... Church.
sum had been paid but once in ten years, yet, if it
had been properly managed, the accumulated ...
Vol. 1 p. 188 (Rel. 2.17)
... Church 1 THE TRON CHURCH. 187
is, into which the sun scarcely penetrates. But it
once contained a tavern of ...
Vol. 1 p. 187 (Rel. 2.06)
... ’ OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
remainder of the structure cannot be earlier than
the close of the sixteenth ...
Vol. 6 p. 252 (Rel. 1.71)
... though in a foreign army. After suffering
a month's imprisonment, they were glad to profess
PLAN OF ...
Vol. 2 p. 197 (Rel. 1.38)
... B
CHAPTER XV.
. THE CHURCH OF ST. GILES. PAGE
SL Giles’s Church-The Patron Saint-Its Wgh and early ...
Vol. 2 p. 387 (Rel. 1.31)
![The Royal Excharge.] THE ROYAL EXCHANGE. 183 -
CHAPTER XX.
THE ROYAL EXCHANGE-THE TRON CHURCH-THE GREAT FIRE OF NOVEMBER, 1824.
The Royal Exchange-Laying the Foundation Stonc-Ddption of the Exchange-The Mysterious Statue-The Council Cbarnber-hventiom
of Royal Burghs : Constitution thereof, and Powers-Writen’ Court-The “ Star and Garter” Tavern-Sir Walter Scott’s Account
of the Scene at Cleriheugh‘s-Lawyers’ High Jinks-The Tron Church-Histor] of the Old Church-Tht Gnat Fire of rSa~-lnciden~s
of the Conflagration-The Ruins Undermined-Blown up by Captain Head of the Engineers,
Ira 1753 we discover the first symptoms of vitality
in Edinburgh after the Union, when the pitiful
sum of A1,500 was subscribed by the convention
of royal burghs, for the purpose of “ beautifying
the city,” and the projected Royal Exchange was
fairly taken in hand.
If wealth had not increased much, the population
had, and by the middle of the eighteenth
century the citizens had begun to find the inconvenience
they laboured under by being confined
within the old Flodden wall, and that the city was
still destitute of such public buildings as were
necessary for the accommodation of those societies
which were formed, or forming, in all other capitals,
to direct the business of the nation, and provide
for the general welfare ; and so men of tas‘te, rank,
and opulence, began to bestir themselves in Edinburgh
at last.
Many ancient alleys and closes, whose names
are well-nigh forgotten now, were demolished on
the north side of the Righ Street, to procure a
site for the new Royal Exchange. Some of these
had already become ruinous, and must have been
of vast antiquity. Many beautifully-sculptured
stones belonging to houses there were built into
the curious tower, erected by Mr. Walter Ross at
the Dean, and are now in a similar tower at Portobello,
Others were scattered about the garden
grounds at the foot of the Castle rock, and still
show the important character of some of the
edifices demolished. Among them there was a
lintel, discovered when clearing out the bed 01
the North Loch, with the initials IS. (and the
date 1658), supposed to be those of Jaines tenth
Lord Somerville, who, after serving long in the
Venetian army, died at a great age in 1677.
On the 13th of September, 1753, the first stone
of the new Exchange was laid by George Drummond,
then Grand Master of the Scottish Masons,
whose memory as a patriotic magistrate is still remembered
with respect in Edinburgh. A triumphal
arch, a gallery for the magistrates, and covered
stands for the spectators, enclosed the arena.
“The procession was very grand and regular,”
says the Gentleman’s Magazine for that year.
each lodge of maSons, of which there were
thirteen, walked in procession by themselves, all
uncovered, amounting to 672, most of whom were
operative masons.” The military paid proper
honours to the company on this occasion, and escorted
the procession in a suitable manner. The
Grand Master and the present substitute were
preceded by the Lord Provost, magistrates, and
council, in their robes, with the city sword, mace,
&c., carried before them, accompanied by the
directors of the scheme.
All day the foundation-stone lay open, that the
people might see it, with the Latin inscription on
the plate, which runs thus in English :-
“ GEORGE DKUMMOND,
Of the Society of Freemasons in Scotland Grand Master,
Thrice Provost of the City of Edinburgh,
Three hundred Brother Masons attending,
In presence of many persons of distinction,
The Magistrates and Citizens of Edinburgh,
And of every rank of people an innumerable multitude,
And all Applaudipg ;
For convenience of the inhabitants of Edinburgh,
And the public ornament,
Laid this stone,
Wdliam Alexander being Provost,
On the 13th September, 1753. of the Era of Masonry 5753,
And of the reign of George II., King of Great Britain,
the 27th yea.”
In the stone were deposited two medals, one
bearing the profile and name of the Grand Master,
the other having the masonic arms, with the collar
of St. Andrew, and the legend, “ In the Lord is
all our trust.”
Though the stone was thus laid in 1753, the
work was not fairly begun till the following year,
nor was it finished till 1761, at the expense of
A31,5oo, including the price of the area on which
it is built ; but it never answered the purpose for
which it was intended-its paved quadrangle and
handsome Palladian arcades were never used by
the mercantile class, who persisted in meeting, as
of old, at the Cross, or where it stood.
Save that its front and western arcades have
been converted into shops, it remains unchanged
since it was thus described by Arnot, and the back I
view of it, which faces the New Town, catches the
eye at once, by its vast bulk and stupendous height,
IOO feet, all of polished ashlar, now blackened with -
the smoke of years :--.“The Exchange is a large
and elegant building, with a court in the -centre.
,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p195.gif "Volume 1 Page 183")
... Royal Excharge.] THE ROYAL EXCHANGE. 183 -
CHAPTER XX.
THE ROYAL EXCHANGE-THE TRON CHURCH-THE GREAT FIRE OF ...
Vol. 1 p. 183 (Rel. 1.26)
![c
152 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH, [Leith Walk,
In I 748 the thoroughfare is described as “a very
handsome gravel walk, twenty feet broad, which is
kept in good repair at the public expense, and no
horses suffered to come upon it.” In 1763 two
stage coaches, with three horses, a driver, and
postilion each, ran between Edinburgh and Leith
every hour, consuming an hour on the way, from
8 a.m. to 8 p.m. ; and at that time there were no
other stage coaches in Scotland, except one which
set out at long intervals for London.
Before that nothing had been done, though in
1774 the Week0 Magazine announced that “a new
road for carriages is to be made betwixt Edinburgh
and Leith. It is to be continued from the end of
the New Bridge by the side of Clelland’s Gardens
and Leith Walk. [Clelland‘s Feu was where Leith
Terrace is now.] We hear that the expense of it
is to be defrayed by subscription.”
In I779 Arnot states that “so great is the concourse
of people passing between Edinburgh and
HIGH STREET, PORTOBELLO.
In 1769, when Provost Drummond built the
North Bridge, he gave out that it was to improve
the access to Leith, and on this pretence, to conciliate
opposition to his scheme, upon the plate in
the foundation-stone of the bridge it is solely described
as the opening of a new road to Leith;
and after it was opened the Walk became freely
used for carriages, but without any regard being
paid to its condition, or any system established
for keeping it in repair ; thus, consequently, it fell
into a state of disorder “from which it was not
rescued till after the commencement of the present
century, when a splendid causeway was formed at
a great expense by the city of Edinburgh, and a
toll erected for its payment.”
Leith, and so much are the stage coaches employed,
that they pass and re-pass between these towns
156 times daily. Each of these carriages holds
four persons.” The fare in some was 2hd.; in
others, gd.
In December, 1799, the Herald announces that
the magistrates had ordered forty oil lamps for
Leith Walk, ‘‘ which necessary k~iprovement,” adds
the editor, will, we understand, soon tzke place.”
Among some reminiscences, which appeared
about thirty years ago, we. have a description of
Anderson’s Leith stage, ‘ I which took an hour and
a half to go from the Tron Church to the shore. A
great lumbering affair on four wheels, the two fore
1 painted yellow, the two hind red, having formerly](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p163.gif "Volume 5 Page 152")
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH, [Leith Walk,
In I 748 the thoroughfare is described as “a very
handsome gravel ...
Vol. 5 p. 152 (Rel. 1.26)
... Street.! BISHOP BOTHWELL. 219 .
CHAPTEX X Y v r .
THE. HIGH STREET ( ~ ~ ~ f h t d ) .
The Ancient ...
Vol. 2 p. 219 (Rel. 1.22)
... House
PARLIAMENT HOUSE IN THE PRESENT DAY.
the Earl of Marchmont
Earl of Cromarty . . . . 300 0 ...
Vol. 1 p. 164 (Rel. 1.21)
![High Street.] THE STREETS OF EDINBURGH. I93
case with the High Street. -The mansions in the
diverging streets, narrow, steep, gloomy, and illventilated,
became perilous abodes in times of fire
or pestilence.
Those who dwelt in the upper storeys avoided
the toil of descending the steep wheel-stairs that
led to the street, and the entire dkbris of the household
was flung from the windows, regardless of who
or what might be below, especially after nightfall ;
hence the cries of “ Haud your hand ! ” “ Get
lanterns, were ordered to be hung up, by such persons
and in such places as the magistrates should
appoint, there to continue burning for the space of
four hours--i.e., from five till nine o’clock in the
evening.
In consequence of the great assiduity oi the
Provost (Archibald Douglas of Kilspindie), the
Town Council added to his annual allowance 6100
Scots for his clothing and spicery, with two hogs.
heads of wine for his greater state ; and soon after
THE OLD TRON CHURCH. (From am Engraving itr Amt’s “Nistwy ozEdinbrrwh.”)
out 0’ the gait!” or “Gardez Peau!” a shout
copied from the French, were incessant. Another
source of filth and annoyance was the circumstance
that every inhabitant had his own dunghill in the
street, opposite his own door j while the thoroughfkes
were further encumbered and encroached
upon by outside stone stairs, many of which still
remain. Under these were kept swine, which were
allowed to roam the streets (as in old Paris). and
act the part of scavengers, and be alternately the
pets and the terror of the children.
By Acts of Council, 15th October, 1553-5,
the mounds of household garbage were ordained
to be removed, the swine to be prevented from
being a pest in the streets, in which buwefs or
25
another Act was passed, ordaining that the (male)
servants of the inhabitants should attend him with
lighted torches from the vespers or evening prayers
to his own house.
But despite the Acts quoted the streets were not
thoroughly cleared or cleaned for more than sixty
years after. WhenKing JaniesVI., having celebrated
his marriage with Anne of Denmark, on the zznd
October, 1589, was about to return home, he wrote
one of his characteristic epistles to the Provost,
Alexander Clark of Balbirnie :-“ Here we are
drinking and driving in the add way,” and adding,
“for GoZs sake see n’ things are nulf at our hanucoming.”
James did not wish to be exposed in
the eyes of his foreign attendants, and he alludes](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p013.gif "Volume 2 Page 193")
... Street.] THE STREETS OF EDINBURGH. I93
case with the High Street. -The mansions in the
diverging streets, ...
Vol. 2 p. 193 (Rel. 1.21)
![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. 1.18)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. LHol~lrood.
and intriguing apostbte as one of the greatest and
best men of his ...
Vol. 3 p. 60 (Rel. 1.14)
![West Church.] MR. NEIL MWICAR. I33 -
those of other sections of the city, took courage, and
sought to retrieve their past ill-conduct by noisily .
preparing to raise forces to defend themselves in
case of a second visit from the Highlanders.
the General Assembly met in the church, and
passed an Act, which, however necessary, perhaps,
in those harassing times, concerning ‘‘ the sine and
guilte of the king and his house,” caused much
suffering to the Covenanters after the Restoration.
It was known by the name of the West Kirk Act,
and was approved by Parliament the same day.
Subsequently, during his siege of the castle
Cromwell made the church a barrack; hence its
roof and windows were destroyed by the guns of
the fortress, and soon little was left of it but the
bare walls, which were repaired, and opened for
service in 1655.
For some years subsequent the sole troubles
of the incumbents were breaches
of “the Sabbath,” such as when
William Gillespie, in 1659, was
“fund carrying watter, and his
wyfe knoking beir,” for which
they had to make public repentance,
or filling people for
“taking snuff in tyme of sermon,”
contrary to the Act of
18th June, 1640; till 1665,
when the ‘‘ great mutiny” in
the parish occurred, and the
minister, William Gordon, for
“ keeping of festivals,” was
railed at by the people, who
closed the doors against him,
for which a man and a woman,
according to Wodrow, were
scourged through Edinburgh.
At the Revolution, those
of ground to the west was added to it (including
the garden,with trees, shown in Gordon’s Map), from
the old boundary to the present west gate at the
Lothian Road. About the same time several
heritors requested permission to inter their dead
in the little or Wester-kirk, which had been a
species of ruin since the invasion of Cromwell.
In 1745, after the victory of the Highlanders at
Prestonpans, a message was sent to the ministers
of the city, in the name cf “Charles, Prince Regent,”
desiring them to preach next day, Sunday,
as usual; but many, alarmed by the defeat of Cope,
sought refuge in the country, and no public worship
was performed within the city, save by a
ST. CUTHBERT’S CHURCH.
(From Cmdm of Potkicmay’s Mu@.)
ministers who had been ejected in 1661, and were
yet alive, returned to their charges. Among them
was Mr. David Williamson, who, in 1689, was
settled in St. Cuthbert’s manse ; but not quietly,
for the castle, defended by the Duke of Gordon,
was undergoing its last disastrous siege by the
troops oC William, and the church suffered so much
damage from shot and shell, that for many months
after the surrender in June, the people were unable
to use it, and the repairs amounted to LI,~OO.
If tradition has not wronged him, Mr. Williamson
is the well-known (‘ Dainty Davie” of Scottish
song, who had six wives ere the seventh, Jean.
Straiton, survived him. He died in August, 1706,
and was buried in the churchyard, where the
vicinity of the grave is alone indicated by the
letters D. W. cut on the front of the tomb in which
he lies.
The ancient cemetery on the knoll having been
found too small for the increasing population and
consequent number of interments, in 1701 a piece
clergyman named Hog a t t h e
Tron.
It was otherwise, however,
at St. Cuthbert’s, the incumbent
of which was then the Rev.
Neil McVicar, yho preached
to a crowded congregation,
many of whom were armed
Highlanders, before whom he
prayed for George 11. and also
for Charles Edward in a fashion
of his own, recorded thus by
Ray, in his history of the time,
and others :-
‘(Bless the king! Thou
knowest what king I mean.
May the crown sit long on his
head. As for that young man
who has come among us to
seek an earthly crown, we](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p145.gif "Volume 3 Page 133")
... Church.] MR. NEIL MWICAR. I33 -
those of other sections of the city, took courage, and
sought to retrieve ...
Vol. 3 p. 133 (Rel. 1.14)
... OLD -4ND NEW EDINBURGH. urffrey Street
of The Friend of India, and author of the “Life
of Dr. IVilson of ...
Vol. 2 p. 290 (Rel. 0.99)
... OF ILLUSTRATIONS . xi ..
P
Deacon Brodie . . . . . . . .
The First Interview in 1786: Deacon Brodie ...
Vol. 2 p. 393 (Rel. 0.96)
![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. 0.91)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Greyfirs Church.
King‘s Commissioner, the severity of these vile
persecutions was ...
Vol. 4 p. 378 (Rel. 0.91)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Wardie.
In this district evidences have been found of the
luck,” and it sometimes ...
Vol. 6 p. 306 (Rel. 0.89)
... N ~ S , attracted by the dampness of the soil,
where for ages the artificial loch lay. A few feet
eastward of ...
Vol. 1 p. 82 (Rel. 0.82)
... AND NEW EDINEURGH. LSouth Bridge. 376
In 1837 he succeeded Professor Macvey Napier
as Librarian to the Signet ...
Vol. 2 p. 377 (Rel. 0.81)
... lock was placed upon it for the same purpose.
In 1647 only three open thoroughfares are shown
OLD AND ...
Vol. 3 p. 17 (Rel. 0.81)
![The Cowgate.] THE CUNZIE NOOK. 267
dexter hand palmed, and in its palm an eye. In
the dexter canton, a saltire argent, under the imperial
crown, surmounted by a thistle j and in base
a castle argent, masoned sable, within a border,
charged with instruments used by the society. To
the surgeons. were added the apothecaries.
James IV., one of the greatest patrons of art and
science in his time, dabbled a little in surgery and
chemistry, and had an assistant, John the Leeche,
whom he brought from the Continent. Pitscottie
tells us that James was “ane singular guid chirurgione,”
and in his daily expense book, singular
entries occur in 1491, of payments made to people
to let him bleed them and pull their teeth :-
“Item, to ane fallow, because the King pullit
furtht his twtht, xviii shillings.
“Item, to Kynnard, ye barbour, for tua teith
drawin furtht of his hed be the King, xvci sh.”
The barbers were frequently refractory, and
brought the surgeons into the Court of Session t e
adjust rights, real or imagined. But after the union
of the latter with the apothecaries, they gave up
the barber craft, and were formed into one corporation
by an Act of Council, on the 25th February,
1657, as already mentioned in the account of
the old Royal College of Surgeons.
The first admitted after the change, was Christopher
Irving, recorded as ‘‘ ane free chmgone,”
without the usual words “and barber,” after his
name. He was physician to James VII., and from
him the Irvings of Castle Irving, in .Ireland, are
descended.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE SOCIETY.
The Candlemaker Row--The “ Cunzie Nook”-Tbe of Charles 1.-The Candlemakers’ Hall--The Afhk of Dr. Symons-The Society, IS+
Brown Square-Proposed Statue to George III., x~-Di&nguished Inhabitants-Si IsIay Campbell-Lard Glenlec-Haigof Beimerside
--Si John Lerlie-Miss Jeannie Elliot-Argyle Square-Origin of it-Dr. Hugh Bkit-The Sutties of that Ilk-Trades Maiden Hospital-
-Mint0 House and the Elliots-New Medical School-Baptist Church-Chambers Strect-Idustrial Museum of Sdence and Art-Its
Great Hall and adjoining Halls-Aim of the Architect-Contents and Models briefly glanced at-New Watt Institution and School of
ArtsPhrenoloEical Museum-New Free Tron Church-New Tiainiing College of the Church of Scotland-The Dental Hospita-The
.
Theatre ofvari.&s.
THE Candlemaker Row is simply the first portion
of the old way that led from the Grassmarket and
Cowgate-head, where Sir John Inglis resided in
1784, to the lands of Bnsto, and thence on to
Powburn ; and it was down this way that a portion
of the routed Flemings, with Guy of Namur at their
head, fled towards the Castle rock, after their
defeat on the Burghmuir in 1335.
In Charles I.’s time a close line of street with a
great open space behind occupied the whole of the
east side, from the Greyfriars Port to the Cowgatehead.
The west side was the boundary wall of the
churchyard, save at the foot, where two or three
houses appear in 1647, one of which, as the Cunzie
Nook, is no doubt that referred to by Wilson as
a curious little timber-fronted tenement, surmounted
with antique crow-steps ; an open gallery
projects in front, and rude little; shot-windows admit
the light to the decayed and gloomy chambers
therein.” This, we presume, to be the Cunzie Nook,
a place where the Mint had no doubt been estab
Cshed at some early period, possibly during some
of the strange proceedings in the Regency of Mary
of Guise, when the Lords of the Congregation
“past to Holyroodhous, and tuik and intromettit
With the ernis of the Cunzehous.”
On the west side, near the present entrance to
the churchyard of the Greyfriars, stands the hall of
the ancient Corporation of the Candlemakers, which
gave its name to the Row, with the arms of the
craft boldly cut over the doorway, on a large oblong
panel, and, beneath, their appropriate motto,
. Omnia man;jesfa Zuce.
Internally, the hall is subdivided into many residences,
smaller accommodation sufficing for the
fraternity in this age of gas, so that it exists little
more than in name. In 1847 the number of its
members amounted to only fhw, who met periodically
for various purposes, connected with the corporation
and its funds.
Edgar‘s plan shows, in the eighteenth century, the
close row of houses that existed along the whole of
the west side, from the Bristo Port to the foot, and
nearly till Forrest Road was opened up in a linewith
the central Meadow Walk.
Humble though this locality may seem now, Sir
James Dunbar, Bart., of Dum, rented No. ZI in
1810, latterly a carting office. In those days the
street was a place ‘of considerable bustle; the
Hawick dilligence started twice weekly from
Paterson’s Inn, a well-known hostel in its time,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p087.gif "Volume 4 Page 267")
... Cowgate.] THE CUNZIE NOOK. 267
dexter hand palmed, and in its palm an eye. In
the dexter canton, a saltire ...
Vol. 4 p. 267 (Rel. 0.8)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. Canongate.
the days that were no more. ‘* No funeral hearse,”
says Lockhart, “crept ...
Vol. 3 p. 28 (Rel. 0.79)
... 99 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
. Stirling-Maxwell, Sir Wm., 11. 86,
. Stitchill, Laird of I. 169
.Stockbridge, 11. ...
Vol. 6 p. 390 (Rel. 0.79)
![Kirk-of-Field.] BOTHWELL DENOUNCED. 7
of the Canongate to Bothwell’s lodging, near the
palace, at the gates of which they were again
challenged by the Archers of the Guard-a corps
which existed from 1562 to 1567-who asked “if
they knew what noise that was they heard a short
time before.” They replied that they did not.
Rushing to his house, Bothwell called for something
to drink, and throwing off his clothes, went
to bed.
Tidings that the house had been blown up and
the king slain spread fast through the startled
city, and George Hackett, a servant of the palace,
communicated these to Bothwell, whom he found
in “ane great effray pitch-black,” and excited.
Then with assumed coolness he inquired “what
was the matter ? ” On being distinctly informed,
he began to shout “Treason!” and on being
joined by the Earl of Huntley, he repaired at once
to the presence of the queen.
By dawn the whole area of the Kirk-of-Field
was crowded by citizens, who found that the three
servants who slept in the gallery were buried in the
ruins, out of which Nelson was dragged alive.
In Holyrood the queen kept her bed in a darkened
room, while a proclamation was issued, offering
the then tolerable sum of L2,ooo Scots to
any who would give information as to the perpetrators
of the crime. On the same day the body of
Darnley was brought to Holyrood Chapel, and
after being embalmed by Maistre Mastin Picauet,
‘ I ypothegar,” was interred on Saturday night, without
the presence of any of the nobles or officers
of state, except the Lord Justice Clerk Bellenden
and Sir James Traquair.
