![Cassell's Old and New Edinburgh
Its History, its People, and its Places.
Illustrated by numerous Engravings.
Division I.
Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co.:
London, Paris & New York.
[All rights reserved.]](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p012.gif "Volume 1 Page xii")
... Old and New Edinburgh
Its History, its People, and its Places.
Illustrated by numerous ...
Vol. 1 p. xii (Rel. 4.23)
... AND NEW EDINBURGH. cst. Andrew Sq-
ST. ANDREW SQUARE,
The Royal Eank of Scotland.
The Scottish Provident ...
Vol. 3 p. 172 (Rel. 2.41)
... sixty feet wide, bordering the Albert and
other docks, and, in addition to the edifices
specially mentioned, ...
Vol. 6 p. 245 (Rel. 1.61)
![Cowgate.] ANCIENT
Both these relics are now preserved in the
Museum of Antiquities.
An act of the Privy Council in 1616 describes
Edinburgh as infested by strong and idle vagabonds,
having their resorts “in some parts of the Cowgate,
Canongate, Potterrow, West Port, &c., where
they ordinarily convene every night, and pass their
time in all kind of not and filthy lechery, to the
offence and displeasure of God,” lying all day on
CLOSES. 241
Close in 1514; Todrig’s Wynd is mentioned in
1456, when Patrick Donald granted two merks
yearly from his tenement therein for repairing the
altar of St. Hubert, and in 1500 a bailie named
Todrig, was assaulted with drawn swords in his
own house by two men, who were taken to the Tron,
and had their hands stricken through.
Carrubber‘s Close was probably named from
“ William of Caribris,” one of the three bailies in
THE COWGATE, FROM THE PORT TO COLLEGE WYND, 1646. ( A f b cfdsthumay.)
17. The Cowgate ; 44, Peebles Wynd ; 45, Merlin’s Wynd ; 46, Niddry’s Wynd ; 47, Dickson’s Close : 50, Gnfs Wynd ; 5% St Mad5 w p d ;
h St Mary’s Wpd Suburbs ; I; Cov&e Port ; g, Si M a j s Wynd Port ; 53, The College Wynd ; 54. Robertson’s Wynd ; 55. High
School Wynd ; q, Lady Yeser‘s Kirk ; .r, The High School ; w, The College ; y, S i M;uy of the Fields, or the Kirk of Fields ; 25, The
Town Wall.
the causeway, extorting alms with “ shameful exclamations,”
to such an extent that passengers could
neither walk nor confer in the streets without being
impeded and pestered by them ; hence the magistrates
gave orders to expel them wholesale from the
city and keep it clear of them.
The Burgh Records throw some light on the
names of certain of the oldest closes-those running
between the central street and the Cowgate, as being
the residences or erections of old and influential
citizens. Thus Niddry’s Wynd is doubtless connected
with Robert Niddry, a magistrate in 1437 ;
Cant’s Close with Adam Cant, who was Dean of
Guild in 1450, though it is called Alexander Cant’s
79
1454, as doubtless Con’s Close was from John Con,
a wealthy flesher of 1508. William Foular’s Close
is mentioned in 1521, when Bessie Symourtoun
is ordered to be burned there on the cheeks and
banished for passing gear infected with the pest ;
and Mauchan’s Close was no doubt connected
with the name of John Mauchane, one of the bailies
in 1523; Lord Eorthwick’s Close is frequently
mentioned before 1530, and Francis Bell’s Close
occurs in the City Treasurer‘s Accounts, under date
1554. Liberton’s Wynd is mentioned in a charter
by James 111. in 1474, and the old protocol books of
the city refer to it frequently in the twelve years
preceding Flodden ; William Liberton’s heirs are](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p061.gif "Volume 4 Page 241")
... ANCIENT
Both these relics are now preserved in the
Museum of Antiquities.
An act of the Privy Council ...
Vol. 4 p. 241 (Rel. 1.59)
... I.
