1705. He took no share in
the Jacobite enterprise which led to the forfeiture
of his brother, and the loss, ultimately of
the last remains of the once great inheritance in
the north from which the ancient family took its
name.
He affected to be a zealous Presbyterian and
adherent of the House of Hanover, and as such he
figures prominently in the ‘‘ Diary” of the indus .
trious \ffodrow, supplying that writer with many
shreds of the Court gossip, which he loved so
dearly ; but Lord Grange is chiefly remembered for
the romantic story of his wife, which has long filled](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p067.gif "Volume 2 Page 247")
... Street.] ST. MARY’S CHA4PEL. 247
made out by Latinising his name into Nz’choZaus
Ea’wfirtus. It occupied the ...
Vol. 2 p. 247 (Rel. 0.87)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
sion opposite to the church of St. Ninian, but is
now rebuilt into a modern ...
Vol. 6 p. 256 (Rel. 0.84)
![Corstorphine.] CORSTORPHINE CHURCH. 115
was no side road into which he could have disappeared.
He returned home perplexed by the
oddness of the circumstance, when the first thing
he learned was, that during his absence this friend
had been killed by his horse falling in the Candlemakers
Row.’’
The church of Corstorphine is one of the most
interesting old edifices in the Lothians. It has
been generally supposed, says a writer, that Scotland,
while possessed of great and grand remains
of Gothic architecture, is deficient in those antique
rural village churches, whose square towers and
ivied buttresses so harmonise with the soft landscape
scenery of England, and that their place is
too often occupied by the hideous barn-like structure
of times subsequent to the Reformation. But
among the retiring niinor beauties of Gothic architecture
in Scotland, one of the principal is the
picturesque little church of Corstorphine.
It is a plain edifice of mixed date, says Billings
in his ‘‘ Antiquities,” the period of the Decorated
Gothic predominating. It is in the form of a cross,
with an additional transept on one of the sides;
but some irregularities in the height and character
of the different parts make them seem asif they
were irregularly clustered together without design.
A portion of the roof is still covered with old-&ey
flagstone. A small square belfry-tower at the west
end is surmounted by a short octagonal spire, the
ornate string’ mouldings on which suggest an idea
of the papal tiara
As the church of the parish, it is kept in tolerably
decent order, and it is truly amazing how it
escaped the destructive fury of the Reformers.
This edifice was not the original parish church,
which stood near it, but a separate establishment,
founded and richly endowed by the pious enthusiasm
of the ancient family whose tombs it contains,
and whose once great castle adjoined it.
Notices have been found of a chapel attached to
the manor of Corstorphine, but subordinate to the
church of St. Cuthbert, so far back as 1128, and
this chapel became the old parish church referred
to. Thus, in the Holyrood charter of King DavidI.,
1143-7, he grants to the monks there the two
chapels which pertain to the church of St. Cuthbert,
‘‘ to wit, Crostorfin, with two oxgates and six
acres of land, and the chapel of Libertun with two
oxgates of land.”
In the immediate vicinity of that very ancient
chapel there was founded ancther chapel towards
the end of the fourteenth century, by Sir Adam
Forrester of Corstorphine; and that edifice is sup
posed to form a portion of the present existing
church, because after its erection no mention whatever
has been found of the second chapel as a
separate edifice.
.The building with which we have now to do
was founded in 1429, as an inscription on the wall
of the chancel, and other authorities, testify, by Sir
John Forrester of Corstorphine, Lord High Chamberlain
of Scotland in 1425, and dedicated to St.
John the Baptist, for a provost, five prebendaries,
and two singing boys. It was a collegiate church,
to which belonged those of Corstorphine, Dalmahoy,
Hatton, Cramond, Colinton, &c. The tiends
of Ratho, and half of those of Adderton and Upper
Gogar, were appropriated to the revenues of this
college.
“Sir John consigned the annual rents of one hundred
and twenty ducats in gold to the church,” says
the author of the “New Statistical Account,” “on
condition that he and his successors should have the
patronage of the appointments, and on the understanding
that if the kirk of Ratho were united to
the provostry, other four or five prebendaries
should be added to the establishment, and maintained
out of the fruits of the benefice of Ratho.
Pope Eugenius IV. sanctioned this foundation by a
bull, in which he directed the Abbot of Holyroodhouse,
a$ his Apostolic Vicar, to ascertain whether
the foundation and consignation had been made in
terms of the original grant, and on being satisfied
on these points, to unite and incorporate the church
of Ratho with its rights, emoluments, and pertinents
to the college for ever.”
The first provost of this establishment was
Nicholas Bannatyne, who died there in 1470, and
was buried in the church, where his epitaph still
remains.
When Dunbar wrote his beautiful ‘ I Lament for
the Makaris,” he embalmed among the last Scottish
poets of his time, as taken by Death, “ the gentle
Roull of Corstorphine,” one of the first provosts of
the church-
‘( He has tane Rod1 of Aberdeen,
A d gentle Rod1 of Corstorphine ;
Twa better fellows did nae man see :
Timor mortis conturbat me.”
There was, says the “ The Book of Bon Accord,”
a Thomas Roull, who was Provost of Aberdeen in
1416, and it is conjectured that the baid was of the
same family ; but whatever the works of the latter
were, nothing is known of him now, save his name,
as recorded by Dunbar.
In the year 1475, Hugh Bar, a burgess of Edinburgh,
founded an additional chaplaincy in this
then much-favoured church. “ The chaplain, in
addition to the performance of daily masses for
the souls of the king andqueen, the lords of the](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p126.gif "Volume 5 Page 115")
... CORSTORPHINE CHURCH. 115
was no side road into which he could have disappeared.
He returned home ...
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... AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Buccleuch Place. 346
way, and from thence along the Gibbet Street
northward, to where it ...
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... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
PAGE
The First Trades Maiden Hospital, 1830 . . . 273
TheIndustrialMuseum . , . ...
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... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Sciennes.
of hermit, or chaplain, resided ; and the charter of
foundation mentions ...
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... ST. LEONARD’S CHAPEL. 383
entirely to act as barbers. In consequence, the
council, on the 26th July, ...
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... Strathearn, the Rosabelle of Scott’s beautiful
ballad, which tells us-
“ There are twenty of Roslin’s barons ...
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