Bothwell was denounced as the murderer by a
paper fixed on the Tolbooth Gate. But though the
earl was ultimately brought to trial, no precisely
proper inquiry into the startling atrocity was made
by the officers of the Crown.
A bill fastened on the Tron Beam, declared
that the smith who furnished the false keys to the
king’s apartment would, on due security being
given, point out his employers ; and other placards,
on one of which were written the queen’s initials,
M.R., were posted elsewhere-manifestations of
public feeling that rendered Bothwell so furious
that he rode through the city at the head of a band
of his armed vassals, swearing that he “ would wash
his hands” in the blood of the authors, could he
but discover them ; and from that time forward he
watched all who approached him with a jealous
eye, and a hand on his dagger.
When that part of the city wall which immediately
adjoined the house of the Kirk-of-Field
was demolished in 1854, it was found to be five
feet thick, and contained among its rubble many
fragments of a Gothic church or other edifice, and
three cannon-balls, one of 24 pounds’ weight, were
found in it.
In the records of the Privy Council in 1599, we
find an order for denouncing and putting to the
horn Robert Balfour, Provost of the Kirk-of-Field,
for having failed to appear before the Lords, and
answer “ to sic thingis as sauld have been inquirit
of him at his cuming.” The Provost, brother of
the notorious Sir James, had been outlawed or forfeited
in 157 I, as there rested upon both the charge
of having been chief agents in the murder or
Darnley.
He was ultimately remitted and pardoned, and
this was ratified by Parliament in 1584, when he
and his posterity were allowed to enjoy all their
possessions,‘‘ providing alwayis that these presentis
be not extendit to repossess and restoir the said
Robert to bny ryt he has, or he may pretend, to ye
Provostrie of ye Kirk-of-Field, sumtym situat within
the libertie of ye burgh of Edinburgh.”
In this same year, 1584, the Town Council were
greatly excited by a serious affray that ensued at
the Kirk-of-Field Port, and to prevent the recurrence
of a similar disorder, ordained that on the
ringing of the alarm bell the inhabitants were all to
convene in their several quarters under their bailies,
“ in armour and good order.” And subsequently,
to prevent broils by night-walkers, they ordered
I‘ that at 10 o’clock fifty strokes would be given on
the great bell, after which none should be upon the
streets, under a penalty of Azo Scots, and imprisonment
during the town’s pleasure.” (“ Council
Records.”)
A fragment of ruin connected with the Kirk-of-
Field is shown as extant in 1647 in Gordon’s map,
near what is now the north-west corner of Drumrnond
Street, and close to the old University. A
group ot trees appear to the eastward, and a garden
to the iiorth.
(Tytler.)](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p018.gif "Volume 5 Page 7")
... BOTHWELL DENOUNCED. 7
of the Canongate to Bothwell’s lodging, near the
palace, at the gates of ...
Vol. 5 p. 7 (Rel. 0.78)
![OLD LEITH STACF.. Leith Walk.]
VIEWS IN PORTOBELLO.
I, Ramsag h e ; n, The Established Church ; & High Street, looking eart; + Town Hall ; 5 Episcopalisn Church.
116](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p164.gif "Volume 5 Page 153")
... LEITH STACF.. Leith Walk.]
VIEWS IN PORTOBELLO.
I, Ramsag h e ; n, The Established Church ; & High ...
Vol. 5 p. 153 (Rel. 0.77)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Great Fire.
while the weather changed rapidly ; the wind,
accompanied by rain, ...
Vol. 1 p. 190 (Rel. 0.77)
... Street. NIDDRY’S WYND. 245
to protect the powdered head of loftily-dressed
hair, when walking or driving, ...
Vol. 2 p. 245 (Rel. 0.71)
... AND NEW EDINEURGH. [South Bridge.
. . .~ 374
in 1765, and two ancient thoroughfares, the Wynds
of Marlin and ...
Vol. 2 p. 374 (Rel. 0.71)
![Leith] MACKINTOSH OF BORLUM. 191
the further strengthened by the fact that the Speedy
Return, a Scottish ship, had been absent unusually
long, and the rumours regarding her fate were
very much akin to the confessions of the crew of
the Worcester.
A report of these circumstances having reached
the Privy Council, the arrest was ordered of Captain
Green and thirteen of his crew on charges of
piracy and murder. The evidence produced against
them would scarcely be held sufficient by a jury of
the present day to warrant a conviction; but the
Scots, in their justly inflamed and insulted spirit,
viewed the matter otherwise, and a sentence of
death was passed. This judgment rendered many
uneasy, as it might be an insuperable bar to the
union, and even lead to open strife, as the relations
in which the two countries stood to each other were
always precarious ; and even Macaulay admits “that
the two kingdoms could not possibly have continued
another year on the terms on which they had been
during the preceding century.” The Privy Council
were thus reluctant to put the sentence into execution,
and respited the fourteen Englishmen ; but
there arose from the people a cry for vengeance
which it was impossible to resist. On the day appointed
for the execution, the 11th of April, the
populace gathered h vast numbers at the. Cross
and in the Parliament Square ; they menaced the
Lords‘of the Council, from which the Lord Chancellor
chanced to pass in his coach. Some one
cried aloud that “ the prisoners had been reprieved.”
On this the fury of the people became boundless ;
they stopped at the Tron church the coach of the
Chancellor-the pitiful Far1 of Seafield-and
dragged him out of it, and had he not been rescued
and conveyed into Mylne Square by some friends,
would have slain him ; so, continues Arnot, it became
absolutely necessary to appease the enraged
multitude by the blood of the criminals. This was
but the fruit of the affairs of Darien and Glencoe.
Now the people for miles around were pouring
into the city, and it was known that beyond doubt
the luckless Englishmen would be tom from the
Tolbooth and put to a sudden death.
Thus the Council was compelled to yield, and
did so only in time, as thousands who had gathered
at Leith to see the execution were now adding to
those who filled the streets of the city, and at
eleven in the forenoon word came forth that three
would be hanged-namely, Captain Green, the first
mate Madder, and Simpson, the gunner.
According to Analecfu Scofica they were brought
forth into the seething masses, amid shouts and
execrations, under an escort of the Town Guard,
and marched on foot through the Canongate to the
Water Port of Leith, where a battalion of the Foot
Guards and a body of the Horse Guards were
drawn up. “ There was the greatest confluence of
people there that I ever saw in my life,” says
Wodrow; “for they cared not how far they were
off so be it they saw.”
The three were hanged upon a gibbet erected
within high-water mark, and the rest of the crew,
after being detained in prison till autumn, were set
at liberty; and it is said that there were afterwards
good reasons to believe that Captain Drummond,
whom they were accused of slaying on the high seas,
was alive in India after the fate of Green and his
two brother officers had been sealed. (Burton’s
‘’ Crim. Trials.”)
On the site of the present Custom House was
built the Fury (a line-of-battle ship, according tb
Lawson‘s “Gazetteer”) and the first of that rate
built in Scotland after the Union.
In I 7 I 2 the first census of Edinburgh and Leith
was taken, and both towns contained only about
48,000 souls.
The insurrection of 1715, under the Earl of
Mar, made Leith the arena of some exciting scenes.
The Earl declined to leave the vicinity of Perth
with his army, and could not co-operate with the
petty insurrection under Forster in the north of
England, as a fleet under Sir John Jennings, Admiral
of the White, including the RqaC Anm, Pew4
Phnix, Dover Custk, and other frigates, held the
Firth of Forth, and the King‘s troops under Argyle
were gathering in the southern Lowlands. But, as
it was essential that a detachment from Mar‘s army
should join General Forster, it was arranged that
2,500 Highlanders, under old Brigadier Mackintosh
of Borlum-one of the most gallant and resolute
spirits of the age-should attempt to elude the fleet
and reach the Lothians.
The brigadier took possession of all the boats
belonging to the numerous fisher villages on the
Fife coast, and as the gathering of such a fleet as
these, with the bustle of mooring and provisioning
them, was sure to reveal the object in view, a
clever trick was adopted to put all scouts on a false
scent.
All the boats not required by the brigadier he
sent to the neighbourhood of Burntisland, as if he
only waited to cross the Firth there, on which the
fleet left its anchorage and rather wantonly began
to cannonade the fort and craft in the harbour.
While the ships were thus fully occupied, Mackintosh,
dividing his troops in two columns, crossed the
water from Elie, Pittenweem, and Crail, twenty miles
eastward, on the nights of the 12th and 13thOctober,
without the loss of a single boat, and lwded](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p202.gif "Volume 5 Page 191")
... MACKINTOSH OF BORLUM. 191
the further strengthened by the fact that the Speedy
Return, a Scottish ship, ...
Vol. 5 p. 191 (Rel. 0.7)
![Queen Street.] SIR JAMES GRANT OF GRANT. I57
own performance that he tumbled off his chair in a
fit of laughter.”
No. 62 Queen Street was inhabited by Lord
Jeffrey from 1802 till 1810. In the following year
it became the residence of Sir John Leslie, K.H.,
Professor of Mathematics in the University of
Edinburgh, who in 1800 invented the differential
thermometer, one of the most beautiful and delicate
instruments that inductive genius‘ ever contrived
as a help to experimental research ; and the
results of his inquiries concerning the nature and
laws of heat, in which he was so much aided by
this exquisite instrument, were published in 1804,
in his celebrated “Essay on the Nature and Propagation
of Heat.” Sir John Leslie was one of
those many self-made men who are peculiarly the
glory of Scotland, for he was the son of a poor
joiner in Largo, yet he attained to the highest
honours a university can bestow. In 1832, along
with Herschel, Brewster, Hams, Nichols, and others,
on the recommendation of Lord Brougham, he was
created a Knight of the Guelphic Order, but died
in the November of that year from an attack of
erysipelas.
No. 64 was, and is still, the town residence of
the Earls of Weniyss, but has had many other
tenants. Among others here resided ‘‘ Lang Sandy
Gordon? as he was named in those days of simple
and unassuming familiarity, the son of William,
second Earl of Aberdeen, who was admitted an
advocate in 1759, and became Stewart-depute of
Kirkcudbright in 1764. Twenty years afterwards
he was raised to the bench as Lord Rockville, and
resided long in the close which bore .that name on
the Castle Hill, and afterwards in Queen Street
He was remarkable for his manly beauty and
handsome figure. He was a member of the Crochallan
Club, and a great convivialist. Walking
down the High Street one day, when the pavement
was unsafe by ice, he fell, and broke his arm.
He was conveyed to Provost Elder‘s shop, opposite
the Tron church, where surgical aid was procured
and his arm dressed ; but, unfortunately, when his
friends were conveying him to his new home at
No. 64, one of the chairmen fell and overturned
the sedan in the street, which unsettled the splinting
of his lordship’s arm, and ultimately brought on
afever, of which he died on the 13th of March,
‘792.
No. 64 was afterwards occupied by Sir James
Grant, Bart., of Grant, usually known as “the
good Sir James.” His town house, with extensive
stable-offices, had previously been at the ,foot of
the Canongate, where it was advertised for sale
in 1797, as “ presently possessed by Professor
Stewart.” At a period when the extensive Highland
proprietors were driving whole colonies of
people from the abodes of their forefathers, and
compelling them to seek on distant shores that
shelter which was denied them on their own, and
“when absenteeism and the vices of courtly intrigue
and fashionable dissipation had sapped the
morality of too many of our landholders, Sir James
Grant escaped the contagion, and during a long
life was distingifished for the possession of those
virtues which are the surest bulwarks of the peace,
happiness, and strength of a country. Possessed
of extensive estates, and surrounded by a numerous
tenantry, his exertions seemed to be equally devoted
to the progressive improvement of the one
and the present comfort and enjoyment of the
other.” ’
Among his clau he raised two regiments of Highland
Fencibles within a few months of each other.
One was numbered as the 97th, or Strathspey
Regiment, 1,800 strong, and a portion of it joined
the 4nnd for service in the West Indies. Sir
James died at Castle Grant in 181 I.
No. 66, now offices, was occupied by Stewart of
Castle Stewart ; and in No. 68 lived George Joseph
Bell, Advocate, Professor of Law, and author of
“ Principles of the Law of Scotland.” No. 7 I, in
181 I, was the residence of Francis, Lord Napier,
who served in the American war under General.
Burgoyne, but left the army in 1789. He took a
leading part in many local affiirs, was Grand
Master Mason of Scotland, Colonel of the Hopetoun
Fencibles in 1793, Commissioner to the
General Assembly in 1802, and a member of the
Board of Trustees for the Encouragement of Scottish
Manufactures and Fisheries.
His prominently aquiline face and figure were
long remarkable in Edinburgh ; though, at a time
when gentlemen usually wore gaudy coloursfrequently
a crimson or purple coat, a green plush
vest, black breeches, and white stockings-when
not in uniform, he always dressed plainly, and with
the nicest attention to propriety. An anecdote of
his finical taste is thus given in Lockhart’s “Life
of Scott ” :-
“Lord and Lady Napier arrived at Castlemilk
(in Lanarkshire), with the intention of staying a
week, but next morning it was announced that a
circumstance had occurred which rendered it indispensable
for them to return without delay to
their own seat in Selkirkshire. It was impossible
for Lady Stewart to extract any further explanation
at the moment, but it afterwards turned out that
Lord Napier’s valet had committed the grievous
mistake of packing up a set of neckcloths which](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p169.gif "Volume 3 Page 157")
... Street.] SIR JAMES GRANT OF GRANT. I57
own performance that he tumbled off his chair in a
fit of ...
Vol. 3 p. 157 (Rel. 0.7)
![The High Street.] THE HIGH STREET.
six storeys each ; in short, down as far as the Cowgate
nothing was to be seen but frightful heaps of
calcined and blackened ruins, with gaping windows
and piles of smoking rubbish.
In the Par!iament Square four double tenements
of from seven to eleven storeys also perished, and
the incessant cmsh of falling walls made the old
vicinity re-echo. Among other places of interest
destroyed here was the shop of Kay, the cancaturist,
always a great attraction to idlers.
During the whole of Thursday the authorities
were occupied in the perplexing task of .examining
the ruined edifices in the Parliament Square. These
being of enormous height and dreadfully shattered,
threatened, by their fall, destruction to everything
in their vicinity. One eleven-storeyed edifice presented
such a very striking, terrible, and dangerous
appearance, that it was proposed to batter it down
with cannon. On the next day the ruins were inspected
by Admiral Sir David Milne, and Captain
(afterwardssir Francis) Head of theRoyal Engineers,
an officer distinguished alike in war and In literature,
who gave in a professional report on the subject,
and to him the task of demolition was assigned.
’
In the meantime offers of assistance from Captain
Hope of H.M.S. BnX, then in Leith Roads,
were accepted, and his seamen, forty in number,
threw a line over the lofty southern gable above
Heron’s Court, but brought down only a small
portion Next day Captain Hope returned to the
attack, with iron cables, chains, and ropes, while
some sappers daringly undermined the eastern wall.
These were sprung, and, as had been predicted by
Captain Head, the enormous mass fell almost
perpendicularly to the grognd.
At the Tron Church, on the last night of every
year, there gathers a vast crowd, who watch with
patience and good-humour the hands of the illuminated
clock till they indicate one minute past
twelve, and then the New Year is welcomed in
with ringing cheers, joy, and hilarity. A general
shaking of hands and congratdlations ensue, and
one and all wish each other ‘‘ A happy New Year,
and mony 0’ them.” A busy hum pervades the older
parts of the city; bands of music and bagpipes
strike up in many a street and wynd; and, furnished
with egg-flip, whiskey, &c., thousands hasten off in
all directions to “first foot” friends and relations,
CHAPTER XXI.
THE HIGH STREET,
A Place for Brawling-First Paved and Lighted-The Meal and Flesh MarketsState of the Streets-Municipal Regulations 16th Century-
Tuleies-The Lairds of Ainh and Wemyss-The Tweedies of Drummelzier-A Mont- Quarrel-The Slaughter of Lord Tarthorwald-
-A Brawl in 1705-Attacking a Sedan Chair-Habits in Lhe Seventeenth Century-Abduction of Women and Girls-Sumptuary Law6
against Women.
BEFORE narrating the wondrous history of the many
quaint and ancient closes and wynds which diverged
of old, and some of which still diverge, from the
stately High Street, we shall treat of that venerable
thoroughfare itself-its gradual progress, changes,
and some of the stirring scenes that have been witnessed
from its windows.
Till so late as the era of building the Royal
Exchange Edinburgh had been without increase
or much alteration since King James VI. rode
forth for England in 1603. “The extended wall
erected in the memorable year 1513 still formed
the boundary of the city, with the exception of the
enclosure of the Highriggs. The ancient gates remained
kept under the care of jealous warders,
and nightly closed at an early hour ; even as when
the dreaded iiiroads of the Southron summoned
the Burgher Watch to guard their walls. At the
foot of the High Street, the lofty tower and spire
of the Nether Bow Port terminated the vista, surmounting
the old Temple Bar of Edinburgh, interposed
between the city and the ancient burgh of
Canongate.”
On this upward-sloping thoroughfare first rose
the rude huts of the Caledonians, by the side of
the wooded way that led to the Dun upon the rock
-when Pagan rites were celebrated at sunrise on
the bare scalp of Arthur‘s Seat-and destined
to become in future years “the King’s High
Street,” as it was exclusively named in writs and
charters, in so far as it extended from the Nether
Bow to the edifice named Creech’s Land, at the
east end of the Luckenbooths. “Here,” says a
writer, “ was the battle-ground of Scotland for
centuries, whereon private and party feuds, the
jealousies of nobles and burghers, and not a few of
the contests between the Crown and the people,
were settled at the sword.”
As a place for brawling it was proverbial ; and
thus it was that Colonel Munro, in “His Expedition
with the Worthy Scots Regiment called
Mackeyes,” levied in 1626, for service in Denmark](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p203.gif "Volume 1 Page 191")
... High Street.] THE HIGH STREET.
six storeys each ; in short, down as far as the Cowgate
nothing was to be seen ...
Vol. 1 p. 191 (Rel. 0.7)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street.
CHAPTER XXIIL
THE HIGH STREET (continuedJ.
The Black Turnpike-Bitter ...
Vol. 2 p. 204 (Rel. 0.69)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith Wynd.
In 1650 it was used as a hospital for the wounded
soldiers of General ...
Vol. 2 p. 302 (Rel. 0.67)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGR, [High Street.
Torthorwald could defend himself, ran him through
the body, and slew him ...
Vol. 2 p. 196 (Rel. 0.67)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [St. Andrew Square.
old Scottish school. His habits were active, anc
he was fond of ...
Vol. 3 p. 170 (Rel. 0.65)
![&rnbers Street.] INDUSTRIAL MUSEUM. 275
metalhrgy and constructive materials, for ceramic
.and vitreous manufactures, the decorative arts,
guise of various animals, seek to aid 0; hinder its ' ascent.
textile manufactures, food, education, chemistry,
materia medica, photography, &c.
The whole floor is covered with articles illustrative
of the arts of construction, such as products
.of the clay-fields, fire and brick clays, and terra-
-cottas. Cements and artificial stones stand next
in order, followed by illustrations of the mode of
quarrying real stone ; adjoining these are stones
dressed for building purposes, and others carved
for ornamental uses.
Oriental stone carving is illustrated by a set of
magnificent plaster casts from one of the- most
famous gates of Delhi, made by order of the
Indian Government. The sanitary appliances used
in building are likewise exhibited here ; also slate
.and its uses, with materials for surface decorations,
.and woods for house timber and furniture.
Among the more prominent objects are large
.models of Scottish lighthouses, presented by the
Commissioners of Northern Lights, of St. Peter's at
Rome, St Paul's at London, and the Bourse in
Berlin, together with a singularly elegant carton-
.pierre ceiling ornament, and finely designed mantelpiece,
that were originally prepared for Montagu
House.
In the centre of the hall are some beautiful
.specimens of large guns and breechloading fieldpieces,
with balls and shells, and a fine model of
-the bridge over the Beulah in Westmoreland.
A hall devoted to the exhibition of flint and clay
products, and illustrations of glass and pottery, is
in the angle behind the great and east saloons.
'The art Potteries of Lambeth are here represented
by beautiful vases and plaques, and other articles
in the style of old Flemish stoneware. There are
.also fine examples of the Frenchfuiencr, by Deck
-of Paris, including a splendid dish painted by
Anker, and very interesting samples of Persian
-pottery as old as t b fourteenth century.
There is a magnificent collection of Venetian
.glass, comprising nearly 400 pieces, made by the
Abbot Zanetti of Murano, in Lombardy; while
modern mosaic work is exemplified by a beautiful
,reredos by Salviati, representing the Last Supper.
The beauty of ancient tile work is here exhibited
in some exquisite fragments from Constantinople,
These formed, originally, part of the
.several decorations of the mosque of Broussa, in
Anatolia, which was destroyed by an earthquake.
In rich blue on a white ground they display a
variety of curious conceptions, one of which represents
the human soul shooting aloft as a tall
=cypress tree, while good and evil spirits, under the
Near these are placed, first, illustrations of colliery
work, then of metallurgical operations, and lastly,
the manufacture of metals. The first, or lower
gallery of this hall, contains specimens of the arts
in connection with clothing, and the textile fabrics
generally and their processes ; wood, silk, cotton,
hemp, linen, jute, felt, silk, and straw-hat making,
leather, fur, and also manufactures from bone, ivory,
horn, tortoise-shell, feathers, hair-gut, gutta-percha,
india-rubber, &c. ; and the upper gallery contains
the collection illustrative of chemistry, the chemical
arts, materia medica, and philosophical instruments.
The department of machinery contains a speci
men, presented by the inventor. of Lister's wool
combing machine, which, by providing the means
of combing long wools mechanically, effected an
enormous change in the worsted trade of Yorkshire.
*
In the front of the east wing is the lecture
room, having accommodation for 800 sitters
Above it is a large apartment, seventy feet in
length by fifty broad, containing a fine display of
miner'als and fossils. One of the most interesting
features in this department is the large and valuable
collection of fossils which belonged to Hugh
Miller.