THE CANONGATE.
@AGE
I& Origin-Songs concerning it-Reaords-Market Cross-St. John's and ...
Vol. 4 p. 385 (Rel. 1.55)
... Lawnmarket.
ninety-nine, Portraits of Anderson and his daughter,
in Vandyke costumes, the former with a ...
Vol. 1 p. 96 (Rel. 1.48)
![Parliament Close.] ‘‘ THE BEACON.” I81
pied by John Kay, the well-known engraver and
caricaturist, whose “Portraits” of old Edinburgh
characters certainly form, with their biographies,
perhaps the most unique collection in Europe.
During his whole career he occupied the same small
print-shop ; the solitary window was filled with his
own etchings, which amounted to nearly go0 in
pumber. He had originally been a barber, but
after 1785 devoted himself solely to the art of
etching and miniature painting. He died in 1830,
at No. 227, High Street, in his eighty-fourth year.
-
menced business in the Parliament Close, where,
in 1783, he started a new monthly miscellany,
named 2% Edinburgh Magazine, illustratec3 with
engravings, the principal papers in which were
articles on Scottish antiquities, the production ot
his own pen. He was also the projector of the
Edivbu~g8 iYeraZd, which, however, was soon discontinued.
Relinquishing his establishment in
the Close about 1792, he devoted himself to a
literary life in London j but, after a somewhat
chequered career, returned to Edinburgh, where
about the year 1636. At their base was an ancient
public well. The Edinburgh WeekZy Juurnal for
1821 mentions that a man fell over “the stairs which
lead from the Kirkheugh to the Parliament stairs;”
and the sameJoumaC for 1828 states that “workmen
are engaged in taking down the large double
tenement in the Cowgate, at the back of the Parliament
House, called Henderson’s Stairs, part of
which, it will be remembered, fell last summer, and
which had been condemned sixty years ago,” in
1768.
In 1781 James Sibbald, an eminent bookseller
and literary antiquarian, the son of a Roxburgh
farmer, who came to Edinburgh with LIOO in his
pocket, after being employed in the shop of Elliot
the publisher, purchased the old circulating library
that had belonged to Allan Ramsay, and cornliament
Close, or
Square as it was
then becoming more
generally named, was
the scene of an unseemly
literary fracas,
arising from political
hatred and circumstances,
by which one
life was ultimately
lost, and which might
have imperilled even
that of Sir Walter
Scott. A weekly
paper, called the
Beacon, was established
in Edinburgh,
the avowed object of
which was the support
of the then Government,
but which
devoted its colun~ns
the leading Whig nobles and gentlemen of
Scotland. This system of personal abuse gave
rise to several actions at law, and on the 15th
of August a rencontre took place between
James Stuart of Dunearn, who conceived his
honour and character impugned in an article which
he traced to Duncan Stevenson, the printer of the
paper, in the Parliament Square. Stuart, with a
horsewhip, lashed the latter, who was not slow in
retaliating with a stout cane. “The parties were
speedily separated,” says the Scots Magazine for
1816, “and Mr. Stevenson, in the course of the
day, demanded from Mr. Stuart the satisfaction
customary in such cases. This was refused by
Mr, Stuart, on the ground that, ‘as the servile
instrument of a partnership of slander,’ he was unworthy
of receiving the satisfaction of a gentleman.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p193.gif "Volume 1 Page 181")
... Close.] ‘‘ THE BEACON.” I81
pied by John Kay, the well-known engraver and
caricaturist, whose ...
Vol. 1 p. 181 (Rel. 1.37)
... Street. NIDDRY’S WYND. 245
to protect the powdered head of loftily-dressed
hair, when walking or driving, ...
Vol. 2 p. 245 (Rel. 1.28)
... and Dewar‘s Closes on the north side of
the market, were all doomed to destruction by the
late City ...
Vol. 4 p. 236 (Rel. 1.12)
... Castle Hill.
well-known in his time as a man of taste, and the
patron of Runciman the artist.
mond, of ...