The ethnological specimens are ranged in hahdsome
cases around the walls. The natural his.
tor). hall contains on its ground floor a general
collection of mammalia, including a complete
grouping of British animals. The first gallery
contains an ample collection of birds and shells,
&c; the upper gallery, reptiles and fishes. In
the hall is suspended the skeleton of a whale
seventy-nine feet in length.
On the north side of Chambers Street is the new
Watt Institution and School of Arts, erected in
lieu of that of which we have already given a history
in Adam Square. (VoL I., pp. 379, 380.) It was
erected in 1872-3 from designs by David Rhind,
and is two storeys in height, with a pavilion at
its west end, and above its entrance porch the
handsome statue of James Watt which stood in
the demolished square.
Beside this institution stands the Phrenological
Museum, on the north side, forming a conjoint
building With it, and containing a carefully assorted
collection of human skulls some of them being of
great antiquity. It was formerly in Surgeon Square,
High School Yard.
The new Free Tron Church stands here, nearly
Sec "Great Industries of Great Britain." VoL I., pp. 107-8;
II., b](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p095.gif "Volume 4 Page 275")
... Street.] INDUSTRIAL MUSEUM. 275
metalhrgy and constructive materials, for ceramic
.and vitreous ...
Vol. 4 p. 275 (Rel. 0.65)
... Lawomarket.1 MAJOR SOMERVILLE. 9s
visitor could be fully visCd before admission was
accorded. In many other ...
Vol. 1 p. 95 (Rel. 0.6)
... burned, and ‘‘ that ilk mail in Edinburgh have
his lumes (vents) full of watter in the nycht, under
pain of ...
Vol. 1 p. 122 (Rel. 0.6)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Nether Bow.
with cannon stone-shot in 1544, ere advancing
;against the Castle. “ They ...
Vol. 2 p. 218 (Rel. 0.6)
![rrs PRISONERS. 7 127 The Talbooth.]
was sitting in the Tolbooth hearing the case of the
Laud of Craigmillar, who was suing a divorce
against his wife, the Earl of Bothwell forcibly
dragged out one of the most important witnesses,
and carrying him to his castle of Cricliton, eleven
miles distant, threatened to hang him if he uttered
a word.
On the charge of being a “ Papist,” among many
other prisoners in the Tolbooth in 1628, was the
Countess of Abercorn, where her health became
broken by confinement, and the misery of a
prison which, if it was loathsome in the reign of
George III., must have been something terrible in
the days orCharles I. In 1621 she obtained a
licence to go to the baths of Bristol, but failing
to leave the city, was lodged for six months in the
Canongate gaol. After she had been under restraint
in various places for three years, she was permitted
to remain ir. the earl’s house at Paisley, in March
1631, on condition that she “ reset no Jesuits,”
and to return if required under a penalty of 5,000
merks.
Taken seriatim, the records of the Tolbooth
contain volumes of entries made in the following
brief fashion :-
“1662, June 10.-John Kincaid put in ward
by warrant of the Lords of the Privy Council, for
‘ pricking of persons suspected of witchcraft anwarranfably.’
Liberated on finding caution not to
do so again.
“-June 10.-Robert Binning for falsehood ;
hanged with the false papers about his neck.
“--4ug. q.-Robert Reid for murder. His
head struck from his body at the mercat cross.
“- Dec. 4.-James Ridpath, tinker ; to be qhupitt
from Castle-hill to Netherbow, burned on the
cheek with the Toun’s common mark, and banished
the kicgdom, for the crime of double adultery.
‘‘ 1663, March ~g.-ATexander Kennedy; hanged
for raising false bonds and aritts.
“-March z I.-Aucht Qwakers; liberated, certifying
if again troubling the place, the next prison
shall be the Correction House.
“- July 8.-Katherine Reid ; hanged for
theft.
“-July &--Sir Archibald Johnston of Wamston;
treason. Hanged, his head cut off and placed
on the Netherbow.
“ - July I 8.-Bessie Brebner ; hansed for
murder.
‘I -Aug. zS.-The Provost of Kirkcudbright ;
banished for keeping his house during a tumult.
“ - Oct. 5.-William Dodds ; beheaded for
murder.”
And so on in grim monotony, till we come to
the last five entries in the old record, which is
quite incomplete.
1728, Oct. zs.-John Gibson; forging a
declaration, 18th January, 1727. His lug nailed
to the Tron, and dismissed.
‘( 1751, March 18.-Helen Torrance :md Jean
Waldie were executed this day, for stealing a child,
eight or nine years of age, and selling its body to
the surgeons for dissection. Alive on Tuesday when
carried OK, and dead on Friday, with an incision in
the belly, but sewn up again.
“ I 7 5 6, May 4.-Sir William Dalrymple of Cousland;
for shooting at Capt. Hen. Dalrymple of
Fordell, with a pistol at the Cross of Edinburgh.
Liberated’on 14th May, on bail for 6,000 merks,
to answer any complaint.
“ 1752, Jan. 10.-Norman Ross ; hanged and
hung in chains between Leith and Edinburgh, for
issassinating Lady Bailie, sister to Home of
Wedderburn.
‘ I 1757, Feb. 4.-Janies Rose, Excise Officer at
Muthill ; banished to America for forging receipts
for arrears.”
It was a peculiarity of the Tolbooth, that through
clanship, or some other influence, nearly every
criminal of rank confined in it achieved an escape.
Robert fourth Lord Burleigh, a half insane peer,
who was one of the commissioners for executing
the office of Lord Register in 1689, and who
married a daughter of the Earl of hfelville about
the time of the Union, assassinated a schoolmaster
who had married a girl to whom he had paid improper
addresses, was committed to the Tolbooth,
and sentenced to death; and of his first attempt
to escape the following story is told He was
carried out of the prison in a large trunk, to be
conveyed to Leith, on the back of a powerful
porter, who was to put hini on board a vessel
about to sail for the Continent. It chanced that
when slinging the trunk on his back, the porter
did so with Lord Burleigh‘s head doiwnnmost, thus
it had to sustain the weight of his whole body.
The posture was agony, the way long and rough,
but life was dear. Unconscious of his actual
burden, the porter reached the Netherbow Port,
where an acquaintance asked him “whither he
was going?” ‘:TO Leith,” was the reply. “ Is the
work good enough to afford a glass before going
farther?” was the next question. The porter said
it was; and tossed down the trunk with such
violence that it elicited a scream from Lord Burleigh,
who instantly fainted.
Scared and astounded, the porter wrenched open
the trunk, when its luckless inmate was found
cramped, doubled-up, and senseless. A crowd](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p139.gif "Volume 1 Page 127")
... PRISONERS. 7 127 The Talbooth.]
was sitting in the Tolbooth hearing the case of the
Laud of Craigmillar, who ...
Vol. 1 p. 127 (Rel. 0.59)
![High Street.] TULZIES IN THE HIGH STREET. 195 - -
his own friends and servants into two armed parties,
set forth on slaughter intent.
He directed his brothers John and Robert
Tweedie, Porteous of Hawkshaw, Crichton of
Quarter, and others, to Conn’s Close, which was
directly opposite to the smith’s booth; while he,
accompanied by John and Adam Tweedie, sons of
the Gudeman of Dura, passed to the Kirk (of Field)
Wynd, a little to the westward of the booth, to cut
off the victim if he hewed a way to escape ; but as
he was seen standing at the booth door with his
back to them, they shot him down with their
pistols in cold blood, and left him lying dead on
the spot.
For this the Tweedies were imprisoned in the
Castle; but they contrived to compromise the
matter with the king, making many fair promises ;
yet when he was resident at St. James’s, in 1611,
he heard that the feud and the fighting in Upper
Tweeddale were as bitter as ever.
On the 19th of January, 1594, a sharp tulzie, or
combat, ensued in the High Street between the
Earl of Montrose, Sir James Sandilands, and others.
10 explain the cause of this we must refer to
Calderwood, who tells us that on the 13th of
February, in the preceding year, John Graham of
Halyards, a Lord of Session (a kinsman of Montrose),
was passing down Leith Wynd, attended by
three or four score of armed men for his protection,
when Sir Janies Sandilands, accompanied by his
friend Ludovic Duke of Lennox, with an armed
I company, met him. As they had recently been
in dispute before the Court about Some temple
lands, Graham thought he was about to be attacked,
and prepared to make resistance. The
duke told him to proceed on his journey, and that
no one would molest him; but the advice was
barely given when some stray shots were fired by
the party of the judge, who was at once attacked,
and fell wounded. He was borne bleeding into
an adjacent house, whither a French boy, page to
Sir Alexander Stewart, a friend of Sandilands, followed,
and plunged a dagger into him, thus ending
a lawsuit according to the taste of the age.
Hence it was that when, in the following year,
John Earl of Montrose-a noble then about fifty
years old, who had been chancellor of the jury that
condemned the Regent Morton, and moreover was
Lord High Chancellor of the kingdom-met Sir
James Sandilands in the High Street, he deemed
it his duty to avenge the death of the Laird of
Halyards. On the first amval of the earl in Edinburgh
Sir James had been strongly recommended
by his friends to quit it, as his enemies were too
strong for him ; but instead of doing so he desired
the aid and assistance of all his kinsmen and
friends, who joined him forthwith, and the two
parties meeting on the 19th of January, near the
Salt Tron, a general attack with swords and hack
buts begun. One account states that John, Master
of Montrose (and father of the great Marquis), first
began the fray; another that it was begun by Sir
James Sandilands, who was cut down and severely
wounded by more than one musket-shot, and
would have been slain outright but for the valour
of a friend named Captain Lockhart. The Lord
Chancellor was in great peril, for the combat was
waged furiously about him, and, according to the
“ Historie of King James the Sext,” he was driven
back fighting “to the College of Justice ( i e . , the
Tolbooth). The magistrates of the town with
fencible weapons separatit the parties for that time ;
and the greatest skaith Sir James gat on his party,
for he himself was left for dead, and a cousingerman
of his, callit Crawford of Kerse, was slain,
and many hurt.” On the side of the earl only one
was killed, but many were wounded.
On the 17th of June, 1605, there was fought in
the High Street a combat between the Lairds of
Edzell and Pittarrow, with many followers on both
sides. It lasted, says Balfour in his AnnaZes, from
nine at night till two next morning, with loss and
many injuries. The Privy Council committed the
leaders to prison.
The next tulzie of which we read arose from the
following circumstance :-
Captain James Stewart (at one time Earl of
Arran) having been slain in 1596 by Sir James
Douglas of Parkhead, a natural son of the Regent
Morton, who cut off his .head at a place called
Catslack, and carried it on a spear, “leaving his
body to be devoured by dogs and swine;” this
act was not allowed to pass unrevenged by the
house of Ochiltree, to which the captain-who had
been commander of the Royal Guard-belonged.
But as at that time a man of rank in Scotland
could not be treated as a malefactor for slaughter
committed in pursuance of a feud, the offence was
expiated by an assythement. The king strove
vainly to effect a reconciliation ; but for years the
Imds Ochiltree and Douglas (the latter of whom
was created Lord Torthorwald in 1590 by James
VI.) were at open variance.
It chanced that on the 14th of July, 1608, that
Lord Torthonvald was walking in the High Street
a little below the Cross, between six and seven in
the morning, alone and unattended, when he suddenly
met William Stewart, a nephew of the man
he had slain. Unable to restrain the sudden rage
that filled him, Stewart drew his sword, and ere](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p015.gif "Volume 2 Page 195")
... Street.] TULZIES IN THE HIGH STREET. 195 - -
his own friends and servants into two armed parties,
set forth ...
Vol. 2 p. 195 (Rel. 0.59)
![238 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
-to hir lovite suitore, Johne Chisholme, his airis and
. assignais, all and hailk hir lands callit the King’s
Werk in Leith, within the boundis specifit in the
infeftment maid to him thairupon, quhilkis than
-war alluterlie decayit, and sensyne are reparit and
re-edifit, he the said Johne Chisholnie, to the policy
.and great decoration of this realme, in that office,
place, and sight of all strangeris and utheris re-
- sortand to the Schore of Leith.”
In 1575 it had been converted into a hospital
- for the plague-stricken ; but when granted to Bernard
Lindsay in 1613, he was empowered to keep
four taverns in the buildings, together with the
tennis-court, for the then favourite pastime of
‘catchpel. It continued to be used for that purpose
till the year 1649, when it was taken pos-
2 session of by the magistrates of Edinburgh, and
. converted into a weigh-house.
“ In what part of the building Bemard Lindsay
commenced tavern-keeping we are unable to say,”
observes Campbell, in his “ History of Leith,” “ but
.are more than half disposed to believe it was that
old house which projects into Bernard Street, and
is situated nearly opposife the British Linen Com-
,pany’s Bank.” ‘‘ The house alluded to,” adds
Robertson on this, “has a carved stone in front,
representing a rainbow rising from the clouds, with
a date 165-, the last figure being obliterated, and
-can hatre no reference to Bernard Lindsay.”
The tennis-court of the latter would seem to have
been frequently patronised by the great Marquis of
Montrose in his youth, as in his ‘‘ Household Accounts,”
under date 1627, are the following entries
.(Mait. Club Edit.) :-
‘‘ Item to the poor, my Lord taking coch . . qs.
Item, carrying the graith to Leth . . . . 8s.
Item, to some poor there . . . . . . 3s
Item, to my Lord Nepar’s cochman . .
Item, for balls in the Tinnes Court of Leth..
. . 6s. Sd.
16s.”
The first memorial of Bernard Lindsay is in
the Parish Records ” of South Leith, and is dated
17th July, 1589 :-“ The quhilk days comperit
up Bemard Lindsay and Barbara Logan, and gave
their names to be proclamit and mareit, within
this date and Michaelmas.-JoHN LOGANE, Cautioper.”
Another record, 2nnd September, I 633, bears
that the Session “ allowis burial to Barbara Logane,
-.elict of Bernard Lindsaye, besyde her husbande in
the kirk-yeard, in contentation yairof, 100 merks to
be given to the poor.”
From Bernard Lindsay, the name of the present
Bernard Street is derived. Bernard’s Nook has
long been known. ‘‘ In the ‘ Council Records’ of
Edinburgh, 1647,” says Robertson, “is the following
entry :-‘ To the purchase of the Kingis Werk,
in Leith, 4,500 lib. Scot.’ A previous entry, 1627,
refers to dealing with the sons of Bernard Lindsay,
‘for their house in Leith to be a custom-house. . . .’
We have no record that any buildings existed beyond
the bounds of the walls or the present
Bernard Street at this time, the earliest dates on
the seaward part of the Shore being 1674-1681.”
The old Weigh-house, or Tron of Leith, stood
within Bernard’s Nook, on the west side of the
street ; but local, though unsupported, tradition
asserts that the original signal-tower and lighthouse
of Leith stood in the Broad Wynd.
Wilson thus refers to the relic of the Wark
already mentioned :-‘‘ A large stone panel, which
bore the date 1650-the year immediately succeeding
the appropriation of the King‘s Wark to
civic purposes-appeared in the north gable of the
old weigh-house, which till recently occupied its
site, with the curious device of a rainbow carved
in bold relief springing at either end from a bank
of clouds.”
“ So,” says Arnot, ‘‘ this fabric, which was reared
for the sports and recreations of a Court, was
speedily to be the scene of the ignoble labours of
carmen and porters, engaged in the drudgery of
weighing hemp and of iron.”
Eastward of the King’s Wark, between Bernard‘s
Street and chapel, lies the locality once so curiously
designated Little London, and which, according to
Kincaid, measured ninety feet from east to west,
by seventy-five broad over the walls. “ How it
acquired the name of Little London is now
unknown,” says Camphell, in his “ History ” ;
“but it was so-called in the year 1674, We do
not see, however,” he absurdly remarks, “that it
could have obtained this appellation from any
other circumstauce than its having had some
real or supposed resemblance to the [English]
metropolis.”
As the views preserved of Little London show it
to have consisted of only four houses or so, and
these of two storeys high, connected by a dead
wall with one doorway, facing Bemard Street in
1800, Campbell’s theory is untenable. It is much
more probable that it derived its name from being
the quarters or cantonments of those 1,500 English
soldiers who, under Sir Williani Drury, Marshal of
Berwick, came from England in April, 1573, to
assist the Regent Morton’s Scottish Companies in
the reduction of Edinburgh Castle. These men
departed from Leith on the 16th of the following
June, and it has been supposed that a few of them
may have been induced to remain, and the locality
thus won the name of Little London, in the same](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p057.gif "Volume 6 Page 238")
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
-to hir lovite suitore, Johne Chisholme, his airis and
. assignais, all and ...
Vol. 6 p. 238 (Rel. 0.59)
![THE OLD TOWN GUARD. I35 The Tolbooth.]
impartial rule of the Cromwellian period, formed
the scene of many an act of stern discipline, when
drunkards were compelled to ride the wooden
horse, with muskets tied to their feet, and “ a drinking
cup,” as Nicoll names it, on their head. ‘‘ The
chronicles of this place of petty durance, could
they now be recovered, would furnish many an
amusing scrap of antiquated scandal, interspersed
at rare intervals with the graver deeds of such
disciplinarians as the Protector, or the famous sack
of the Porteous mob. There such fair offenders as
the witty 2nd eccentric Miss Mackenzie, daughter
of Lord Royston, found at times a night’s lodging,
when she and her maid sallied out aspreux chma-
Ciers in search of adventures. Occasionally even
grave jidge or learned lawyer, surprised out of
his official decorum by the temptation of a jovial
club, was astonished, oh awaking, tu find himself
within its impartial walls, among such strange bedfellows
as the chances of the night had offered
to its vigilant guardians.’’ A slated building of
one storey in height, it consisted of four apartments.
In the western end was the captain’s room;
there was also a “ Burghers’ room,” for special prisoners
; in the centre was a common hall ; and at
the east end was an apartment devoted to the
use of the Tron-men, or city sweeps. Under
the captain’s room was the black-hole, in which
coals and refractory prisoners were kept. In I 785
this unsightly edifice was razed to the ground,
an3 the soldiers of the Guard, after occupying the
new Assembly Rooms, had their head-quarters
finally assigned them on the ground floor of the
old Tolbooth.
It is impossible to quit our memorials of the
latter without a special reference to the famous
old City Guard, with which it was inseparably
connected.
In the alarm caused by the defeat at Flodden,
all male inhabitants of the’ city were required to
be in arms and readiness, while twenty-four men
were selected as a permanent or standing watch,
and in them originated the City Guard, which,
however, was not completely constituted until
1648, when the Town Council appointed a body
of sixty men to be raised, whereof the captain
was, says Amot, “to have the monthly pay of
LII 2s. 3d. sterling, two lieutenants of E2 each,
two sergeants of AI 5s., three corporals of AI,
and the private men 15s. each per month.”
No regular fund being provided to defray this
expense, after a time the old method of “watching
and warding,” every fourth citizen to be on duty in
arms each night, was resumed; but those, he adds,
on whom this service was incumbent, became so re-
,
-
laxed in discipline, that the Privy Council informed
the magistrates that if they did not provide an
efficient guard to preserve order in the city, the
regular troops of the Scottish army would be
quartered in it
Upon this threat forty armed men were raised as.
a guard in 1679, and in consequence of an event
which occurred in 1682, this number was increased
to 108 men. The event referred to was a riot,
caused by an attempt to carry off a number of
lads who had been placed in the Tolbooth for
trivial offences, to serve the Prince of Orange as.
soldiers. As they were being marched to Leith,
under escort, a crowd led by women attacked the
latter. By order of Major Keith, commanding, the
soldiers fired upon the people ; seven men and two
women were shot, and twenty-two fell wounded.
One of the women being with child, it was cut from
her and baptised in the street. The excitement of
this affair caused the augmentation of the guard, for
whose maintenance a regular tax was levied, while
Patrick Grahame, a younger son of Inchbraikiethe
same officer whom Macaulay so persistently
confounds with Claverhouse-was appointed captain,
with the concurrence of the Duke of York
and Albany. Their pay was 6d. daily, the drummers’
IS., and the sergeants’ IS. 6d. In 1685
Patnck Grahame, “ captain of His Majesty’s
company of Foot, within the town of Edinburgh
(the City Guard), was empowered to import 300
ells of English cloth of a scarlet colour, with
wrappings and other necessaries, for the clothing
of the corps, this being in regard that the manufactories
are not able to furnish His Majesty’s
(Scottish) forces with cloth and other necessaries.”
After the time of the Revolution the number of
the corps was very fluctuating, and for a period,
after 1750, it consisted usually of only seventy-five
men, a force most unequal to the duty to be done.
“The Lord Provost is commander of this useful
corps,” wrote Amot, in 1779. “ The men are properly
disciplined, and fire remarkably well. Within
these two years some disorderly soldiers in one of
the marching regiments, having conceived an umbrage
at tha Town Guard, attacked them. They
were double in number to the party of the Town
Guard, who, in the scuffle, severely wounded some
of their assailants, and made the whole prisoners.”
By day they were armed with muskets and bayonets ;
at night with Lochaber axes. They were mostly
Highlanders, all old soldiers, many of whom had
served in the Scots brigades in Holland. In the
city they took precedence of all troops of the line.
At a monthly inspection of the corps in 1789 the
Lord Provost found a soldier in the ranks who had](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p147.gif "Volume 1 Page 135")
... OLD TOWN GUARD. I35 The Tolbooth.]
impartial rule of the Cromwellian period, formed
the scene of many an act ...
Vol. 1 p. 135 (Rel. 0.58)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith Walk.
belonged to different vehicles. It is standing opposite
the Tron Kirk. ...
Vol. 5 p. 154 (Rel. 0.58)
![St. Gild’s Church.] SIR DAVID LINDESAY ON THE PROCESSIONISTS. 14r
In his “Monarchie,” finished in 1553, the pungent
Sir David Lindesay of the Mount writes thus
of the processionists :-
THE NORMAN DOORWAY, ST. GILES’S WHICH WAS DE~TKOYEL) IOWAKDS THE END OF THE
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. (From a Drawing by an no^ nbont 1799.)
The Lady aisle, where Preston’s ,gave lay and
the altar stood, was part of what forms now the
south aisle of the choir called the High Church, and
“ Fy on you fostereris of idolatrie !
That till ane did stok does sik reverence
Feir ye nocht God, to commit sik offence,
To gar suppresse sik greit abusion;
Sal1 be nocht else, bot clene confusion.”
In presens of the pepill publicklie ;
I counsall you do yit ywr diligence,
Do ye nocht sa, I dreid your recompense,
on that altar many of the earliest recorded gifts
were bestowed.
The constant additions made to St. Giles’s
church, from the exchequer of the city, or by contributions
of wealthy burgesses, cannot but be
regarded as a singular evidence of the great](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p153.gif "Volume 1 Page 141")
... Gild’s Church.] SIR DAVID LINDESAY ON THE PROCESSIONISTS. 14r
In his “Monarchie,” finished in 1553, the ...
Vol. 1 p. 141 (Rel. 0.58)
![ROBERT MONTEITH. . 3’5 Duddingston.]
incumbent of Duddingston in 1805. His favourite
subjects were to be found in the grand and sublime
of Nature, and his style is marked chiefly by
vigour, power, and breadth of effect-strong light
and deep shadow. As a man and a Christian
minister, his life was simple, pure, and irreproachable,
his disposition kind, affable, and benevolent.
He died of apoplexy in 1840, in his sixty-second
year.
The city must have had some interest in the loch,
as in the Burgh accounts for 1554 we read:-
‘‘ Item : twa masons twa weeks to big the Park Dyke
at the loch side of Dudding‘ston, and foreanent it
again on Priestfield syde, ilk man in the week xv’.
summa iijIi.
(‘Item : for ane lang tree to put in the wall that
lyes far in the loch for outganging of ziyld beistis
v?.” ’ (“ Burgh Records.”)
The town or lands of Duddingston are included
in an act of ratification to James, Lord Lindsay of
the Byers, in 1592.
In the Acts of Sederunt for February, 1650, we
find Alexander Craig, in-dweller in the hamlet,
pilloried at the Tron of Edinburgh,. and placarded
as being a “ lying witness ” in an action-at-law
concerning the pedigree of John Rob in Duddingston;
but among the few reminiscences of this
place may be mentioned the curious hoax which
the episcopal incumbent thereof at the Restoration
played upon Cardinal de Retz.
This gentleman, whose name was Robert Monteith,
had unfortunately become involved in an
amour with a lady in the vicinity, the wife of Sir
James Hamilton of Prestonfield, and was cpmpelled
to fly from the scene of his disgrace. He
was the son of a humble man employed in the
salmon-fishing above Alloa ; but on repairing to
Paris, and after attaching himself to M. de la
Porte, Grand Prior of France, and soliciting employment
from Cardinal de Retz, he stated he was
“one of the Monteith family in Scotland.” The
cardinal replied that he knew the family well, but
asked to which branch he belonged. “To the
Monteiths of Salmon-net,” replied the unabashed
adventurer.
The cardinal replied that this was a branch he
had never heard of, but added that he believed
it was, no doubt, a very ancient and illustrious
family. Monteith was patronised by the cardinal,
who bestowed on him a canonry in Notre Dame,
and made him his secretary, in which capacity he
distinguished himself by his elegance and purity,
in the French language. This strange man is
author of a well-known work, published in folio,
entitled, “ Hisfoa’re des TroubZes de &andBretap,
depuis Z’an 1633 juspu’a Z‘an 1649, pur Robed
Menfet de Salmonet.
It was dedicated to the Coadjutor Archbishop of
Pans, with a portrait of the author; and a trans- .
lation of it, by Captain James Ogilvie, was published
in 1735 by G. Strachan, at the “Golden Ball,”
in Cornhill.
In the year of the Revolution we find the
beautiful loch of Duddingston, as an adjunct to
the Royal Park, mentioned in a case before the
Privy Council on the 6th March.
The late Duke of Lauderdale having placed
some swans thereon, his clever duchess, who was
carrying on a legal contest With his heirs, deemed
herself entitled to take away some of those birds
when she chose; but Sir James Dick, now proprietor
of the %ch, broke a lock-fast place in
which she had put them, and set them once more
upon the water. The irate dowager raised an
action against him, which was decided in her
favour, but in defiance of this, the baronet turned
all the swans off the loch ; on which the Duke of
Hamilton, as Heritable Keeper of the palace, came
to the rescue, as Fountainhall records, alleging
that the loch bounded the King’s Park, and that
all the wild animals belonged to him ; they were,
therefore, restored to their former haunts.
Of the loch and the landsof Priestfield (orPrestonfield),
Cockburn says, in his “Memorials” :-“I know
the place thoroughly. The reeds were then regularly .
cut over by means of short scythes with very long
handles, close to the ground, and this (system)
made Duddingston nearly twice its present size”
Otters are found in its waters, and a solitary
badger has at times provoked a stubborn chase.
The loch is in summer covered by flocks of dusky
coots, where they remain till the closing of the ice
excludes them from the water, when they emigrate
to the coast, and return With the first thaw.
Wild duck, teal, and water-hens, also frequent it,
and swans breed there prolifically, and form one
of its most picturesque ornaments. The pike, the
perch, and a profusion of eels, which are killed by
the barbed sexdent, also abound there.
In winter here it is that skating is practised as an
art by the Edinburgh Club. “The writer recalls
with pleasure,” says the author of the “Book of
Days,” “skating exhibitions which he saw there early
in the present century, when Henry Cockburn,
and the philanthropist James Sipson, were conspicuous
amongst the most accomplished of the
club for their handsome figures and great skill in
the art. The scene of that loch ‘ in full bearing J
on a clear winter day, with its busy and stirring
multitude of sliders, skaters, and curlers, the snowy
Paris, 166 I.”](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p135.gif "Volume 4 Page 315")
... MONTEITH. . 3’5 Duddingston.]
incumbent of Duddingston in 1805. His favourite
subjects were to be found in ...
Vol. 4 p. 315 (Rel. 0.57)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Etreet.
the gentlemen’s mansions and goodliest houses are
obscurely founded in ...
Vol. 2 p. 200 (Rel. 0.56)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Edinburgh Castlc.
brother Sir James, with two burgesses of the City,
were drawn ...
Vol. 1 p. 50 (Rel. 0.56)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
vestments, bearing the arm-bone of the saint ; then
they passed the Cross, the fountain ...
Vol. 3 p. 62 (Rel. 0.56)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [St. Mary’s Wynd.
the maintenance of the beads-+eople of that hospital ;
and every ...
Vol. 2 p. 298 (Rel. 0.55)
... OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
CATHEDRAL, 1787 (aper
The Canongate Tolbooth . . . . . . I
The Burgh Seal of the ...
Vol. 4 p. 392 (Rel. 0.53)
... Giles’s Church.
was a place frequently assigned in bills for the
payment of money.
The transept, called at ...
Vol. 1 p. 144 (Rel. 0.52)
![West Church.] THE LOTHIAN ROAD. =37
towards Bruntsfield Links, had long been projected,
but owing to the objections raised by the
proprietors of many barns, byres, and sheds which
stood in the way, the plan could not be matured,
till after several years of trouble and speculation j
in length by twenty paces in breadth." This
scheme he concerted with address, and executed
with nautical promptitude It happened to be the
winter season, when many men were unemployed.
He had no difficulty in collecting several hundreds
ST. CUTHBERT'S CHURCH.
and when at last the proposal was about to be of these at the Kirkbraehcad upon the appointed
agreed to by the opposing parties, the broad and ' morning before sunrise, when he gave them all a
stately road was-to the surprise of the public and ' plentiful breakfast of porter, whisky, and bread and
mortification of the opposition-made in one day ! cheese, after which, just as the sun rose, he ordered
'' some to tear down' en-
John Clerk, Bart., of Pennicuik (an' officer: of't'hc ! dlosuresi others to unroof and demolish cottages,
in 1784). laid a bet with a friend to the effect I with to fill up the natural hollow (near the church-
" that he. would, between sunrise and sunset, ' yard gate) to the required height. The inhabitants,
execute the line of road, extending nearly a mile 1 dismayed at so vast a force and so summary a
It so happened that a gentleman, said to be! Sir. 1 th,e% ,to* set to, work
royal navy, who succeeded his father, Sir George, I and a considerahle portion to bring' earth where-
66](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p149.gif "Volume 3 Page 137")
... Church.] THE LOTHIAN ROAD. =37
towards Bruntsfield Links, had long been projected,
but owing to the ...
Vol. 3 p. 137 (Rel. 0.52)
... College Church (restored) . . . . 289
Victoria Street and Terrace, from George Iv. Bridge. ...
Vol. 2 p. 394 (Rel. 0.52)
... AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith Wynd. 304
of the building, among these; on a buttress, at the
west angle of the ...
Vol. 2 p. 304 (Rel. 0.52)
... was accordingly built for them, at the
expense, says h o t , of Az,400 sterling. A portion
of this ...
Vol. 3 p. 29 (Rel. 0.52)
... KIRK-OF-FIELD. (Alto an Etching by /awes Skenc cf Rubirlaw).
OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
CHAPTER I.
THE KIRK OF ...
Vol. 5 p. 1 (Rel. 0.49)
![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. 0.49)
...
THE ABBEY PILLAGED. 57
troops retnrned to complete the destruction of the
abbey, which in the ...
Vol. 3 p. 57 (Rel. 0.47)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Broughton.
been placed along both sides of a road that ran
east and west; those on ...
Vol. 3 p. 184 (Rel. 0.47)
... by King Alexander II., and in its earliest charters
named Mansio Re@, as he had bestowed upon
the monks a ...
Vol. 4 p. 285 (Rel. 0.47)
... Leith Wynd.1 THE DUCHESS OF LENNOX
Pont, an illustrious Venetian who came to Scotland
in the train of Mary of ...
Vol. 2 p. 305 (Rel. 0.47)
... 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. 0.47)
... of the corps would make their last actual
appearance in public at the laying of the foundation
of his ...
Vol. 1 p. 138 (Rel. 0.47)
... PETTER h GALPlll k CO LITH.LONDON.
ST. GILES’S CHURCH.
E. Old Record Room.
2. Entrance to Old Record ...
Vol. 6 p. 188 (Rel. 0.46)
... are decayit, and made some sheep-folds, and some
sa ruinous that none dare enter into thame for
fear of ...
Vol. 3 p. 49 (Rel. 0.46)
... AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Rimarton. 3 2 0
1) OLD SAUGHTON BRIDGE ; 2, OLD SAUGHTON HOUSE ; 3, BARNTON HOUSE ; 4, ...
Vol. 6 p. 320 (Rel. 0.46)
... AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Corstrophinc
- ~- I
CRAIGCROOK IN THE PRESENT DAY.
than doubled all the specie ...
Vol. 5 p. 112 (Rel. 0.46)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. WolJlmd
mted with several mouldings, partly circular and
partly hexagonal. The eagle ...
Vol. 3 p. 48 (Rel. 0.44)
... INDEX. 371
118-121 ; tomb of, Corstorphine
Church, 111. 121
Forrester’s Wynd, I. 121. 122, 148,
219, ...
Vol. 6 p. 377 (Rel. 0.44)
... restored, but in somewhat doubtful taste, by
Thomas Hamilton, architect, and a new square
tower, terminating ...
Vol. 6 p. 220 (Rel. 0.44)
![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 ...
Vol. 5 p. 115 (Rel. 0.44)
... -4NU NEW EDINBURGH. ... v11t
CHAPTER XXXIV.
INCHKEITH.
PAGE
The Defences of Leith-Inchkeith Forts-%. ...
Vol. 6 p. 397 (Rel. 0.44)
... -4NU NEW EDINBURGH. ... v11t
CHAPTER XXXIV.
INCHKEITH.
PAGE
The Defences of Leith-Inchkeith Forts-%. ...
Vol. 6 p. 398 (Rel. 0.44)
... -4NU NEW EDINBURGH. ... v11t
CHAPTER XXXIV.
INCHKEITH.
PAGE
The Defences of Leith-Inchkeith Forts-%. ...
Vol. 6 p. 399 (Rel. 0.44)
... Giles’s Churchyard.
INTERIOR OF THE HIGH CHURCH, ST. GILES’S.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF ST. ...
Vol. 1 p. 148 (Rel. 0.43)
... -
CHAPTER XXVII.
LEITH-CONSTITUTION STREET, THE SHORE, COAL HILL, AND SHERIFF ...
Vol. 6 p. 396 (Rel. 0.42)
... OLD AND NET
into the royal presence, the king became alarmed,
and retired into the Tolbooth, amid shouts ...
Vol. 1 p. 146 (Rel. 0.41)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [ S t . Giles Street.
In course of time the politics of the Couranf
graduallychanged, ...
Vol. 2 p. 288 (Rel. 0.41)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith
cost of .&3oo, and has two ornamental fronts;
respectively with Ionic ...
Vol. 6 p. 244 (Rel. 0.41)
![THE EARLY CHURCH. I39 St. Giles’s Church.]
of that hospital used to present a bowl of ale to away. The first stone church was probably of
every felon as he passed their gate to Newgate.
Among the places enumerated by Simon Dunelmensis,
of Durham, as belonging to the see
.of Lindkfarn in 854, when Earnulph, who removed
it to Chester-le-Street, was bishop, he includes
that of Edinburgh. From this it must
be distinctly inferred that a church of some
kind existed on the long slope that led to Dun
Edin, but no authentic record of it occurs till the
reign of King Alexander II., when Baldred deacon
of Lothian, and John perpetual vicar of the
church of St. Giles at Edinburgh, attached their
seals to copies of certain Papal bulls and charters
of the church of Megginche, a dependency of the
church of Holyrood ; and (according to the Liber
Cartaruni Sanctae Crucis) on the Sunday before the
feast of St. Thomas, in the year 1293, Donoca,
daughter of John, son of Herveus, resigned certain
Iands to the monastery of Holyrood, in full consis-,
Norman architecture. A beautiful Norman dborway,
which stood below the third window from the
west, was wantonly destroyed towards the end of
the eighteenth century. ‘‘ This fragment,” says
Wilson, “sufficiently enables us to picture the
little parish church of St. Giles in the reign of
David I. Built in the massive style of the early
Norman period, it would consist simply of a nave
and chancel, united by a rich Norman chancel
arch, altogether occupying only a portion of the
centre of the present nave. Small circular-headed
windows, decorated with zig-zag mouldings, would
admit the light to its sombre interior; while its
west front was in all probability surmounted by
a simple belfry, from whence the bell would summon
the natives of the hamlet to matins and
vespers, and with slow measured sounds toll their
knell, as they were laid in the neighbouring churchyard.
This ancient church was never entire4 detory,
held in the church of St. Giles. Its solid masonry was probably very
is again mentioned, when William the bishop of St. forces of Edward 11. in 1322, when Holyrood was
,%ndrews confirmed numerous gifts bestowed upon spoiled, or by those of his son in 1335, when
the abbey and its dependencies. In 1359 King the whole country was wasted with fire and sword.
David II., by a charter under his great seal, con- The town was again subjected to the like violence,
Catharine in the church of St. Giles all the lands I conflagration of 1385, when the English army
.of Upper Merchiston, the gift of Roger Hog, under Richard 11. occupied the town for five days,
burgess of Edinburgh. It is more than probable and then laid it and the abbey of Holyrood in
961, and built up again within the year. Of what ’ the original fabric by the piety of private donors,
must the materials have been? asks Maitland. I or by the zeal of its own clergy to adapt it to
Burned again in 1187, it was rebuilt on arches of, the wants of the rising town. In all the changes
.stone--“ a wonderful work,” say the authors of the that it underwent for above seven centuries, the
day. I original north door, with its beautifully recessed
A portion of the church of St. Giles was arched ’ Norman arches and grotesque decorations, always
I with stone in 1380, as would appear from a con- commanded the veneration of the innovators, and I tract noted by Maitland, who has also preserved remained as a precious relic of the past, until the
the terms of another contract, made in 1387, be- tasteless improvers of the eighteenth century de-.
tween the provost and community of Edinburgh I molished it without a cause, and probably for no
on one hand, an? two masons on the other, for the better reason than to evade the cost of its repair !”
construction of five separate vaulted chapels along I In the year 1462 great additions and repairs.
the south side of the church, the architectural appear to have been in progress, for the Town.
features of which prove its existence at a period Council then passed a law that all persons selling
I long before any of these dates, and when Edin- corn before it was entered should forfeit one chal-
I der to church work. In the year 1466 it was I burgh was merely a cluster of thatched huts.
The edifice, as it now stands, is a building erected into a collegiate church by James III.,.
including the work of many different and remote the foundation consisting (according to Keitli and
I periods. By all men of taste and letters in Edin- others) of a provost, curate, sixteen prebendaries,.
burgh it has been a general subject of regret that sacristan, beadle, minister of the choir, and four
the restoration in 1829 was conducted in a man- choristers. - Various sums of money, lands, tithes,
ner so barbarous and irreverent, that many of its &c., were appropriated for the support of the new
In an Act ’ molished.
passed in 1319, in the reign of Robert I., the church I partially affected by the ravages of the invading
firmed to the chaplain officiating at the altar of St. i probably with results little more lasting, by the
that the first church on the site was of wood. St. i ashes. The Norman architecture disappeared
Paul’s Cathedral, at London, was burned down in I piecemeal, as chapels and aisles were added to](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p151.gif "Volume 1 Page 139")
... EARLY CHURCH. I39 St. Giles’s Church.]
of that hospital used to present a bowl of ale to away. The first stone ...
Vol. 1 p. 139 (Rel. 0.41)
... ix
CHAPTER XLII.
JAURISTON.
The New UniveAity Buildmgs-The Estimates and Ammmodation-George Watsods ...
Vol. 4 p. 391 (Rel. 0.41)
... INDEX.
Christ’s Church at the Tron, I. 187
Christ‘s Church. Castle Hill. I. 82
Chrystie family,’The, ...
Vol. 6 p. 373 (Rel. 0.41)
![The Cowgate.] THE CORPORATIONS. 265
of the first places where woollen goods were made,
and had, at one time, the most important wool
market in Britain.
The hatmakers were formed into a corporation
in 1473, when ten masters of the craft presented
a petition to that effect; but the bonnet-makers
did not receive their seal of cause till 1530, prior to
which they had been united with the walkers and
shearers, with whom they were bound to uphold
the al+a of St Mark in St Giles’s Church. In
the articles and conditions it contained ; but it is
said that a seal was issued In 1508, Thomas
Greg, (‘ Kirk-master of the flescheour craft,” OD
behalf of the same, brought before the Council a
complaint, that certain persons, not‘ freemen of the
craft or the burgh, interfered with their privileges,
and had them forbidden to sell meat, except on
Sunday and Monday, the free market days, “ quhill
thai obtene thair fredome.”
The coopers were incorporated in 1489, binding
-
INTERIOR OF THE CHAPEL OF ST. MARY MAGDALENE. -
1685 an Act of Parliament confirmed all their
privileges, together with those of the litsters, or
dyers. About the middle of the seventeenth century,
owing to the spread of the use of hats, instead of
the national bonnet, among the upper classes, this
society was reduced to so low a condition that
its members could neither support their families or
the expense of a society.
The fleshers were a very old corporation, but
the precise date of their charter is not very clear.
In 1483 regulations concerning the fleshers dealing
in fish in Lent, &c, were issued by the magistrates,
whom they petitioned in 1488 for a seal of
cause, which petition was taken into consideration by
the Council, who ratified and confirmed the whole of
83
themselves to uphold the altar of St. John in St.
Giles’s Church.
The walkers obtained their seal of cause in
August, 1500. They had an altar in the same
church dedicated to SS. Mark, Philip, and Jacob,
to which the following among other fees were
paid :-
Each master, on taking an apprentice paid ten
shillings Scots ; and on any master taking into his
service, either the apprentice or journeyman of any
other master, he paid twenty shillings Scots ; if any
craftsman was found working with cards in the
country, he was to forfeit the sum of fifteen shillings
Scots, to be equally divided between the work of
Si Giles’s, their altar, and the informer. It is also](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p085.gif "Volume 4 Page 265")
... Cowgate.] THE CORPORATIONS. 265
of the first places where woollen goods were made,
and had, at one time, the ...
Vol. 4 p. 265 (Rel. 0.4)
... StreetJ LORD BALMERINIO’S . HOUSE. 2’3
was promoted to the abbacy by James V. in 1539,
and was canonised two ...
Vol. 2 p. 213 (Rel. 0.4)
... INDEX. 371
Black Watch, 11. 89, 138, 149, 179.
Black Wigs ClLb, 111. 123
Blackwood, Hnilie, 111. ...
Vol. 6 p. 371 (Rel. 0.4)
![1628, by numerous wooden booths being stuck up
all around it, chiefly between the buttresses, some
of which were actually cut away for this ignoble
purpose, while the lower tracery of the windows
was destroyed by their lean-to roofs, just as we
may see still in the instance of many churches
in Belgium. These wretched edifices were called
the Krames, yet, as if to show that some reverence
was still paid to the sanctity of the place, the
Town Council decreed, ‘‘ that no tradesman should
be admitted to these shops except bookbinders,
mortmakers (i.e. watchmakers)] jewellers, and goldsmiths.”
“ Bookbinders,” says Robert Chambers,
“must be in this instance meant to signify booksellers,
the latter term being then unknown in
Scotland ;” but within the memory of many still
Displaying double-beaded winged dmgons clustering round a central rose with the hook of the altar lam?.
Sanction was given in the early part of 1878
by the municipal authorities for extensive restorations,
to be conducted in a spirit and taste un
known to thebarbarous “improvers” of 1829. At
the head of the restoration committee was placed
Dr. Rilliam Chambers, the well-known publisher
and author. According to the plans laid before
it, the last of the temporary partitions were to be
removed, the rich-shaped pillars embedded therein
to be uncovered and restored ; the galleries and
pews swept away, when the church will assume its
old cruciform aspect. “ By these operations the
Montrose aisle will be uncovered, and form an
interesting historical object. Provision is made
for the Knights of the Thistle, if they should desire
it, erecting their stalls, as is done by the Knights of
east angle of the church. Another account says
they were named from the infamous Lady March,
wife of the Earl of Arran, the profligate chancellor
of James VI., from whom the nine o’clock bell
was also named “The Lady Bell,” as it was rung
an hour later to suit herself. An old gentlewoman
mentioned in the ‘‘ Traditions of Edinburgh,” who
died in 1802, was wont to own that she had, in
her youth, seen both the sfdtue and the steps ; but
it is extremely unlikely that the former would
escape the iconoclasts of 1559, who left the church
almost a ruin.