Vol. 1 p. 92 (Rel. 1.06)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street.
style, with many ornate gables, dormer windows,
%ut was a second time ...
Vol. 2 p. 282 (Rel. 1.05)
![The Great Fire.] THE GREAT FIRE. 189
Assemlily Close, then occupied as a workshop by
Kirkwood, a well-known engraver. The engines
came promptly enough ; but, from some unknown
cause, an hour elapsed before they were in working
order, and by that time the terrible element had
raged with such fierceness and rapidity that, by
eleven o'clock the upper portion of this tenement,
including six storeys, forming the eastern 'division
of a uniform pile of buildings, was one mass of
roaring flames, which, as the breeze was from the
to their elevated position, or the roar of the gathering
conflagration, the shouts of the crowd, and
wailing of women and children, their cries were
unheard for a time, until it was too late. The
whole tenement was lost, together with extensive
ranges of buildings in the old Fish Market and
Assembly Closes, to -which it was the means of
communicating the flames.
While these tall and stately edifices were yielding
to destruction, the night grew calm and still, and
THE ROYAL EXCHANGE.
sooth-west, turned them, as they burst from the
gaping windows, in the direction of a house to the
eastward, the strong' gable of which saved it from
the destruction which seemed imminent.
Two tenements to the westward were less fortunate,
and as, from the narrowness of the ancient
close, it was impossible to work the engines, they
soon were involved in one frightful and appalling
blaze. Great fears mere now entertained for the
venerable Courant office; nor was it long before
the fire seized on its upper storey, at the very time
when some brave fellows got upon the roof of a
tenement to the westward, and shouted to the firemen
to give them a pipe, by which they could
piay upon the adjoining roof, But, owing either
I the sparks emitted by the flames shot upwards as if
spouted from a volcano, and descended like the
thickest drift or snow-storm, affecting the respiration
of all. A dusky, lurid red tinged the clouds,
and the glare shone on the Castle wdls, the
rocks of the Calton, the beetling crags, and all the
city spires. Scores of lofty chimneys, set on fire
by the falling sparks, added to the growing horror
of the scene ; and for a considerable time the Tron
Church was completely enveloped in this perilous
shower of embers.
About one in the morning of the 16th the alarm
of fire was given from a house directly oppoife to
the burning masses, and, though groundless, it
added to the deepening Consternation. Mean](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p201.gif "Volume 1 Page 189")
... Great Fire.] THE GREAT FIRE. 189
Assemlily Close, then occupied as a workshop by
Kirkwood, a well-known ...
Vol. 1 p. 189 (Rel. 1.02)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Burghmuir.
great forest of Drumsheugh, wherein the white.
bull, the Caledonian boar, ...
Vol. 5 p. 28 (Rel. 1.01)
... character of the place inust have been
destroyed. ‘‘ Queen Mary granted the gardens of
-the Greyfriars’ ...
Vol. 1 p. 158 (Rel. 0.98)
... THE CANONGATE THEATRE. 23
the morning;’’ and of the sanitary state of the
community in those days some ...
Vol. 3 p. 23 (Rel. 0.97)
![THE FREE CHURCH COLLEGE. 97 The Mound]
one persons ;61,ooo each, a sum which more than
sufficed to purchase the site of the college-the
old Guise Palace, with its adjacent closes-and to
erect the edifice, while others were built at
Glasgow and Aberdeen.
Plans by W. H. Playfair, architect, were prepared
and adopted, after a public competition had
been resorted to, and the new buildings were at
once proceeded with. The foundation stone was
iaid on the 4th of June, 1846, by Dr. Chalmers,
~ The stairs on the south side of the quadrangle
lead to the Free Assembly Hall, on the exact site
of the Guise Palace. It was erected from designs
by David Bryce, at a cost of A7,000, which was
collected by ladies alone belonging to the Free
Church throughout Scotland.