But time has accomplished a change that John
Knox and “Jenny Geddes” could fittle foresee !
was ordered for the church. “The instrument,”
says the Scofsmzn, “consists of two full manuals
and a pedal organ of full compass. The great
organ contains eleven stops, and one of sixteen
feet in metal. There are eleven stops in the
swell organ, and one of sixteen feet in wood.
The pedal organ contains five stops, including two
of sixteen feet in wood, and one of sixteen feet in
metal. In the great organ there is to be a silver
clarionet of eight feet; a patent pneumatic action
is fitted to the keys, and the organ will be blown
by a double cylinder hydraulic engine.”
In its most palmy days old St. Gilas’s couldnevei
boast of such “a kist 0’ whistles ” as this !](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p159.gif "Volume 1 Page 147")
... by numerous wooden booths being stuck up
all around it, chiefly between the buttresses, some
of which were ...
Vol. 1 p. 147 (Rel. 0.4)
... OLD AND NEW
Street; and till 1856 the annual sittings of the Free
Assembly were held in it.
Here, too, in ...
Vol. 5 p. 88 (Rel. 0.4)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [West Church.
When peace came, Messrs. McVicar and Pitcairn,
his coadjutor, continued ...
Vol. 3 p. 134 (Rel. 0.4)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Weat Port.
~~ ~
the dreadful Irish murders in 1828; but its repute
was very ...
Vol. 4 p. 224 (Rel. 0.39)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Mound.
arts classes as well as those for theology; and
accordingly Mr. Patrick C. ...
Vol. 3 p. 96 (Rel. 0.39)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [West Church.
the 27th October, 1592, by ‘(the hail1 elderes, deacones,
and honest men ...
Vol. 3 p. 132 (Rel. 0.39)
![Leith Wynd.] TRINITY COLLEGE. 303
near its site stands one of the fine and spacious
school houses erected for the School Board.
At the foot of Leith Wynd, on the west side,
there was founded on the 5th of March, 1462, by
royal charter, the collegiate church of the Holy
Trinity, by Mary, Queen of Scotland, daughter of
Arnold Duke of Gueldres, grand-daughter of John
Duke of Burgundy, and widow of James II., slain
about two years before by the bursting of a cannon
at Roxburgh. Her great firniness on that disastrous
occasion, and during the few remaining
years of her own life, proves her to have been a
princess of no ordinary
strength of
mind. She took
an active part in
goyerning the stormy
kingdom of her son,
and died in 1463.
Her early death may
account for the nave
never being built,
though it was not
unusual for devout
persons in that age
of church buliding,
to erect as much
as they could finish,
and leave to the
devotion of posterity
the completion of
the rest. Pitscottie
tells us that she OLD COLLEGIATE SEALS,
his office shall be adjudged vacant, and the same
shall, by the Provost and Chapter, with consent of
the Ordinary, be conferred upon another. If any
of the said prebendaries shall keep a $ye-maker,
and shall not dismiss her, after being therein admonished
thereto by the Provost, his prebend shall
be adjudged vacant, and conferred on another, by
consent of the Ordinary as aforesaid.
“ The Provost of the said college, whenever the
office of provostry shall become vacant, shall by
us and our successors, Kings of Scotland, be presented
to the Ordinary; and the vicars belonging
to the out-churches
aforesaid shall be
presented by the
Provost and Chapter
of the said college
to the Ordinary,
fromwhomtheyshall
receive canonical institution;
and no
prebendary shall be
instituted unless he
can read and sing
plainly, count and
discount, and that
the boys may be
found docile in the
premises. And we
further appoint and
ordain, that whenever
any of the said
‘RINITY COLLEGE CHURCH. prebendwies shall
“was buried in the
Trinitie College, quhilk she built hirself.” Her
grave was violated at the Reformation.
The church was dedicated “to the Holy Trinity,
to the ever blessed and glorious Virgin Mary, to
3t. Ninian the Confessor, and to all the saints and
elect people of God.” The foundation was for a
provost, eight prebendaries, and two clerks, and
with much minuteness several ecclesiastical benefices
and portions of land were assigned for the
support of the several offices ; and in the charter
there are some provisions of a peculiar character,
in Scotland at least, and curiously illustrative of
the age and its manners :-
“Aud we appoint that none of the said preben-
,daries or clerks absent themselves from their offices
without the leave of the Provost, to whom it shall
not be lawful to allow any of them above the space
of fifteen days at a time, unless it be on extraordiaary
occasions, and then not without consent of
the chapter ; and whosoever of the said prebendaries
or clerks shall act contrary to this ordinance,
iead mass,‘ he shall,
after the same, in his sacerdotal habits, repair to
the tomb of the foundress with hyssop, and there
read the prayer Dep-ofmdis, together with that of
the faithful, and exhortation to excite the people to
devotion.’’ .
Thechoir of this church from the apse to the
west enclosure of the rood tower was go feet long,
and 70 feet from transept to transept window ; the
north aisle was 12 feet broad, and the south g feet.
It is a tradition in masonry that the north aisles of
all Catholic churches were wider than the south,
to commemorate the alleged circumstance of the
Saviour‘s head, on the cross, falling on his right
shoulder. In digging the foundation of the Scott
monument, an old quarry 40 feet deep was discovered,
and from it the stones from which the
church was built were taken. With the exception
of Holyrood, it was the finest example of decorated
English Gothic architecture in the city, with many
of the peculiarities of the age to which it belonged.
Various armorial bearings adorned different parts](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p123.gif "Volume 2 Page 303")
... Wynd.] TRINITY COLLEGE. 303
near its site stands one of the fine and spacious
school houses erected for the ...
Vol. 2 p. 303 (Rel. 0.39)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Roxburgh Place.
sion, belonging to the Lords Ross and to the age
of stately ceremony ...
Vol. 4 p. 338 (Rel. 0.39)
![Greyfriars Church.] TOMBS.
TOMBS IN GREYFRIARS CHURCHYARD.
1. The hlartyrs' Monument : o Monument of Sir G. McKenzie commonly called '' Blocd McKenzie " 16gz; 3, Wilhm CarJtarrs Rdomer,
and Principal of the Uhiversity of Edinburgh, 17x5 ; 4, Ebtranrx to the South Gmu$ known 85 ihq Covenant4 Rim ; 5, J&nhYhG
Keeper of the Signet, 1614 ; 4 C M y ol DaLy, 1633 ; 7, William Adam, Archirat, 1748, and W b h h n , D.D., 1793.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p201.gif "Volume 4 Page 381")
... Church.] TOMBS.
TOMBS IN GREYFRIARS CHURCHYARD.
1. The hlartyrs' Monument : o Monument of Sir G. ...
Vol. 4 p. 381 (Rel. 0.38)
![Greyfrian Church.] THE COVENANT. 375
and Lord Scrope represented their respective
monarchs.
The number of the inhabitants having greatly
increased, and the churches of the city being insufficient
for their accommodation, the magistrates,
in 1612, says Ariiot, ordered a new one to be
built on the ground formerly belonging to the Greyfriars,
and bestowed on them by Queen Mary for
a public cemetery; but he makes no mention of
any preceding church, on which the present edifice
might have been engrafted.
The eastern entrance from the Candlemaker
Row was formed at some time subsequent to the
erection or opening of this church.
On the 28th of February 1638, the National
Covenant was first subscribed at the Greyfriars
Church, when the aggressive measures of Charles I.
roused in arms the whole of Scotland, which then,
happily for herself, was not, by the desertion of her
nobles and the abolition of her officers of state, unable
to resist lawless encroachment ; and her sons
seemed to come forth as one man in defence of
the Church, which had then no more vigorous u p
holder than the future Marquis of Montrose. ‘‘ In
the old church of the Greyfriars,” to quote his
memoirs (London, 1858), ‘‘ which stands upon an
eminence south of the ancient capital, and within
the wall of 1513, amid quaint and smoke-encrusted
tombs, and many headstones sunk deep in the long,
rank grass-where now the furious Covenanter,
Henderson, and Rosehaugh, ‘ that persecutor of
the saints of God,’ as the Whigs named him, are
lying side by side in peace among the dead of ages,
the Covenant, written on a sheet of parchment one
ell square, and so named because it resembled
those which God is said to have made with the
children of Israel, was laid before the representatives
of the nation, and there it was signed by a
mighty concourse, who, with uplifted hands, with
weeping eyes, and drawn swords, animated by the
same glorious enthusiasm which fired the crusaders
at the voice of Peter the Hermit, vowed, with the
assistance of the supreme God, to dedicate life and
fortune to the cause of Scotland’s Church and the
maintenance of their solemn engagement, which
professed the reformed faith and bitterly abjured
the doctrines and dogmas of the Church of Rome
-for with such they classed the canons and the
liturgy of Laud.”
It was first subscribed by the congregation of the
Greyfriars ; but the first name really appended to it
was that of the venerable and irreproachable Earl
of Sutherland. Montrose and other peers followed
his example, and it afterwards was sent round the
churches of the city; thus it speedily became sa
xowded with names on both sides, says Maithd,
:hat not the smallest space was left for more,
It appears that when there was so little,room
;eft to sign on, the subscriptions were shortened by
inserting only the initials of the Covenanters’ names,
3f which the margins and other parts were so full
that it was a difficult task to number them. By a
cursoryview Maitland estimated themat about 5,000.
By order of the General Committee every fourth
man in Scotland was numbered as a soldier.
In 1650 the church was desecrated, and all its
wood-work wasted and destroyed by the soldiers
of Cromwell. Nine years afterwards, when Monk
was in Edinburgh with his own regiment (now
the Coldstream Guards) and Colonel Morgan’s, ‘
on the 19th of October, he mustered them in the
High Street, in all the bravery of their steeplecrowned
hats, falling bands, calfskin boots, with
niatchlocks and bandoleers, some time prior to his
march southward to achieve the Restoration, From
that street he marched them (doubtless by theRest
Bow) to the Greyfriars Church, where he told his
officers that he “ was resolved to make the military
power subordinate to the civil, and that since they
had protection and entertainment from the Parliament,
it was their duty to serve it and obey it
against all opposition.” The officers and soldiers
unanimously declared that they would live and die
with him.
In the year 1679 the Greyfriars Church and its
burying-ground witnessed a pitiful sight, when that
city of the dead was crowded, almost to excess, by
those unhappy Covenanters whom the prisons could
not contain, after the rising at Bothwell had been
quenched in blood. These unhappy people had
been collected, principally in the vicinity of Bathgate,
by the cavalry, then employed in “ dragooning,”
or riding down the country, and after being
driven like herds of cattle, to the number of 1,200,
tied two and two, to the capital, they were penned
up in the Greyfriars Churchyard, among the graves
and gloomy old tombs of all kinds, and there they
were watched and guarded day and night, openly in
sight of the citizens.
Since Heselrig destroyed the Scottish prisoners
after Dunbar (for which he was arraigned by the
House of Commons) no such piteous sight had
been witnessed on British ground. They were of
both sexes and of all ages, and there they lay five
long months, 1,200 souls, exposed to the suq by
day and the dew by night-the rain, the wind, and
the storm-with no other roof than the changing
sky, and no other bed than the rank grass that
grew in its hideous luxuriance from the graves beneath
them. All were brutally treatedby their](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p195.gif "Volume 4 Page 375")
... Church.] THE COVENANT. 375
and Lord Scrope represented their respective
monarchs.
The number of the ...
Vol. 4 p. 375 (Rel. 0.38)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Restalrig.
oxen, and other things belonging to a field, by the
hands of him, namely, ...
Vol. 5 p. 132 (Rel. 0.38)
![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. 0.38)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. IHolyrood
these ecclesiastical foundations :-The Priory of St.
Mary’s Isle, in ...
Vol. 3 p. 46 (Rel. 0.38)
... Giles’s Church. The whole were contained in
twenty large boxes, and amounted to several tons
in weight. Dr. ...
Vol. 4 p. 384 (Rel. 0.37)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Cowgate.
Mr. Andrew Anderson, printer to the King’s most
Excellent Majesty, for Mr. ...
Vol. 4 p. 256 (Rel. 0.37)
... F e Tolbooth. 124
as the- martlet did in Macbeth’s castle. Of
later years .these booths have degenerated ...
Vol. 1 p. 124 (Rel. 0.36)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Restalrig.
By interdict the directors were compelled to give
access to the well, ...
Vol. 5 p. 130 (Rel. 0.36)
... directly at the south-eastern base of Arthur's
Seat, and has long'been one of the daily postal
districts of ...
Vol. 4 p. 314 (Rel. 0.36)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [George Street. --
already been made in the account of that institution,
of which he ...
Vol. 3 p. 144 (Rel. 0.35)
![THE TOWER 327 Liberton.]
between 1124 and 1153, according to the Lih
Cartarvm Sanchz Crwis.
Macbeth of Liberton also granted to St. Cuth
bert’s Church the tithes and oblations of Legbor
nard, a church which cannot now be traced.
The name is supposed to be a corruption o
Lepertoun, as there stood here a hospital fo
lepers, of which all vestiges have disappeared ; bu
the lands thereof in some old writs (according tc
the “New Statistical Account”) were called “Spital
town.”
At Nether Liberton, three-quarters of a mile nortl
of the church, was a mill, worked of course by thc
Braid Burn, which David I, bestowed upon tht
monks of Holyrood, as a tithe thereof, ‘‘wit1
thirty cartloads from the bush of Liberton,” gift!
confirmed by William the Lion under the Grea
Seal circa I I 7 1-7.
The Black Friars at Edinburgh received fivc
pounds sterling annually from this mill at Nethei
Liberton, by a charter from King Robert I.
Prior to the date of King David’s charter, thc
church of Liberton belonged to St. Cuthbert’s
The patronage of it, with an acre of land adjoining
it, was bestowed by Sir John Maxwell of that iik
in 1367, on the monastery of Kilwinning,pro sahh
aniiiim SUE et Agnetis sponsiz SUE.
This gift was confirmed by King David 11.
By David 11. the lands of Over Liberton,
‘( quhilk Allan Baroune resigned,” were gifted tc
John Wigham ; and by the same monarch the land:
of Nether Liberton were gifted to William Ramsay,
of Dalhousie, knight, and Agnes, his spouse, 24th
October, 1369. At a later period he granted a
charter “to David Libbertoun, of the office of
sergandrie of the overward of the Constabularie of
Edinburgh, with the lands of Over Libbertoun
pertaining thereto.” (“ Robertson’s Index.”)
Adam Forrester (ancestor of the Corstorphine
family) was Laird of Nether Liberton in 1387, for
estates changed proprietors quickly in those troublesome
times, and we have already reterred to him
as one of those who, with the Provost Andrew
Yichtson, made arrangements for certain extensive
additions to the church of St. Giles in that year.
William of Liberton was provost of the city in
1429, and ten years subsequently with William
Douglas of Hawthornden, Meclielson of Herdmanston
(now Harviston), and others, he witnessed
the charter of Patrick, abbot of Holyrood, to Sir
Yatrick Logan, Lord. of Restalrig, of the office of
bailie of St. Leonard’s. (“ Burgh Charters,” No.
At Liberton there was standing till about 1840
a tall peel-house or tower, which was believed to
XXVI.)
have been the residence of Macbeth and other
barons of Liberton, and which must not be confounded
with the solitary square tower that stands
to the westward of the road that leads into the
heart of the Braid Hills, and is traditionally said to
have been the abode of a troublesome robber
laud, who waylaid provisions coming to the city
markets.
The former had an old dial-stone, inscribed
‘‘ God’s Providence is our Inheritance.”
Near the present Liberton Tower the remains
of a Celtic cross were found embedded in a wall in
1863, by the late James Drummond, R.S.A. It
was covered with knot-work.
The old church-or chapel it was more probably
-at Kirk-Liberton, is supposed to have been dedicated
to the Virgin Mary-there having been a
holy spring near it, called our Lady’s Well-and
it had attached to it a glebe of two oxgates of
land.
In the vicinity was a place called Kilmartin,
which seemed to indicate the site of some ancient
and now forgotten chapel.
In.1240 the chapelry of Liberton was disjoined by
David Benham, Bishop of St. Andrews and Great
Chamberlain to the King, from the parish of St.
Cuthbert’s, and constituted a rectory belonging to
the Abbey of Holyrood, and from then till the
Reformation it was served by a vicar.
For a brief period subsequent to 1633, it was a
prebend of the short-lived and most inglorious
bishopric of Edinburgh ; and at the final abolition
thereof it reverted to the disposal of the Crown.
The parochial registers date from 1639.
When the old church was demolished prior to
:he erection of the new, in 1815, there was found
very mysteriously embedded in its basement an
ron medal of the thirteenth century, inscribed in
xncient Russian characters “ THE GRAND PRINCE
3 ~ . ALEXANDER YAROSLAVITCH NEVSKOI.”
The old church is said to have been a picuresque
edifice not unlike that now at Corstor-
Ihine ; the new one is a tolerably handsome semi-
Gothic structure, designed by Gillespie Graham,
,eated for 1,430 persons, and having a square
ower with four ornamental pinnacles, forming a
)leasing and prominent object in the landscape
outhward of the city.
Subordinate to the church there were in Catholic
imes three chapels-one built by James V. at
3rigend’ already referred to ; a second at Niddrie,
ounded by Robert Wauchope of Niddrie, in 1389,
.nd dedicated to “ Our .Lady,” but which is now
inly commemorated by its burying-ground-which
ontinues to be in use-and a few faint traces of](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p146.gif "Volume 6 Page 327")
... TOWER 327 Liberton.]
between 1124 and 1153, according to the Lih
Cartarvm Sanchz Crwis.
Macbeth of Liberton ...
Vol. 6 p. 327 (Rel. 0.35)
... and the founder’s own mother and wife, and
of all the faithful dead, was specially directed, at
the ...
Vol. 5 p. 116 (Rel. 0.35)
... 6 1 0 each. The benefits of the endowments are
still destined to burgesses, their wives or children
not ...
Vol. 2 p. 308 (Rel. 0.35)
![Holyrood. I KING DAVID’S CHARTER. 43
sake of trade ; and if it happen that they do no
come, I grant the aforesaid church from my ren
of Edinburgh forty shillings, from Stirling twentj
shillings, and from Perth forty shillings ; and ont
toft in Stirling, and the draught of one net foi
tishing ; and one toft in my Burgh of Edinburgh
free and quit of all custom and exaction ; and ont
toft in Berwick, and the draught of two nets ir
Scypwell ; one toft in Renfrew of five perches, tht
‘draught of one net for salmon, and to fish thert
for herrings freely ; and I forbid any one to exact
from you or your men any customs therefor.
‘‘ I moreover grant to the aforesaid canons from
my exchequer yearly ten pounds for the lights o
the church, for the works of that church, anc
repairing these works for ever. I charge, more
over, all my servants and foresters of Stirlingshirt
and Clackmannan, that the abbot and convent havt
free power in all my woods and forests, of taking
as much timber as they please for the building 01
their church and of their houses, and for any purpost
of theirs; and I enjoin that their men who take
timber for their use in the said woods have my
firm peace, and so that ye do not permit them tc
be disturbed in any way ; and the swine, the property
of the aforesaid church, I grant in all my
woods to be quit of pannage [food].
‘‘ I grant, moreover, to the aforesaid canons the
half of the fat, tallow, and hides of the slaughter 01
Edinburgh ; and a tithe of all the whales and seabeasts
which fall to me from Avon to Coldbrandspath;
and a tithe of all my pleas and gains from
Avon to Coldbrandspath ; and the half of my tithe
of cane, and of my pleas and gains of Cantyre and
Argyll ; and all the skins of rams, ewes, and lambs
of the castle and of Linlithgow which die of my
flock ; and eight chalders of malt and eight of meal,
with thirty *cart-loads of bush from Liberton ; and
one of my mills of Dean; and a tithe of the mill
of Liberton, and of Dean, and of the new mill of
*Edinburgh, and of Craggenemarf, as much as I
.have for the same in my domain, and as much as
JVuieth the White gave them of alms of the same
Crag. I
‘ ‘‘ I grant likewise to them leave to establish a
burgh between that church and my burgh.* And
. I grant that the burgesses have common right of
selling their wares and of buying in my market,
‘freely and quit of claim and custom, in like manner
.as my own burgesses ; and I forbid that any one
take in this burgh, bread, ale, or cloth, or any ware
-by force, or without consent of the burgesses. I
grant, moreover, that the canons be quit of toll
. Here them is no mention of the town of Hcr6Crgrrs, alleged to haw
occupied the site of the Canongate.
and of all custom in all my burghs and throughout
all my land: to wit, all things that they buy
and sell.
“And I forbid any one to take pledge on the
land of the Holy Rood, unless the abbot of that
place shall have refused to do right and justice. I
will, moreover, that they hold all that is above
written as freely and quietly as I hold my own
lands ; and I will that the abbot hold his court as
freely, fully, and honourably as the Bishop of St.
Andrews and the Abbots of Dunfermline and
Kelso hold their courts.
“Witnesses tRobert Bishop of St. Andrews,
John Bishop of Glasgow, Henry my son, William
my grandson, Edward the Chancellor, Ilerbert the
Chamberlain, Gillemichael the Earl, Gospatrick the
brother of Dolphin, Robert of Montague, Robert
of Burneville, Peter of Brus, Norman the Sheriff,
Oggu, Leising, Gillise, William of Grahani, Turston
of Crechtune, Blein the Archdeacon, Aelfric the
Chaplain, Walerain the Chaplain.” l-
This document is interesting from its simplicity,
and curious as mentioning mzny places still known
under the same names. 1
The canons regular of the order of St. Augustine
were brought there from St. Andrews in Fifeshire.
The order was first established in Scotlayd
by Alexander I. in 1114, and ere long possessed
twenty-eight monasteries or foundations in tqe
So, in process of time, ‘‘ in the hollow betweqn
two hills ” where King David was saved from the
white hart, there rose the great abbey house,
with its stately cruciform church, having three
:ewers, of which but a fragment now remainsT
i melancholy ruin. Till its completion the canods
Mere housed in the Castle, where they resided till
rbout 1176, occupying an edifice which had preiliously
been a nunnery.
The southern aisle of the nave is the only part
if the church on which a roof remains, and of the
whole range of beautifully clustered pillars on the
iorth side but two fragments alone survive. The
mtire ruin retains numerous traces of the original
vork of the twelfth century, though enriched by
he additions of subsequent ages. With reference
o the view of it in the old print which has been
:opied in these pages,$ it has been observed
hat therein “the abbey church appears with a
econd square tower, uniform with the one still
tanding at the north of the great doorway. The
ransepts are about the usual proportions, but the
:hoir is much shorter than it is proved from other
kingdom. I
-
t “Charters relatiagta Cityof E&bwgh,“&u xr43-x5+ao. 4ta. 1871.
f see ante, vol. i, p. 5.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p054.gif "Volume 3 Page 42")
... I KING DAVID’S CHARTER. 43
sake of trade ; and if it happen that they do no
come, I grant the aforesaid ...
Vol. 3 p. 42 (Rel. 0.35)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. -
CHAPTER VI.
THE VALLEY OF THE WATER OF LEITH.
PAGE
Lady Sinclair of Dunbeath-Bell's ...
Vol. 6 p. 394 (Rel. 0.35)
![Leith.1 THE CUSTOM-HOUSE 259
EASTWARD of Leith lie those open downs called
the Links, once of much greater extent than we
find them, and doubtless at one time connected
ground to the westward of the pier, when it was
blowing fresh, with a heavy sea, and before any
assistance could be given she was driven upon
the beach, near the citadel, having beaten off her
rudder and otherwise considerably damaged herself
[sic]. They are employed in taking out the
cargo, and if the weather continues moderate, it
is expected she will be got off.”
The waves of the sea are now distant nearly two
thousand feet north from the spot where the wreck
took place.
Three of the bastions, and two of the gates of
the citadel, were standing when the old “Statistical
Account ” was published, in 1793.
Before quitting this quarter of North Leith we
may quote the following rather melancholy account
given of the latter in 1779, in a work entitled “The
Modem British Traveller,” folio, and now probably
out of print.
About a mile from the city is Leith, which may
be called the warehouse of Edinburgh. It is
divided into two parts by a small rivulet, over
which is a neat bridge of three arches. That part
called South Leith is both large and populous ; it
has an exceeding handsome church, a jail, a
custom-house [the old one in the Tolbooth Wynd],
but the streets are irregular, nor do any of the
buildings merit particular attention. It was
formerly fortified, but the works were destroyed
by the English in 1559 [?I, and not any remains
are now to be seen. That part called North
Leith is a very poor place, without any publick
building, except an old Gothic church ; there is a
small dock, but it is only capable of admitting
ships of a hundred and fifty tons. The harbour is
generally crowded with vessels from different parts;
and from here to Kinghorn, in Fifeshire, the
passage-boat crosses every tide, except on Sundays. . . . Great numbers of the citizens of Edin-
’burgh resort to Leith on parties of pleasure, and
to regale themselves with the sea air and oysters,
which are caught here in great abundance. . . .
with the wide, open, and sandy waste that extended
beyond the Figgate Burn to Magdalene
Bridge,
The town is under the jurisdiction of a bailiff CT],
but it may be called a part of, and is subject to the
jurisdiction of, Edinburgh, in virtue of a charter
granted by King Robert the Eruce.”
The Manners’ Church, a rather handsome building,
with two smail spires facing the east, is built
upon a portion of the site of the citadel, and
schools are attached to it. The church was designed
by John Henderson of Edinburgh, and
was erected in 1840.
In this quarter Sand Port Street, which led to the
then beach, with a few old houses neax the citadel,
and the old church of St. Ninian, comprised the.
whole of North Leith at the time of the Union.
There the oldest graving-dock was constructed in
1720, and it yet remains, behind a house not far
from the bridge, dated-according to Parker
Lawson-162 2.
The present custom-house of Leith was built in
1812, on the site where H.M. ship Fu~y was built
in I 780 ; and an old native of Leith, who saw her
launched, had the circumstance impressed upon
his memory, as he related to Robertson (whose
“Antiquities ” were published in 185 I), “by a carpenter
having been killed by the falling of the
shores.”
The edifice cost A12,617, is handsome, and in
the Grecian style, adorned in front with pillars and
pediment It stands at the North Leith end of the
lower drawbridge.
The officials here consist of a collector, twb
chief clerks, three first and seven second-class
clerks, with one extra ; eight writers, two surveyors,
eighteen examining officers, and a principal coast
officer for Fisherrow. The long room is handsome,
and very different from its predecessor in the Tolbooth
Wynd, which was simply divided by long
poles, through which entries were passed.
In May, 1882, the building at Dock Place (in
this quarter) known as the Sailors’ Home, was
converted into the Mercantile Marine Department
and Government Navigation School.
C H A P T E R XXIX.
LEITH -THE LINKS.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p078.gif "Volume 6 Page 259")
... THE CUSTOM-HOUSE 259
EASTWARD of Leith lie those open downs called
the Links, once of much greater extent ...
Vol. 6 p. 259 (Rel. 0.35)
![farswade.] CAPTAIN PHILIP LOCKHART. 357
was shot, and the other two performed the like
to his body ;‘then they were shot, and laid together,
without a coffin, in a pit digged for the purpose.
Which tragical scene being thus finished, Mr.
Nairne and Mr. Lockhart were decently buried.’’
(“ Letter to a friend in the king’s camp,” Perth,
Count Lockhart was succeeded by his son
1 7 1 5 )
turesqueness and romance to any in Scotland.
The river seems all the way to be merrily frdicsome,
and rushing along a shelving gradient, now hiding
itself behind rocks and weeping wood, and making
sudden, but always mirthful, transitions in its
moods.”
A few ancient and many modem mansions and
villas stud the banks of the glen above the ancient
ROSLIN CHAPEL :-INTERIOR. (A/& a Phtograph 6y G. W. Wiison & Co.)
Charles. In the early years of the present century,
Dryden was the property of George Mercer, a son
of Mercer of Pittuchar, in Perthshire.
In this quarter, on the north bank of the Esk, are
the church and village of Lasswade, amid scenery
remarkable for its varied beauty. The bed of the
Esk lies through a deep, singularly romantic, long,
and bold ravine, always steep, sometimes perpendicular
and overhanging, and everywhere covered
with the richest copsewood. ‘‘ Recesses, contractions,
irregularities, rapid and circling sinuosities,
combine with the remarkably varied surface of its
sides, to render its scenery equal in mingled picvillage
of Lasswade, whose bridge spans the river,
and the name of which Chalmers, in his ‘‘Caledonia,’’
believes to be derived from a ‘‘ well-watered
pasturage of common use, or Zaeswc, in Saxon a
common, and iueyde, a meadow.” In an old Dutch
map it is spelt Lesserwade, supposed to mean the
opposite of Legenvood-the smaller wood in contrast
to some greater one.
The parish of Melville was added to that of
Lasswade in 1633.
In the time of James 111. the ancient Church of
Lasswade was, by the Pope’s authority, detached
from St. Salvador’s College at St Andrews, to
.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p176.gif "Volume 6 Page 357")
... CAPTAIN PHILIP LOCKHART. 357
was shot, and the other two performed the like
to his body ;‘then they ...
Vol. 6 p. 357 (Rel. 0.35)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [North Bridge
they occupied when obtained, that we are tempted to
conclude the ...
Vol. 2 p. 360 (Rel. 0.35)
... it belonged, and annexed to Restalrig. It
stood on high ground, where its ancient square
belfry tower, ...
Vol. 6 p. 358 (Rel. 0.34)
... granting a charter to Robert Winton
“of the barony of Hirdmanston, called Curry.”
(Robertson’s Index to ...
Vol. 6 p. 332 (Rel. 0.34)
... Sciennu.1 CRAIGMILLAR ASYLUM. SI
former, but he could not take it down without pur
chasing the latter also. ...
Vol. 5 p. 51 (Rel. 0.34)
... - OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [West Church.
mode of procedure, made no resistance; and so
.active were the workmen ...
Vol. 3 p. 138 (Rel. 0.34)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [ hlorningside.
reported to the Privy Council that he and the
Napiers of Edinbellie, ...
Vol. 5 p. 38 (Rel. 0.34)
![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. 0.34)
![Victoria Street.] THE MECHANICS’ LIBRARY. 291
CHAPTER XXXV.
SOME OF THE NEW STREETS WITHIN THE AREA OF THE FLODDEN WALL (concZuded).
Victoria Street and Ter-The India Buildings-Mechanics’ Subscription Library-George IV. BridgeSt. Augustine’s Church-Martyrs’
Church-Chamber of the Hiehland and Amicultural Societv--SherifP Court Buildings and Solicitors’ Hall-Johnstone Terrace-St. John’s -
Free Church-The Church of Scotland Training College.
VICTORIA STREET, which opens from the west side
of George IV. Bridge, and was formed as the result
of the same improvement Scheme by which
that stately bridge itself was erected, from the
north end of the Highland and Agricultural Society’s
Chambers curves downward to the northeast
corner of the Grassmarket, embracing in that
curve the last remains of the ancient West Bow.
Some portions of its architecture are remarkably
ornate, especially the upper portion of its south
side, where stands the massive pile, covered in
many parts with rich carving, named the India
Buildings, in the old Scottish baronial style, of
unique construction, consisting of numerous offices,
entered from a series of circular galleries, and
erected in 1867-8, containing the Scottish Chamber
of Agriculture, which was instituted in November,
1864. Its objects are to watch over the interests
of practical agriculture, to promote the advancement
of that science by the discussion of all subjects
relating to it, and to consider questions that
may be introduced into Parliament connected with
it. The business of the Chamber is managed by
a president, vice-president, and twenty directors,
twelve of whom are tenant farmers. It holds fixed
meetings at Perth in autumn, and at Edinburgh
in November, annually; and all meetings are open
to the press.
In the centre of the southern part of the street
is St. John’s Established church, built in 1838, in
a mixed style of architecture, with a Saxon doorway.
It is faced on the north side by a handsome
terrace, portions of which rise from an open arcade,
and include a Primitive Methodist church, or
Ebenezer chapel, and an Original Secession
church. Victoria Terrace is crossed at its western
end bya flight of steps, which seem to continue
the old line of access afforded by the Upper West
Bow.
No. 5 Victoria Terrace gives access to one of
the most valuable institutions in the city-the
Edinburgh Mechanics’ Subscription Library. It
was established in 1825, when its first president
was Mr. Robert Hay, a printer, and Mr. John
Dunn, afterwards a well-known optician, was vicepresident,
and it has now had a prosperous career
of more than half a century.
The library is divided into thirteen sections :-
I, Arts and Sciences ; 2, Geography and Statistics ;
3, History; 4, Voyages, Travels, and Personal
Adventures ; 5, Biography ; 6, Theology ; 7, Law ;
8, Essays; 9, Poetry and the Drama; 10, Novels
and Romances ; I I, Miscellaneous ; I 2, Pamphlets ;
13, Periodicals. Each of these sections has a particular
classification, and they are all constantly
receiving additions, so as to CaNy out the original
object of the institution-“ To procure an extensive
collection of books on the general literature
of the country, including the most popular works
on science.”
Thus every department of British literature is
amply represented on its shelves, and at a charge
so moderate as to be within the reach of all classes
of the community: the entry-money being only
2s. 6d., and the quarterly payments IS. 6d.
The management of this library has always been
vested in its own members, and few societies adhere
so rigidly to their original design as the
Mechanics’ Library has done. It has, from the
first, adapted itself to the pecuniary circumstances
of the working man, and from the commencement
it has been a self-supporting institution ; though
in its infancy its prosperity was greatly accelerated,
as its records attest, by liberal donations of works
in almost every class of literature. Among the
earliest contributors in this generous spirit, besides
many of its own members, were Sir James Hall,
Bart., of Dunglas, so eminent for his attainments
in geological and chemical science; his son,
Captain Basil Hall, R.N., the well-known author ;
Mr. Leonard Horner ; and the leading publishers
of the day-Messrs. Archibald Constable, William
Blackwood, Adam Black, Waugh and Innes, with
John Murray of London. Some of them were
munificent in their gifts, “ besides granting credit
to any amount required-an accommodation of
vital service to an infant institution.”
The property of the library is vested in trustees,
who consist of two individuals chosen by vote
every fifth year, in addition to “the Convener of
the Trades of the City of Edinburgh, the principal.
librarian to the Faculty of Advocates, and the
principal librarian to the Society of Writers to Her
Majesty‘s Signet, for the time being.”
The right of reading descends to the heirs](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p111.gif "Volume 2 Page 291")
... Street.] THE MECHANICS’ LIBRARY. 291
CHAPTER XXXV.
SOME OF THE NEW STREETS WITHIN THE AREA OF THE ...
Vol. 2 p. 291 (Rel. 0.33)
... OF ILLUSTRATIONS . .
THE UNIVERSITY.-~~ontirpi~ce.
PAGE
The Kirk-of-Field . . . . . . . I
Rough Sketch of ...
Vol. 6 p. 401 (Rel. 0.33)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
bestowed by the piety of private donors on the
hospital of St. Anthony, and ...
Vol. 6 p. 218 (Rel. 0.33)
... THE REV. JOHN LOGAN.
The first Protestant minister of Leith, at the
settlement of the Reformation in 1560, ...
Vol. 6 p. 219 (Rel. 0.33)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Bristo Sheet.
g died; but Scotland was not then, nor for long
after, susjected to the ...
Vol. 4 p. 326 (Rel. 0.33)
![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. 0.33)
![Greyfriars Church.] DR ERSKINE. 379
I manhood was a sitter in the Old Greyfriars, and his
parents, Mr. and Mrs. Scott,” says an old tutor of
Sir Walter, writing to Lockhart, “ every Sabbath,
when well and at home, attended with their fine
young family of children and their domestic servants-
a sight so amicable and exemplary as
often to excite in my breast a glow of heart-felt
satisfaction.”
In “ Guy Mannering,” Scott introduces this old
church-now, with St. Giles’s, the most interesting
place of worship in the city-and its two most distinguished
incumbents. When Colonel Mannering
came to Edinburgh (where, as we have already
said, Romance and History march curiously side
from all quarters for the first service, a mass of
. blackened ruins. It has since been repaired at
considerable expense, adorned with several beautiful
memorial windows, the triplet one in the
south aisle being to the Scottish historian, George
Buchanan.
Among the ancient tombs within the church
were those of Sir William Oliphant, King‘s Advocate,
who died in 1628 ; and of Sir David Falconer,
of Newton, Lord President of the Court of Session,
who spent the last day of his life seated on the
bench in court.
The antiquity of our Scottish churchyards, and the
care taken of them, greatly impressed Dr. Southey
strangely contrasted with a black wig, without a ‘
grain of powder ; a narrow chest and stooping
posture; hands which, placed like props on each
side of the pulpit, seemed necessary rather to support
the person than to assist the gesticulation of
the preacher ; a gown (not even that of Geneva), a
tumbled band, and a gesture which seemed scarcely
voluntary, were the first circumstances which struck
a stranger.”
Dr. Erskine, previously minister of the New
Greyfriars, was the author of voluminous theological
works, which are known, perhaps, in Scotland
only. After ministering at the Greyfriars for fortyfive
years, he died in January, 1803, and was buried
in the churchyard
Principal Robertson pre-deceased him. He died
in June, 1793, in the seventy-first year of his age,
and was interred in the same burying-ground.
The Old Greyfriars was suddenly destroyed on
the morning of Sunday, 19th January, 1845, by a
fire, and presented to the startled people, assembling
greatest, grandest, and most renowned, who have
lived during a period of three hundred years.
In the year 1562 the Town Council made an
application to Queen Mary to grant them the site
and yards of the Greyfriars Monastery, to form a
a new burial-place, as ‘‘ being somewhat distant
from the town.” Mary, in reply, granted their request
at once, and appointed the Greyfriars yard,
or garden, to be devoted in future to the use specified,
and as St Giles’s Churchyard soon after began
to be abandoned, no doubt interments here would
proceed rapidly ; all the more so that the other
burial-places of the city had become desecrated.
‘‘ Before the Reformation,” says Wilson, “there
were the Blackfriars Kirkyard, where the Surgical
Hospital or old High School now stands ; the
Kirk-of-Field-now occupied by the college,
Trinity College, Holyrood Abbey, St. Roque’s ’
and St. Leonard’s Kirkyards. In all these places
human bones are still found on digging to any
depth.”](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p199.gif "Volume 4 Page 379")
... Church.] DR ERSKINE. 379
I manhood was a sitter in the Old Greyfriars, and his
parents, Mr. and Mrs. ...
Vol. 4 p. 379 (Rel. 0.32)
... V
CHAPTER XV.
T H E CALTON H I L L .
e .
?AGS
Origin of the Name-Ghbet and Battery them-The Quarry ...
Vol. 4 p. 387 (Rel. 0.32)
![Leith.] THE TOLBOOTH WYND. 1 0
marrow alley adjoining the latter, a house bearing
the date 1688 has the two legends, “Feir the
Lord,” and “The feir of the Lord is the beginning
of a1 wisdome.”
This part of the town-about the foot of St.
Andrew’s Street-is said to have borne anciently
the name of St. Leonard’s. There the Street
diverges into two alleys : one narrow and gloomy,
which bears the imposing title of Parliament Court ;
and the other called Sheephead Wynd, in which
there remains a very ancient edifice, the ground
floor of which is formed of arches constructed like
those of the old house described in the Kirkgate,
and bearing the date 1579, with the initials D. W.,
M. W. Though small and greatly dilapidated, it
is ornamented with string-courses and mouldings ;
and it was not without some traces of old importance
and grandeur amid its decay and degradation,
until it was entirely altered in 1859.
This house is said to have received the local
name of the Gun Stone, from the circumstance of
a stone cannon ball of considerable size having
been fired into it during some invasion by an
English ship of war. Local tradition avers that
for many years this bullet formed an ornament on
the summit of the square projecting staircase of
the house.
Near Cable’s Wynd, which adjoins this alley, and
between it and King Street, at a spot called
Meeting-house Green, are the relics of a building
formerly used as a place of worship, and although
it does not date farther back than the Revolution
.of 1688, it is oddly enough called “John Knox’s
Church.”
The records of South Leith parish bear that in
1692, ‘‘ the magistrates of Edinburgh, and members
of the Presbytery there, with a confused company
of the people, entered the church by breaking open
the locks of the doors and putting on new ones,
and so caused guard the church doors with halberts,
rang the bells, and possessed Mr. Wishart of
the church, against which all irregular proceedings
public protests were taken.”
Previous to this he would seem to have officiated
in a kind of chapel-of-ease established near Cable’s
Wynd, by permission of James VII. in 1687.
Soon after the forcible induction recorded, he
came to the church with a guard of halberdiers,
accompanied by the magistrates of Leith, and took
possession of the Session House, compelling the
“ prelatick Session ” to hold their meeting in the
adjacent Kantore. More unseemly matters followed,
for in December of the year 1692, when a
meeting was held in South Leith Church to hear
any objections that might be niade against the legal
induction of the Rev. Mr. Wishart, an adherent of
Mr. Kay, ‘‘ one of the prelatick incumbents,” protested
loudly against the whole proceedings.
Upon this, “Mr. Livingstone, a brewer at the
Craigend (or Calton), rose up, and, in presence of
the Presbytery, did most violently fall upon the
commissioner, and buffeted him and nipped his
cheeks, and had many base expressions to him.”
Others now fell on the luckless commissioner,
who was ultimately thrust into the Tolbooth of
Leith by a magistrate, for daring to do that which
the Presbytery had suggested. Mr. Kay’s session
were next driven out of the Kantore, on the door
of which another lock was placed.
It has been supposed that the ousted episcopal
incumbent formed his adherents into a small congregation,
as he remained long iu Leith, and died
at his house in the Yardheads there so lately as
November, 1719, in the seventieth year of his age.
His successor, tile Rev. Robert Forbes, was minister
of an episcopal chapel in Leith, according to an
anonymous writer, ‘‘ very shortly after Mr: Kay’s
death, and records a baptism as having been performed
‘ in my room in ye Yardheads.’ ”
The history of the Meeting-house near Cable’s
Wynd is rather obscure, but it seems to have been
generally used as a place of worship. The last
occasion was during a visit of John Wesley, the
great founder of Methodism. He was announced
to preach in it; but so grcat a concourse of people
assembled, that the edifice was incapable of accommodating
them, so he addressed the multitude
on the Meeting-house Green. LI house near it,
says The Srofsinan in 1879, is pointed out as “the
Manse.”
The Tolbooth TVynd is about five hundred an&
fifty feet in length, from where the old signal-tower
stood, at the foot of the Kirkgate, to the site of a
now removed building called Old Babylon, which
stood upon the Shore.
The second old thoroughfare of Leith was undoubtedly
the picturesque Tolbooth Wynd, as the
principal approach to the harbour, after it superseded
the more ancient Burgess Close.
It was down this street that, in the age when
Leith was noted for its dark superstitions and eccentric
inhabitants, the denizens therein, regularly
on stormy nights or those preceding a storm,
heard with horror, at midnight, the thundering
noise of “the twelve o‘clock coach,” a great oatafalque-
looking vehicle, driven by a tall, gaunt figure
without a head, drawn by black horses, also headless,
and supposed to be occupied by a mysterious
female.
Near the eastern end of the wynd there stood
,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p046.gif "Volume 6 Page 227")
... THE TOLBOOTH WYND. 1 0
marrow alley adjoining the latter, a house bearing
the date 1688 has the two ...
Vol. 6 p. 227 (Rel. 0.32)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Holyrood.
thirty-two days. He was then brought forth, nude,
in presence of a ...
Vol. 3 p. 56 (Rel. 0.32)
... COBOURG STREET. 255
ing is the inscription on the pedestal-‘ This memorial
of David Johnston, D.D., who ...