The structure was four years in completion, and
was opened on the 6th of November, 1850,under the
sanction of the Commission of the Free General
Assembly, by their moderator, Dr. N. Paterson,
LIBRARY OF THE FREE CHURCH COLLEGE. (Fwm o P/wtozm#h by G. W. Wi&on and Co.)
exactly one year previous to the day which saw his
remains consigned to the tomb. The ultimate cost
was ;646,506 8s. Iod., including the price of the
ground, Ero,ooo.
The buildings are in the English collegiate style,
combining the common Tudor with somd of the later
Gothic They form an open quadrangle (entered
by a handsome groined archway), 165 feet from
east to west and 177 from south to north, including
on the east the Free High Church. The edifice
has two square towers (having each four crocketed
pinnacles), IZI feet in height, buttressed at the
corners from base to summit. There is a third
tower, 95 feet in height. The college contains
seven great class-rooms, a senate hall, a students'
hall, and a library, the latter adorned with a
statue of Dr, Chalmers as Principal, by Steel
61
who delivered a sermon and also a special address
to the professors and students. Subsequently, this
inaugural sermon and the introductory lectures
delivered on the same occasion to their several
classes by Professors Cunningham, Buchanan,
Bannerman, Duncan, Black, Macdougal, Fraser,
and Fleming, were published in a volume, as a
record of that event.
The constitution of this college is the same as
that of the Free Church colleges elsewhere. The
Acts of Assembly provide for vesting college
property and funds, for the election of professors,
and for the general management and superintendence
of college business. The college buildings
are vested in trustees appointed by the Church.
A select committee is also appointed bp the
j General Assembly, consisting of " eleven ministers](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p109.gif "Volume 3 Page 97")
... FREE CHURCH COLLEGE. 97 The Mound]
one persons ;61,ooo each, a sum which more than
sufficed to purchase the ...
Vol. 3 p. 97 (Rel. 0.97)
![High Street.] BISHOP KENNEDY. 241
counsellor of James 11. and James 111. The
building indicated as having been his residence is
a large stone tenement of great antiquity on the
east side, having thereon a coat of arms and a
mitre, which were removed a few years ago ; and
our best antiquary asserts that ‘‘ the whole appearance
of the building is perfectly consistent with
the supposition” that it had been Bishop Kennedy’s
abode. “ The form and decorations of the
doorways all prove an early date ; while the large
“A large and convenient house, entering by a
close mostly paved with flagstones, on the north
side of the street near the Nether Bow, consisting
of eight rooms, painted last year, or papered, some
with Chinese paper ; a marble chimney-piece from
the ceiling in one, concaves and slabes (sic) two
other of the rooms ; the drawing-room elegantly
fitted up, painted, gilded, and carved in the newest
style, with light closets to all the bed-rooms and
other conveniences to the dining-room and parlour ;
HOUSE IN HIGH STREET WITH MEMORIAL WINDOW, I‘ HEAVE AWA, LADS, I’M NO DEID YET !”
and elegant mouldings of the windows, and the
massive appearance of the whole building, indicate
such magnificence as would well consort with the
dignity of the primacy at that early period.”
Bishop Kennedy, author of a history of his
own times, now lost, died in 1466, and was interred
at St. Andrews.
. Baron Grant’s and Bailie Grant’s Closes were
among the last alleys on this side, adjoining the
Nether Bow Port. An advertisement in the Edinburgh
Cvurani for 1761, in describing the house of
Mr. Grant (who was a Baron of the Exchequer
Court) as offered for sale, gives us a pretty accurate
idea of what a mansion in the Old Town was in
those days :-
31
wine cellar and large kitchen, a coal-fauld, fire-room
for servants, and larder; a hen-house and cribbs,
for feeding all sorts of fowls ; a house for a sedanchair;
a rack to contain 10 gross of bottles, all
built and slated; a garden extending down the
greatest part of Leith Wynd, planted with flowering
shrubs, and servitude for a separate entry to it,
passing by the gate of Lord Edgefield’s house.”