Vol. 6 p. 255 (Rel. 0.32)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Arthur’s Seat.
to the cone from the base by the way of St. Anthony’s
Well, for a ...
Vol. 4 p. 312 (Rel. 0.32)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Greyfriars Church.
and, forming a part of her volunteer forces, six
battalions of ...
Vol. 4 p. 374 (Rel. 0.32)
![Bmghton.]
The new Catholic and Apostolic church, a conspicuous
and spacious edifice, stands north of
all those mentioned at the corner of East London
Street. It was founded in November, 1873, and
opened with much ceremony in April, 1876. It is
in a kind of Norman style, after designs by R.
Anderson, and measures zoo feet long, is 45 feet
in height to the wall-head, and 64 to the apex
EAST LONDON STREET.
of the internal roof. It comprises a nave, chancel,
and baptistry. The nave measures IOO feet in
length, by 45 in breadth; is divided into five
bays, marked externally by buttresses, and has
at each corner a massive square turret surmounted
by a pinnacle rising as high as the 1;dge of the
roof. The chancel measures 614 feet, and communicates
with the nave.
PICARDY VILLAGE AND GAYFIELD HOUSE. (Aft# CkrR of Ekiin.)
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE NORTHERN NEW TOWN.
Picardy Place-Lords Eldm and Craig - Si David Milne-John Abetnumbie-Lard Newton-Commissionex Osbome-St. Paul's Church-
St. George's Chapel-Willii Douglas, Artist-Professor Playfair-General Scott of Bellevue-Drummond P k c d . K. Sharpc of Hoddam
--Lord Robertson-Abercrombic Place and Heriot Row-Miss Femer-House in which H. McKenAe died-Rev. A. Aliin-Great King
Street-% R. Christison--Si W illiam Hamilton-Si William Ab-L-ard Colonsay, &c.
THE northern New Town, of which we now propose
to relate the progress and history, i; separated
from the southern by the undulating and extensive
range of Queen Street Gardens, which occupy a
portion of the slope that shelves down towards the
valley of the Water of Leith.
It is also in a parallelogram extending, from the
quarter we have just been describing, westward to ,
72
the Queensferry Road, and northward to the line
of Fettes Row. It has crescental curves in some
of its main lines, with squares, and is constructed
in a much grander style of architecture than the
original New Town of 1767. Generally, it wqs
begun about 1802, and nearly completed by 1822.
In the eastern part of this parallelogram are Picardy
Place, York Place, Forth and Albany Streets,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p197.gif "Volume 3 Page 185")
... new Catholic and Apostolic church, a conspicuous
and spacious edifice, stands north of
all those ...
Vol. 3 p. 185 (Rel. 0.31)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [West Church,
and by an assessment on the real property within
the parish; the expense ...
Vol. 3 p. 136 (Rel. 0.31)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. frhe Cowgate.
The skinners would seem to have been created
into a corporation in 1474, ...
Vol. 4 p. 264 (Rel. 0.31)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
PAGE
The First Trades Maiden Hospital, 1830 . . . 273
TheIndustrialMuseum . , . ...
Vol. 4 p. 394 (Rel. 0.31)
![REGENT MURRAY’S FUNERAL. 143 St. Giles’s Church.]
Beware of injured Rothwellhaugh !
“ The death-shot parts-the charger springs-
Wild rises tumult’s startling roar !
And Murray’s plumy helmet rings-
Rings on the ground to rise no mare ! ”
When his remains were committed to the tomb in
which they still lie, the thousands who crowded
the church were moved to tears by the burning
eloquence of Knox. “Vpoun the xiiij day of the
moneth of Februar, 1570,” says the “ Diurnal of
Occurrents” “ my lord Regentis corpis, being brocht
in ane bote be sey, frz Stirling to Leith, quhair it
was keipit in Johne Wairdlaw his hous, and thereafter
cary it to the Palace of Holyrudhous, wes
transportit fra the said Palace to the College Kirk
the Regent Murray, the Regent Morton, and his
great rival, John Stewart Earl of Athole, are buried ;
and adjoining the aisle where the sorely mangled
remains of the great Marquis of Montrose were
so royally interred on the 7th of January, 1661.
The Regent’s tomb, now fully restored, stands
on the west side of the south transept, and on
many accounts is an object of peculiar interest.
Erected to the memory of one who played so conspicuous
a part in one of the most momentous
periods of Scottish history, it is well calculated to
interference of the General Assembly, and a riot
ensued.
The portion of the church which contained
these monuments was eftered by a door adjoining
the Parliament Close, and, as it was never shut,
“the gude regent’s aisle,” as it was named,
became a common place for appointments and
loungers. Thus French Paris-Queen Mary’o
servant-in his confession respecting the murder
of King Henry, stated that during the communings
which took place before that dark deed was resolved
on, he one day “took his mantle and sword
and went to prumencr (walk) in the high church.”
Probably in consequence of the veneration entertained
for the memory of the Regent, his tomb
rouse many a stirring association.
All readers of
history know how the Regent
fell under the bullet
of Bothwellhaugh, at Linlithgow,
in avenging the
wrongs inflicted on his
wife, the heiress of Woodhouselee.
As the “Cadyow
Ballad ” has it-
“ ’Mid pennoned spears a stately
Proud Murray’s plumage
Scarce could his trampling
So close the minions crow-
“ From the raised vizor’s shade,
Dark rolling, glanced the
And his steel truncheon waved
Seemed marshalling the iron
“But yet his saddened brow
A passing shade of doubt
Some fiend was whispering in
grove,
floated high ;
charger move,
ded nigh.
his eye,
ranks along ;
on high,
throng,
confessed,
and awe ;
his breast,
~
of Sanctgeill, in this manner; that is to say,
.i‘illiam Kirkaldie of Grange, Knycht, raid fra the
said palace in dule weid, bearing ane pensal!
quherin was contenit ane Reid Lyon; after him
followit Colvill of Cleishe, Maister (of the) Houshold
to the said Regent, with ane quherin was
contenit my lords regentis armes and bage.” The
Earls of Mar, Athole, Glencairn, the Lords
Ruthven, Methven, and Lindsay, the Master of
Graham, and many other nobles, bore the body
through the church to the grave, where it “was
JOHN KNOX’S PULPIT, ST. GILES’S.
(From tk Scottish Anfaquarinn Museum).
buryit in Sanct Anthonie’s
yle.” On the front of the
restored tomb is the ancient
brass plate, bearing
an inscription composed
by George Buchanan :-
’( Iur060 Stuvarto, Mwm’e Cornifi,
Scotie Prwqi;
Vim, a t a t i s szw, longe opt*
mo : a6 inirnik,
0mni.- rnemorie deterrimis, ex
insdiis exfindo,
Ceu pafn‘ commwni, pafna
mcprens $omit.’’
Opposite, on the north side
of the west transept, was
the tomb in which the Earl
of Athole, Chancellor of
Scotland, who died suddenly
at Stirling, not without
suspicion of poison,
was interred with great
solemnity on the 4th of
July, 1579. A cross was
used on this occasion, and
as flambeaux were borne,
according to Calderwood,
the funeral probably occurred
at night ; these paraphernalia
led to the usual](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p155.gif "Volume 1 Page 143")
... MURRAY’S FUNERAL. 143 St. Giles’s Church.]
Beware of injured Rothwellhaugh !
“ The death-shot parts-the ...
Vol. 1 p. 143 (Rel. 0.31)
... the great plague of 1568 a huge pit,
wherein to bury the victims, was ordered to be dug
in the ‘‘ ...
Vol. 4 p. 380 (Rel. 0.31)
... and without the aid of which he could perform
nothing, was cast in also, and it was remarked
by the ...
Vol. 2 p. 312 (Rel. 0.31)
... Churqh. SIR HENRY WELLWOOD MONCRIEFF. I35
and gloomy vault ; “a memorial alike of the demolished
fane and ...
Vol. 3 p. 135 (Rel. 0.31)
![’ klth] KING JAMES V1.5 HOSPITAL 217
Barker, whose office ceased to exist after the Burgh
Reform Bill of 1833.
The seal of the preceptory is preserved in the
Antiquarian Museum. It bears the figure of St.
Anthonyina hermit’s garb, with a book in one
hand, a staff in the other, and by his side is a sow
with a bell at its neck. Over his head is a capital
T, which the brethren had sewn in blue cloth on
their black tunics. Around is the legend,
S. Cornmum PreceptoriC Sancfi Anthunii, Propc L&cht.
there when the ground was opened to lay down
gas-pipes; and in the title deeds of a property
here, “ the churchyard of St. Anthony ” is mentioned
as one of the boundaries.
The grotesque association of St. Anthony with a
sow is because the latter was supposed to represent
gluttony, which the saint is said to have overcome ;
and the further to conquer Satan, a consecrated
bell is suspended from his alleged ally the pig.
On the east side of the Kirkgate stood King
ST. MARY’S (SOUTH LEITH) CHURCH, 1820. (After .Ytme+.)
Sir David Lindesay of the Mount refers in his
vigorous way to
“The gruntil of St. Anthony’s sow,
There was an aisle, with an altar therein, dedicated
to him in the parish church of St. Giles; and among
the jewels of James 111. is enumerated “Sanct
Antonis cors,” with a diamond, a ruby, and a great
pearl,
Save the fragments of some old vaults, not a
vestige of the preceptory now remains, though its
name is still preserved in St. Anthony’s Street,
which opens westward off the Kirkgate, and is sup
posed to pass through what was its cemetery, as
large quantities of human bones were exhumed
Quhilk bore his holy bell.”
124
James’s Hospital, built in 1614 by the sixth monarch
of that name, and the site of which now forms
part of the present burying-ground. At the southeast
angle of the old churchyard, says Wilson, there
is an ‘‘ elegant Gothic pediment surmounting the
boundary wall and adorned with the Scottish regalia,
sculptured in high relief with the initials
J. R. 6., while a large panel below bears the
royal arms and initials of Charles 11. very boldly
executed. These insignia of royalty are intended
to mark the spot on which KiEg James’s Hospital
stood-a benevolent foundation which owed no
more to the royal patron whose name it bore than
the confirmation by his charter in 1614 of a portion
of those revenues which had been long before](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p036.gif "Volume 6 Page 217")
... klth] KING JAMES V1.5 HOSPITAL 217
Barker, whose office ceased to exist after the Burgh
Reform Bill of ...
Vol. 6 p. 217 (Rel. 0.31)
... vii
. CHAPTER XXXI.
PAGE ALLEYS OF THE HIGH STREET (continued).
Blackfriars Wynd-The Grant of ...
Vol. 2 p. 389 (Rel. 0.31)
![Greyfriars Church.] SCOTT’S FIRST LOVE AFFAIR. ’ 383
son, buried respectively I 7 67 and I 8 I 7, Alexander
Monro $rimus, the great anatomist, and Alexander
Monro secwidm, who in 1756 was admitted joint
Professor of Anatomy and Surgery with his distinguished
father.
In the same ground, in 1799, were laid Professor
Joseph Black, the great chemist ; Dr. Hugh Blair, in
1800 ; Henry Mackenzie, “ the Man of Feeling,” in
1831 ; Alexander Tytler, another distinguished
Zittivatear; John Kay, the caricaturist, in 1826 ;
and Dr. McCrie, the well-known biographer of John
Knox.
The monument to Dr. Hugh Hair was erected
in 1817, and is placed on the south side of the
church, in the same compartment with that of Professor
MacLaurin. Thus, one of the most eminent
philosophers and one of the most distinguished
preachers that Scotland has produced are commemorated
side by side.
On the eastern gable of the Old Greyfriars
Church, a grim, repellent, and remarkable monument
catches the eye. In the centre is sculptured
a skeleton, festooned around with surgical implements,
but the inscription is nearly obliterated by
time and the fire of the church, yet it is always an
object of much curiosity.
It marks the grave of James Borthwick, whose
portrait is the oldest now hanging in the Hall of
the Royal College of Surgeons, the incorporation
of which he entered in 1645 ; he was a cadet of
the House of Crookston, and nearly related to
Lord Borthwick, who defended his castle of that
name against Oliver Cromwell after the battle
of Dunbar. He acquired the estate of Stow, in
which he was succeeded by his son James, who
erected this hideously grotesque memorial to his
memory.
Another monument of a different kind, in the
form of a brass plate inserted into a stone, on the
western wall of the church, bore some fine elegiac
verses to the memory of Francisca, daughter of
‘< Alexander Swinton, advocate ; who died . . . . .
aged 7 years.”
But these verses were quite obliterated by 1816.
They ran thus :-
“ The sweetest children, like these transient flowers,
Which please the fancy for a few short hours,-
Lovely at morning, see them burst in birth,
At evening withered-scattered on the earth,
Their stay, their place, shall never more be known,
Save traits enpven on those hearts alone
That fostered these frail buds while here beneath ;
Yes, these shall triumph o’er the powers of death,
Shall spring eternal in the parent’s mind
Till hence transplanted to a realm refined.”
Northward of the two churches stands the tomb
and grave of Duncan Ban Maclntyre, commonly
known in the Highlands as Donnachan ban nun
Oran, who died in the year 1812, and who, though
he fought at Falkirk, outlived all the bards and
nearly all the warriors associated in the Highland
heart with the last chivalrous struggle for the House
of Stuart.
A handsome monument marks the place where
his ashes lie. Though little known in the Lowlands,
Duncan is deemed one of the-sweetest of
the Gaelic poets, and was so humble in his wants
that he had no higher ambition than to become a
soldier in the old City Guard.
The burial-place of Sir Walter Scott’s family lies
on the west side of the ground. “ Our family,” he
wrote, “heretofore (Dec., 1819) buried close by the
entrance to Heriot’s Hospital, on the southern or
left-hand. side as you pass from the churchyard.”
Here the father, Walter Scott, W.S., and several of
his children who died in the old house in the College
Wynd, are interred. Mrs. Scott, her sisters,
and her brother, Dr. Rutherford, are interred in
the burial-ground attached to St. John’s Church, at
the west end of Princes Street. Sir Walter purchased
a piece of ground there, “moved by its
extreme seclusion, privacy, and security; for,” as
he wrote to brother Thomas, who was paymaster
of the 70th Foot, conveying an account of their
mother‘s death, “when poor Jack (their brother)
was buried in the Greyfriars Churchyard, where my
father and Anne (their sister) lie, I thought their
graves more encroached upon than I liked to
witness.”
The Greyfriars Churchyard is, curiously enough,
noted as being the scene of Scott’s first love affair
with a handsome young woman. Lockhart tells us
that their acquaintance began in that place of
dreary associations, “ when the rain was beginning
to fall one Sunday, as the congregation were dispersing.
Scott happened to offer his umbrella, and
the tender being accepted, so escorted her to her
residence, which proved to be at no great distance
from his own. I have neither the power nor the
wish,” adds his biographer, ‘‘ to give in detail the
sequel to this story. It is sufficient to szy that
after he had through several long years nodrished
the dream of an ultimate union with this lady-
Margaret, daughter of Sir John and Lady Jane
Stewart Belshes of Invermay-his hopes terminated
in her being married to the late Sir William Forbes,
Bart., of Pitsligo.”
In December, 1879, there were interred in the
Greyfriars Churchyard, under the direction of the
city authorities, the great quantity of human bones](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p203.gif "Volume 4 Page 383")
... Church.] SCOTT’S FIRST LOVE AFFAIR. ’ 383
son, buried respectively I 7 67 and I 8 I 7, Alexander
Monro ...
Vol. 4 p. 383 (Rel. 0.31)
... CoWgab.1 THE EPISCOPAL CHAPEL.
to preach openly, by taking the oaths to Govemment,
had been founded in ...
Vol. 4 p. 247 (Rel. 0.31)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. lcolinton.
the Belitice Puetaruni Scuiurum. He was a convert
to the Protestant ...
Vol. 6 p. 322 (Rel. 0.3)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Northumberland Street.
A noted antiquary, he was Correspondant du
Comitk Imp2riaZ des ...
Vol. 4 p. 198 (Rel. 0.3)
![Restalrig.] THE CHURCHYARD. 131
That the church was not utterly destroyed is
proved by the fact that the choir walls of this
monument of idolatry ” were roofed over in 1837,
as has been stated.
An ancient crypt, or mausoleum, of large diniensions
and octangular in form, stands on the south
side of the church. Internally it is constructed with
a good groined roof, and some venerable yews cast
their shadow over the soil that has accumulated
above it, and in which they have taken root. It is
believed to have been erected by Sir Robert Logan,
knight, of Restalrig, who died in 1439, according
to the obituary of the Preceptory of St. Anthony at
Leith, and it has been used as a last resting-place
for several of his successors. Some antiquaries,
however, have supposed that it was undoubtedly
attached to the college, perhaps as a chapter-house,
or as a chapel of St. Triduana, but constructed on
the model of St. Margaret’s Well. Among others
buried here is “LADY JANEr KER, LADY RESTALRIG,
QUHA DEPARTED THIS LIFE 17th MAY, 1526.”
Wilson, in his ‘‘ Reminiscences,” mentions that
‘‘ Restalrig kirkyard was the favourite cemetery of
the Nonjuring Scottish Episcopalians of the last
century, when the use of the burial service was
proscribed in the city burial-grounds ; ” and a strong
division of dead cavalry have been interred there
from the adjacent barracks. From Charles Kirkpatrick
Sharpe he quotes a story of a quarrel carried
beyond the grave, which may be read upon a flat
stone near that old crypt.
Of the latter wrote Sharpe, “I believe it belongs
to Lord Bute, and that application was made to him
to allow Miss Hay-whom I well knew-daughter
of Hay of Restalrig, Prince Charles’s forfeited
secretary, to be buried in the vault. This was
refused, and she lies outside the door. May the
earth lie light on her, old lady kind and vener.
able !”
In 1609 the legal rights of the church and parish
of Restalrig, with all their revenues and pertinents,
were formally conferred upon the church of South
Leith.
In 1492, John Fraser, dean of Restalrig, wa?
appointed Lord Clerk Register; and in 154C
another dean, John Sinclair, was made Lord 01
Session, and was afterwards Bishop of Brechin and
Lord President of the Court of Session. He it war
who performed the marriage ceremony for Queen
* Mary and Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. In 1592
the deanery was dissolved by Act of Parliament,
and divided between “ the parsonage of Leswadc
and parsonage of Dalkeith, maid by Mr. Georgt
Ramsay, dean of Restalrig.”
After the Logans-of whom elsewhere-tht
Lords Balmerino held the lands of Restalrig till
their forfeiture in I 746, and during the whole period
of their possession, appropriated the vaults of the
forsaken and dilapidated church as the burial-place
of themselves and their immediate relations. From
them it passed to the Earls of Bute, with whose
family it still remains.
In the burying-ground here, amid a host of
ancient tombs, are some of modem date, marking
where lie the father of Lord Brougham ; Louis
Cauvin, who founded the hospital which bears his
name at Duddingston ; the eccentric doctor known
as Lang Sandy Wood,” and his kindred, including
the late Lord Wood ; and Lieutenant-Colonel
William Rickson, of the I 9th Foot, a brave and distinguished
soldier, the comrade and attached friend
of Wolfe, the hero of Quebec. His death is thus
recorded in the Scots Magazine for 1770 :-cr At
his house in Broughton, Lieutenant-Colonel William
Rickson, Quartermaster-General and Superintendent
of Roads in North Britain.” His widow died
so lately as 1811, as her tomb at Restalrig bears,
‘‘ in the fortieth year of her widowhood”
Here, too, was interred, in 1720, the Rev. Alexander
Rose, the last titular bishop of Edinburgh.
In tracing out the ancient barons of Restalrig,
among the earliest known is Thomas of Restalrig,
nxa 1210, whose name appears in the Regktruum
de DunferrnZine as Sheriff of Edinburgh.
In the Macfarlane MSS. in the Advocates’
Library, there is a charter of his to the Priory of
Inchcolm, in the Firth of Forth, circa 1217, very
interesting from the localities therein referred to,
and the tenor of which runs thus in English :-
“To all seeing or hearing these writings,
Thomas of Lestalrig wishes health. Know ye,
that for the good of my soul, and the souls of all
my predecessors and successors, and the soul of
my wife, I have given and conceded, and by this
my charter have confirmed, to God and the canons
of the church of St. Columba on the Isle, and the
canons of the same serving God, and that may yet
serve Him forever, that whole land which Baldwin
Comyn was wont to hold from me in the town of
Leith, namely, that land which is next and adjoining
on the south to that land which belonged to
Ernauld of Leith, and to twenty-four acres and a
half of arable land in my estate of Lestalrig in that
field which is called Horstanes, on the west part of
the same field, and on the north part of the high
road between Edinburgh and Leith (it., the Easter
Road) in pure and perpetual gift to be held by
them, with all its pertinents and easements, and
with common pasture belocging to such land, and
with free ingress and egress, with carriage, team,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p142.gif "Volume 5 Page 131")
... THE CHURCHYARD. 131
That the church was not utterly destroyed is
proved by the fact that the choir ...
Vol. 5 p. 131 (Rel. 0.3)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Kirk-of-Field.
land of umyle Hew Berrie’s tenement and chamber
adjacent yr to, lying in ...
Vol. 5 p. 2 (Rel. 0.3)
![THE FREE CHURCH COLLEGE. 95 The Mound.]
Much of all this was altered when the bank was
enlarged, restored, and most effectively re-decorated
by David Bryce, R.S.A., in 1868-70. It now
presents a lofty, broad, and arch-based rear front of
colossal proportions to Princes Street, from whence,
and every other poiiit of view, it forms a conspicuous
mass, standing boldly from among the
many others that form the varied outline of the
Old Town, and consists of the great old centre with
new wings, surmounted by a fine dome, crowned
by a gilded figure of Fame, seven feet high. In
length the facade measures 175 feet; and 112 in
height from the pavement in Bank Street to the
summit, and is embellished all round with much
force and variety, in details of a Grecian style.
The height of the campanile towers is ninety feet.
The bank has above seventy branches ; the subscribed
capital in 1878 was A1,875,000 ; the paidup
capital LI,Z~O,OOO. There are a governor (the
Earl of Stair, K.T.), a deputy, twelve ordinary
and twelve extra-ordinary directors.