The garden referred to must have been bounded
by the massive portion of the eastern wall of the
city, which fell down about twenty years ago ; and
the Lord Edgefield, whose neighbour the Baron
had been, was Mr. Robert Pringle, who was raised
to the Bench in 1754, and, dying ten years after,
was succeeded by the well-known Lord Pitfour.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p061.gif "Volume 2 Page 241")
... Street.] BISHOP KENNEDY. 241
counsellor of James 11. and James 111. The
building indicated as having been ...
Vol. 2 p. 241 (Rel. 0.96)
... with other four in the angles. The tiar, or
bonnet, was of purple velvet; but, in 1685, it got a
.cap of ...
Vol. 1 p. 74 (Rel. 0.95)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Mound.
design, which shall consist of two departments : the
m e appropriated to ...
Vol. 3 p. 92 (Rel. 0.95)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street
On becoming provost, he was easily led by his
religious persuasion to ...
Vol. 2 p. 222 (Rel. 0.94)
... 26 ’ OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [PrinerSSma.
The tower, as originally designed, terminated in
an open lantern, but ...
Vol. 3 p. 126 (Rel. 0.88)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street.
before them with licht torches,” on which Powrie,
as if ...
Vol. 2 p. 264 (Rel. 0.79)
... edifice that forms the west side of Mylne’s
Court belongs to an earlier period, and had once
been the side of ...
Vol. 1 p. 97 (Rel. 0.78)
... .OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith
But this ancient alley is the earliest thoroughhre
in the seaport of which we ...
Vol. 6 p. 234 (Rel. 0.67)
... BANK OF SCOTLAND. 93 The Mound. J
whereof are to be applied for ever for the support of
decayed and ...
Vol. 3 p. 93 (Rel. 0.66)
![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. 0.65)
![94 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Mourd
of the sums set down in their respective subscriptions
towards carrying on the bank, and all and
every the persons subscribing and paying to. the
said stock as aforesaid shall be, and hereby are
declared to be, one body corporate and politic,
by the name and company of THE BANK OF
SCOTLAND,” etc.
The charter, while detailing minutely all that
the bank may do in the way of lending money and
giving laws for its internal government, fails to
define in any way the liability of the shareholders
to each other or to the public. For the space of
twenty-one years it was to be free from all public
burdens, and during that time all other persons in
the realm of Scotland are prohibited from setting
up any rival company.
To preclude the breaking of the bank contrary
to the object in view, it is declared that the sums
of the present subscriptions and shares may only
be conveyed and transmitted by the owners to
others who shall become partners in their place,
or by adjudication or other legal means. It is
also provided by the charter that aH foreigners on
acquiring the bank stock must become “ naturalised
Scotsmen, to all intents and! purposes whatsoever,”
a privilege that became abused, and was abolished
in 1822. The charter further ordains that no
member of the said company shall, upon any
“ pretence whatever, directly or indirectly, use,
exercise, or follow any other traffic or trade with
the said joint stock to be employed in the said
bank, or any part thereof, or profits arising therefrom,
excepting the trade of lending 2nd borrowing money
upon interest, and negotiating bills of exchange,
allenarly [i.e., these things only], and no other.”
By various subsequent statutes the capital of
this bank was increased till it stood nominally at
~1,500,000, a third of which has not been called ;
and by the Act 36 and 37 Victoria, cap. gg, further
powers to raise capital were granted, without the
Act being taken advantage of. The additional
amount authorised is ~3,000,000, which would
give a total capital of A~,~OO,OOO sterling.
The monopoly conferred on the bank by the
Parliament of Scotland was not renewed at the
expiry of the first twenty-one years; and on its
being found that banking business was on the
increase, another establishment, the Royal Bank
of Scotland, was chartered in 1727, and immediately
became the rival of its predecessor.
“It purchased up,” says Amot, “all the notes of
the Bank of Scotland that they (the directors)
could lay hands on, and caused such a run upon
this bank as reduced them to considerable difficulties.
To avoid such distresses for the future,
the Bank of Scotland, on the 29th of November,
1730, began to issue 6 5 notes, payable on demand,
or 65 2s. 6d. six months after their being presented
for payment, in the option of the bank.
On the 12th of December, 1732, they began to
issue AI notes with a similar clause.”
The other banking companies in Scotland found
it convenient to follow the example, and universally
framed their notes with these optional clauses.
They were issued for the most petty sums, and
were currently accepted in payment, insomuch
that notes for five shillings were perfectly common,
and silver was, in a manner, banished from
Scotland. To remedy these banking abuses, an
Act of the British Parliament was passed in 1765,
prohibiting all promissory notes payable to the
bearer under 61 sterling, and also prohibiting and!
declaring void all the optional clauses.
In the year 1774, when the Bank of Scotlan&
obtained an Act to enlarge their capital to
~2,400,000 Scots, or ;~ZOO,OOO sterling, a clause
provided that no individual should possess in
whole, or more than, ~ 4 0 , 0 0 0 in stock, and the
qualification for the offices of governor and directors
was doubled.
The present offices of the Bank of Scotland
were completed from the original design in 1806
by Mr. Richard Cnchton, and the institution was
moved thither in that year from the old, narrow,
and gloomy close where it had transacted business
for one hundred and eleven years.
In digging the foundation of this edifice, the
same obstacle came in the way that eventually
occasioned the fall of the North Bridge. After
excavating to a great depth, no proper foundation
could be found-all being travelled earth. The
quantity of this carted away was such that the
foundations of some of the houses in the nearest
closes were shaken and their walls rent, so that
the occupants had to remove. A solid foundation
was at last found, and the vast structure was reared
at the cost of L75,ooo. T h e quantity of stone and
mortar which IS buried below the present surface is
immense, and perhaps as much of the building is below
the ground as above it,” says Stark in 1820.
“The dead wall on the north of the edifice, where the
declivity is greatest, is covered by a stone curtain,.
ornamented with a balustrade. The south front is.
elegant. A small dome rises from the centre,
and in the front are four projections. A range
of Connthian pilasters decorates the second floor,
and over the door in the recess is a Venetian
window, ornamented with two columns of the
Corinthian order, surmounted by the arms of the
bank.”](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p106.gif "Volume 3 Page 94")
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Mourd
of the sums set down in their respective subscriptions
towards carrying on ...
Vol. 3 p. 94 (Rel. 0.65)
![343 - George Square.] LORD DUNCAN.
of the Scots Brigade, I have the honour to present
these colours to you, and I am very happy in
having this opportunity of expressing my wishes
that the brigade may continue by good conduct
to merit the approbation of our gracious sovereign,
and to ‘maintain that high reputation which all
Europe knows that ancient and respectable corps
has most deservedly enjoyed.”
His address was received with great applause, - and many of the veterans who had served since
their boyhood in Holland were visibly affected.
We have already referred to the tragic results of
the Dundas riots in this square during 1792, when
the mob broke the windows of the Lord Advocate’s
house, and those of Lady Arniston and Admiral
Duncan, who, with a Colonel Dundas, came forth
and assailed the rabble with their sticks, but
were pelted with stones, and compelled to fly for
she1 t er.
The admiral’s house was KO. 5, on the north
side of the square, and it was there his family
resided while he hoisted his flag on board his ship
the Yenwable, and blockaded the Texel, till the
mutiny at the Nore and elsewhere compelled him
to bear up for the Yarmouth Roads; and in the
October of that year (1797) he won the great battle
of Camperdown, and with it a British peerage. The
great ensign and sword of the Dutch admiral he
brought home with him, and instead of presenting
them to Government, retained them in his own
house in George Square j and there, if we rernember
rightly, they were shown by him to Sir James
Hall of Dunglass, and his son, the future Captain
Basil Hall, then an aspirant for the navy, to
whom the admiral said, with honest pride, as he
led him into the room where the Dutch ensign
hung-
“Come, my lad, and 1’11 show you something
worth looking at.”
The great admiral died at Kelso in 1804, but
for inany years after that period Lady Duncan
resided in No. 5.
It was while the Lord Advocate Dundas was
resident in the square that, at the trial of Muir
and the other “political martyrs,’’ he spoke of
the leaders of the United Irishmen as ‘‘ wretches
who had fled from punishment.” On this, Dr.
Drennan, as president, and Archibald Hamilton
Rowan of Killileagh, demanded, in 1793, a recantation
of this and other injurious epithets. No
reply was accorded, and as Mr. Rowan threatened
a hostile visit to Edinburgh, measures for his apprehension
were taken by the Procurator Fiscal.
Accompanied by the Hon. Simon Butler, Mr.
Rowan .arrived at Dumbreck‘s Hotel, St. Andrew
Square, when the former, as second, lost no time
in visiting the Lord Advocate in George Square,
where he was politely received by his lordship,
who said that, “although not bound to give any
explanation of what he might consider proper tu
state in his official capacity, yet he would answer
Mr. Rowan’s note without delay.” But Mr. Butler
had barely returned to Mr. Rowan when they were
both arrested on a sheriff’s warrant, but were liberated
on Colonel Norman Macleod, M.P., becoming
surety for them, and they left Edinburgh, after
being entertained at a public dinner by a select
number of the Friends of the People in Hunter’s
Tavern, Royal Exchange.
In No. 30 dwelt Lord Balgray for about thirty
years, during the whole time he was on the bench,
me of the last specimens of the old race of Scottish
judges ; and there he died in 1837.
In No. 32 lived for many years Francis Grant of
Kilgraston, whose fourth son, also Francis, became
President of the Royal Academy, and was knighted
[or great skill as an artist, and whose fifth son,
General Sir James Hope Grant, G.C.B., served
with such distinction under Lord Saltoun in China,
and subsequently in India, where he led the 9th
Lancers at Sobraon, and who further fought with
such distinction in the Punjaub war, and throughout
the subsequent mutiny, under Lord Clyde, and
whose grave in the adjacent Grange Cemeteryis
now so near the scenes of his boyhood.
In No. 36 lived Admiral Maitland of Dundrennan,
and in No. 53 Lady Don, who is said to have
been the last to use a private sedan chair.
No. 57 was the residence of the Lord Chief
Baron Dundas, and therein, on the 29th of May,
181 I, died, very unexpectedly, his uncle, the celebrated
Lord Melville, who had come to Edinburgh
to attend the funeral of his old friend the Lord
President Blair, who had died a few days before,
and was at that time lying dead in No. 56, the
house adjoining that in which Melville expired.
No. 58 was the house of Dr, Charles Stuart 01
Duneam in the first years of the present century.
His father, James Stuart of Dunearn, was a greatgrandson
of the Earl of Moray, and was Lord
Provost of the city in 1764 and 1768. The
doctor‘s eldest son, James Stuart of Dunearn, W.S.,
a well-known citizen of Edinburgh, died in 1849.
The private sedan, so long a common feature
in the areas or lobbies of George Square, is no
longer to be seen there now. In the Edinburgh of
the eighteenth century there were fir more sedans
than coaches in use. The sedan was better suited
for the narrow wynds and narrower closes of the
city, and better fitted, under all the circmtances,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p163.gif "Volume 4 Page 343")
... - George Square.] LORD DUNCAN.
of the Scots Brigade, I have the honour to present
these colours to you, and I ...
Vol. 4 p. 343 (Rel. 0.63)
... Arbuthnot, who twice held the chair in
1815, and again in 1821. He was created a
baronet by the King in ...
Vol. 4 p. 284 (Rel. 0.63)