The Bank of Scotland issues drafts on other
places in Scotland besides those in which it has
branches, and also on the chief towns in England
and Ireland, and it has correspondents throughout
the whole continent of Europe, as well as in
British America, the States, India, China, Australia,
New Zealand, South Africa, and elsewhere-a ramification
of business beyond the wildest dreams oi
John Holland and the original projectors of the
establishment in the old Bank Close in 1695.
Concerning the Earthen Mound, the late Alex.
ander Trotter of Dreghorn had a scheme foi
joining the Qld Town to the New, and yet avoiding
Bank Street, by sinking the upper end of the
mound to the leve! of Princes Street, and carrying
the Bank Street end of it eastward along the north
of the Bank of Scotland, in the form of a handsomc
terrace, and thence south into the High Street b)
an opening right upon St. Giles’s Church. Thf
next project was one by the late Sir Thomas Dick
Lauder. He also proposed to bring down thc
south end of the mound “to the level of Prince;
Street, and then to cut a Roman arch through thc
Lawnmarket and under the houses, so as to pas!
on a level to George Square. This,” say!
Cockburn, “was both practical and easy, but i
was not expounded till too late.’’
Not far from the Bank of Scotland, in I(
North Bank Street, ensconced among the might!
mass of buildings that overlook the mound, arc
the offices of the National Security Savings Ban1
of.Edinburgh, established under statute in 1836, an(
certified in terms of the Act 26 and 27 Victoria
cap. 87, managed by a chairman and cominittel
I
if management, the Bank of Scotland being
reasurer.
Of this most useful institution for the benefit of
,he thrifty poorer classes, suffice it to say, as a
ample of its working, that on striking the yearly
iccounts on the 20th of November, 1880, “the
balance due to depositors was on that date
&r,305,27g 14s. 7d., and that the assets at the
same date were x1,3og,3g2 Ss., invested with the
Commissioners for the Reduction of the National
Debt, and A3,1o4 3s. gd., at the credit of the
3ank’s account in the Bank of Scotland, making
the total assets L1,312,496 11s. gd., which, after
ieductionof the above sum of L1,305,279 14s. 7d.,
leaves a clear surplus of A7916 17s. zd. at the
:redit of the trustees.”
The managers are, ex oficio, the Lord Provost,
the Lord Advocate, the senior Bailie of the city,
:he Members of Parliament for the city, county,
md Leith, the Provost of Leith, the Solicitor-
General, the Convener of the Trades, the Lord
Dean of Guild, and the Master of the Merchant
Company.
In the sanie block of buildings are the offices of
the Free Church of Scotland, occupying the site of
the demolished half of James’s Court. They were
erected in 1851-61, and are in a somewhat
Rorid variety of the Scottish baronial style, from
designs by the late David Cousin.
In striking contrast to the terraced beauty of the
New Town, the south side of the vale of the old
loch, from the North Bridge to the esplanade of
the Castle, is overhung by the dark and lofty gables
and abutments of those towering edifices which
terminate the northern alleys of the High Street,
and the general grouping of which presents an
aspect of equal romance and sublimity. From
amid these sombre masses, standing out in the
white purity of new freestone, are the towers and
facade of the Free Church College and Assembly
Hall, at the head of the Mound.
Into the history of the crises which called
these edifices into existence we need not enter
here, but true it is, as Macaulay says, that for the
sake of religious opinion the Scots have made
sacrifices for which there is no parallel in the
annals of England; and when, at the Disruption,
so many clergymen of the Scottish Church cast
their bread upon the waters, in that spirit of
independence and self-reliance so characteristic of
the race, they could scarcely have foreseen the
great success of their movement.
This new college was the first of those instituted
in connection with the Free Church. The idea
was origipally entertained of making provision for](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p107.gif "Volume 3 Page 95")
... FREE CHURCH COLLEGE. 95 The Mound.]
Much of all this was altered when the bank was
enlarged, restored, and ...
Vol. 3 p. 95 (Rel. 0.3)
... THE GAELIC CHAPEL. 235
target, andnogentlemantookthe road without pistols
in his holsters, and was ...
Vol. 4 p. 235 (Rel. 0.3)
![Charlotte Square.] THE ALBERT MEMORIAL. I75
His neighbour and brother senator Lord Dundrennan
occupied No. 35 ; and in 1811 William
Robertson, Lord Robertson, a senator of 1805,
occupied No. 42. He was the eldest son of Dr.
Robertson the historian, and in 1779 was chosen
Procurator of the Church of Scotland, after ,a close
contest, in which he was opposed by the Hon.
Henry Erskine. His personal appearance is
described in “ Peter’s Letters to his Kinsfolk.”
He retired from the bench in 1826, in consequence
of deafness, and died in November, 1835.
On the western side of the Square, and terminating
with fine effect the long vista of George
Street from the east, is St. George’s Church, the
foundation of which was laid on the 14th of May,
1811. It was built from a design furnished by
Robert Reid, king’s architect The celebrated
Adam likewise furnished a plan for this church,
which was relinquished in consequence of the
expense it would have involved. The whole building,
with the exception of the dome, which is a
noble one, and seen to advantage from any point,
is heavy in appearance, meagre in detail, and
hideous in conception, and its ultimate expense
greatly exceeded the estimates and the sum for
which the more elegant design of Adam could have
been carried out. It cost A33,ooo, is calculated
to accommodate only 1,600 persons, and was opened
for public worship in 1814. It was intended in
its upper part to be a large miniature or reduced
copy of St. Paul’s in London, and is in a kind of
Grzco-Italian style, with a lofty but meagre Ionic
portico and surmounting an Attic Corinthian colonnade
; it rests on a square ground plan measuring
IIZ feet each way, and culminates in the dome,
surmounted by a lantern, cupola, and cross, the
last at the height of 160 feet from the ground.
The original design included two minarets, which
have not as yet been added.
It is chiefly celebrated as the scene of the ministrations
of Andrew Thomson, D.D., an eminent
divine who was fixed upon as its pastor in 1814.
He died suddenly on the 9th of February, 1831,
greatly beloved and lamented by the citizens in
general and his congregation in particular, and now
he lies in a piece of ground connected with the
churchyard of St. Cuthbert.
In Charlotte Place, behind the church, are the
atelier of Sir John Steel the eminent sculptor, and
a music-room called St. Cecilia’s Hall, with an
orchestra space for 250 performers and seats for
500 hearers.
In the centre of the Square is the memorial to
the Prince Consort, which was inaugurated with
much state by the Queen in person, attended by
the magistrates and archer guard, &c., in August,
1876. It cost A16,500, and is mainly from
the studio of Steel It is a quasi-pyramidal structure,
about thirty-two feet high, with a colossal
equestrian statue of the Prince as its central and
upper figure ; it is erected on an oblong Peterhead
granite pedestal, fully seventeen feet high, and
exhibiting emblematic bas-reliefs in the panels,
with four groups of statues on square blocks, projecting
from the corners of the basement; the
prince is shown in the uniform of a field marshal.
Of all the many statues that have been erected
to his memory, this in Charlotte Square is perhaps
one of the best and most pleasing.
With this chapter we close the history of what
may be regarded as thejt-st New Town, which was
designed in 1767, laid out, as we have seen, in a
parallelogram the sides of which measure 3,900
feet by 1,090.
The year 1755 was the period when Edinburgh
seemed really to wake from the sleep and torpor
that followed the Union, and a few imprdvements
began in the Old Town. After that period, says
Kincaid, writing in 1794, “ it is moderate to say
that not less than ~3,000,000 sterling has been
expended in building and public improvements.”
Thirty-five years ago,” says the Edinburgh
Adverther for 1823, “ there were scarcely a dozen
sliops in the New Town; now, in Princes Street,
with the exception of hotels and the Albyn Club
Room, they reach to Hanover Street.”
In the present day the whole .area we have described
is mainly occupied by shops, with the exception
of Charlotte Square and a small portion of
Queen Street.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p187.gif "Volume 3 Page 175")
... Square.] THE ALBERT MEMORIAL. I75
His neighbour and brother senator Lord Dundrennan
occupied No. 35 ; ...
Vol. 3 p. 175 (Rel. 0.29)
... Gilds Churchyard. THE CHURCHYARD. I49
were a hospital and chapel known by the name
of the “Maison Dieu.” “We ...
Vol. 1 p. 149 (Rel. 0.29)
![THE NORMAL SCHOOL. 295 George IV. Bridge.]
highly qualified examiners, on every point of which
it takes cognisance. It grants annually ten bursaries
of L z o each, and five of LIO each, to be
competed for by pupils of schools approved .of by
the directors.
The Society’s vested capital now’ amounts to
&o,ooo, and its annual revenue reaches more than
&,~oo, besides the receipts for general shows,
The Argyle Fund, for the education of young Highland
gentlemen for the navy, now amounts to
A5,639, and was instituted by John fifth Duke of
Argyle, the original president of the Society.
From its chambers, No. 3, George IV. Bridge, surveying
a width of range and multiplicity of objects
worthy of its wealth and intellect, its opulence of
power and resource, the Soqiety promotes the erection
of towns and bridges, the formation of roads,
the experiments and enterprises of agriculture, the
improvement of farm stock, the sheltering processes
of planting, the extension of fisheries, the introduction
of manufactures, the adaptation of machinery
to all useful arts, the ready co-operation of
’ local influence with legislative and public measures,
the diffusion of practical knowledge of all that may
tend to the general good of the Scottish nation,
and the consolidation of the Highlanders and
Lowlanders into one great fraternal community.
“ The Society awards large and numerous premiums
to stimulate desiderated enterprises, and in
1828 began the publication of the Quarter0 lown
d of Agridtztre, for prize essays and the dissemination
of the newest practical information ; it
patronises great annual cattle shows successively in
different towns, and by means of them excites and
directs a stirring and creditable spirit of emulation
among graziers, and, in general, it keeps in play
upon the community, a variety of influences which,
as far as regards mere earthly well-being, have
singularly transformed and beautified its character.”
Its arms are a figure of Caledonia on a pedestal,
between two youths-one a Highland reaper, the
other a ploughboy-being crowned. The motto is,
Sem$er armis nunc et industria. The Highland
Society’s hall and chamber form a very symmetrical
and also ornamental edifice, with a beautiful sculpture
of its coat of arms from the chisel of A.. H.
Kitchie. It formerly contained a most interesting
agricultural museum, which has been removed elsewhere.
Simil7.r societies on the same model have
since been established-by England in 1838, and
by Ireland in 1841.
The other edifice referred to, the Sheriff’s Court
Buildings, contiguous to the open arches over the
Cowgate, was erected in 1865-8, from designs
by David Bryce, at a cost of more than A44,ooo. -
It rises from a low basement, with an extensive
and imposing flank to the south, and presents in
its fapde an ornate variety of the Italian style
of architecture ; but within exhibits simply the
usual features of legal courts, with three subordinate
official chambers, unless we except the Society
hall of the solicitors-at-law, a minor legal body in
Edinburgh, which was incorporated by royal charter
in 1780, and only certain members of which are
qualified to act as agents before the Supreme Courts.
Johnstone Terrace, King’s Road, and Castle
Terrace crossing the King’s Bridge, the foundation
stone of which was laid in 1827, unitedly extend
about go0 yards along the southern limb, or southwestern
skirt of the Castle Rock, connecting the
head of the Lawnmarket with the Lothian Road,
at a point about 180 yards south of the west end
of Princes Street. These were formed between
1825 and 1836, to afford improved access to the
Old Town from the westward. They are collectively
called the New Western Approach, and apart
from being a very questionable improvement as
regards artistic taste, have destroyed the amenity
of the Castle Rock, and lessened its strength as a
fortress.
In Johnstone Terrace, to which we shall confine
ourselves for the present, at the eastern end,
resting at the corner of the Old West Bow, is St.
John’s Free Church, a handsome edifice in a mixed
style of early Gothic It was built from designs
furnished by Robert Hamilton in 1847, and is
chiefly famous for its congregation having enjoyed
for some years the ministry of the celebrated Dr.
Guthrie, and of Dr. Williani Hanna, a graduate of
the University of Glasgow, who was ordained to
the ministry of the Presbyterian Church in 1835,
and who is so well known as the author of “Wycliffe
and the Huguenots,” and as the affectionate
biographer of Chalmers.
Westward of this edifice is St. Columba’s Episcopal
church, also a Gothic structure, but of an earlier
style, with a low, square battlemented tower;
built in 1845.
At the cost of about ;GIO,OOO, the Normal School
of the Church of Scotland was built westward of it,
in 1845, and is a large and handsome edifice.
It is called the Normal School, or Church of
Scotland Training College. It is under the control
and management of the Education Committee of
the Church. It is a double college, and like that
in Glasgow, trains both masters and mistresses.
The course of training extends over two years,
and none are admitted as students but those who
have passed a preliminary examination ; but the
committee exercise their discretion in making their](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p115.gif "Volume 2 Page 295")
... NORMAL SCHOOL. 295 George IV. Bridge.]
highly qualified examiners, on every point of which
it takes ...
Vol. 2 p. 295 (Rel. 0.29)
... GOVERNMENT OF THE BURGH. 3
{oundation charter of the latter, I likewise grant
go the said canons the ...
Vol. 3 p. 3 (Rel. 0.29)
![The Water of Leith.] ST. BERNARD’S WELL. 75
To protect it, a stone covering of some kind was
proposed, and in that year the foundation thereof
was actually laid by ‘‘ Alexander Drummond,
brother of Provost Drummond, lately British Consul
at Aleppo, and Provincial Grand Master of all
the Lodges in Asia and Europe holding of the
Grand Lodge, Scotland.” The brethren in their
insignia were present, the spring was named St.
Bernard’s Well, and the subject inspired the local
muse of Claudero.
A silly legend tells how St. Bernard, being sent
on a mission to the Scottish Court, was met with
so cold a reception that, in chagrin, he came to
this picturesque valley, and occupied a cave in
the vicinity of the well, to which his attention was
attracted by the number of birds that resorted to
it, and ere long he announced its virtues to the
people There is undoubtedly a cave, and of no
inconsiderable dimensions, in the cliffs to the westward,
and it is now entirely hidden by the boundarywall
at the back of Randolph Cliff; but, unfortunately
for the legend, in the Bollandists there are
at least three St Bernards, not one of whom ever
was on British soil.
The present well-a handsome Doric temple,
with a dome, designed by Nasmyth, after the Sybils’
Temple at Tivoli-was really founded by Lord
Gardenstone in May, 1789, after he had derived
great benefit from drinking the waters. “The
foundation stone was laid,” says the Advertiser for
that year, ‘‘ in presence of several gentlemen of the
neighbourhood.” A metal plate was sunk into it
with the following inscription ;-
‘< Erected for the benefit of the Public, at the sole expense
of Francis Garden, Esq., of Troupe, one of the senators of
the College of Justice, A.D. 1789. Alexander Nasmyth,
Architect ; John Wilson, Buiider.”
A fine statue of Hygeia, by Coade of London,
was placed within the pillars of the temple. For
thirty years after its erection it was untouched by
the hand of mischief, but now it is so battered
by stones as to be a perfect wreck. Since the
days of Lord Gardenstone the well has always
been more or less frequented. A careful analysis
of the water by Dr. Stevenson Macadam, showed
that it resembled closely the Harrogate springs.
The morning is the best time for drinking it.
During some recent drainage operations the water
entirely disappeared, and it was thought the public
would lose the benefit of it for ever; but after a
time it returned, with its medicinal virtues stronger
than ever.
A plain little circular building was erected in
1810 over another spring that existed a little to
the westward of St. Bernard’s, by Mr. Macdonald
of Stockbridge, who named it St. George’s Well.
The water is said to be the sameas that of the
former, but if so, no use has been made of it for
many years past. From its vicinity to the well.
Upper Dean Terrace, when first built, was called
Mineral Street. In those days India Place was
called Athole Street; Leggat’s Land was Braid’s
Row; and Veitch’s Square (built by a reputable
old baker of that name) was called Virgin’s Square.
The removal of the greater part of the latter,
which consisted of four rows of cottages, thirty in
number, and all thatched with straw, alters one of
the most quaint localities in old Stockbridge. Each
consisted only of a “but and a ben”-i.e., two
apartments-and in the centre was a spacious
bleaching green, past which flowed the Leith, in
those days pure and limpid. The cottages were
chiefly. if not wholly, occupied by blanchtsseuses,
and hence its name.
The great playground of the village children was
the open and flat piece of land in the Haugh, near
Inverleith, known as the Whins, covered now by
Hugh Miller Place and nine other streets of artisans’
houses.
In past times flour-mills and tan-pits were the
chief means of affording work for the people of
Stockbridge. About 1814 a china manufactory
was started on a small scale on the Dean Bank
grounds, near where Saxe-Coburg Place stands
now. It proved a failure, but some pieces of the
“Stockbridge china” are still preserved in the
Industrial Museum.
As population increased in this district new
churches were required. Claremont Street Chapel,
now called St. Bernard’s Church, was built for
those who were connected with the Establishment,
at a cost of ~4,000, and opened in November, 1823.
Its first incumbent was the Rev. James Henderson of
Berwick, afterwards of Free St. Enoch’s, Glasgow.
About the year 1826, persons connected with
the Relief Church built Dean Street Church in
the narrow street at the back of the great crescent,
and named it St. Bernards Chapel. It was after- ‘
wards sold to the United Secession body. In the
year 1843, at the Disruption, the Rev. Alexander
Brown, of St. Bernard’s, with a great portion of his
congregation, withdrew from the Church of Scotland,
and formed Free St. Bernard’s; and, more recently,
additional accommodation has been provided for
those of that persuasion by the re-erection in its
own mass, at Deanhaugh Street, of St. George’s
Free Church, which was built in the Norman style
of architecture, for the Rev. Dr. Candlish, at St.
Cuthbert’s Lane.
Mrs. Gordon is correct in stating that Stockbridge](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p086.gif "Volume 5 Page 75")
... Water of Leith.] ST. BERNARD’S WELL. 75
To protect it, a stone covering of some kind was
proposed, and in ...
Vol. 5 p. 75 (Rel. 0.29)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Edinburgh Castle.
entrance to the apartment in which her daughter
was delivered of ...
Vol. 1 p. 78 (Rel. 0.29)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
The first volume of the ‘‘ Parochial Records ”
begins in January, 1605, a year ...
Vol. 6 p. 254 (Rel. 0.29)
... West Chum.: MR. ROBER’T PONT. 13x1
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE CHURCH OF ST. CUTHBERT.
Iiirtory and Antiquity-Old ...
Vol. 3 p. 131 (Rel. 0.29)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [~dpUCd.
proper exertions been made for their repair and
preservation, particularly by ...
Vol. 3 p. 58 (Rel. 0.29)
![Manor Place.] HAYMARKET STATION. 213
A shot fired from the belfry apprised the multi-
&de far down below of the close of the ceremony,
and immediately the choir, along with other officials
of ‘the church in surplices stationed in the garden,
sung the hymn “Praise ye the Lord, ye Heavens
in the nave and clerestory bear the arms of many
ancient Scottish families,
Away to the westward of the quarter we have
described, at the delta of the old Glasgow and
Dalry roads, where for several generations stood
ST. MAPY7S CATHEDRAL, INTERIOR VIEW. (Fpom a Phofosrnph by G. W. Wikm ad Co., ACrdem.)
by the Lord Provost.
Sir Gilbert Scott did not live to see the completion
of this cathedral, which is one of the many
lasting monuments of his skill as an architect.
Among the gifts to the cathedral are a peal of ten
bells presented by Dean Montgomery ; the great
from Glasgow by wings upon the two roads, formed
a junction and halted, while the officers had breakfast
or dinner before pushing on to the Castle by
the Lang Dykes and latterly by Princes Street and ,
the Earthern Mound-is the Haymarket Railway
Station, the first or original terminus of the Edin](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p033.gif "Volume 4 Page 213")
... Place.] HAYMARKET STATION. 213
A shot fired from the belfry apprised the multi-
&de far down below of ...
Vol. 4 p. 213 (Rel. 0.28)
![Leith.] ST. JAMES’S CHAPEL. 243
CHAPTER XXVII.
LEITH-CONSTITUTION STREET, THE SHORE, COAL HILL, AND SHERIFF BRAE.
Constitution Street-Pirates Executed-St. James’s Episcopal Church-Town H a l l S t . John’s Church-Exchange Buildings-Head-quarten of
the Leith Rifle Volunteen4ld Signal-Tower-The Shore-Old and New Ship Taverns--The Markets-The Coal Hill-Ancient Council
House-The Peat Ne&-Shim Bme-Tibbie Fowler of the Glen-St. Thomas’s Church and Asylum-The Gladstone Family-Creat
Junction Road.
CONSTITUTION STREET, which lies parallel to, and
eastward of the Kirkgate, nearly in a line with the
eastern face of the ancient fortifications, is about
2,500 feet in lehgth, and soon after its formation
was the scene of the last execution within what is
termed (‘ flood-mark.” The doomed prisoners were
two foreign seamen, whose crime and sentence
excited much interest at the time.
Peter Heaman and Francois Gautiez were accused
of piracy and murder in seizing the briglane
of Gibraltar, on her voyage from that place to
the Brazils, freighted with a valuable cargo, including
38,180 Spanish dollars, and in barbarously
killing Johnson the master, and Paterson a seaman,
and confining Smith and Sinclair, two other
seamen, in the forecastle, where they tried to suffocate
them with smoke, but eventually compelled
them to assist in navigating the vessel, which they
. afterwards sank off the coast of Ross-shire. They
landed the specie in eight barrels on the Isle of
Lewis, where they were apprehended.
This was in thesummer of 1822, and they were,
after a trial before the Court of Justiciary, sentenced
by the Judge-Admiral to be executed on the 9th of
’ the subsequent January, “on the sands of Leith,
within the flood-mark, and their bodies to be afterwards
given to Dr. Munro for dissection.”
On the day named they were conveyed from the
Calton gaol, under a strong escort of the dragoon
.guards, accompanied by the magistrates of the city,
who had white rods projecting from the windows of
the carriages in which they sat, to a gibbet erected
‘ at the foot of Constitution Street-oi raiher, the
. northern continuation thereof-and there hanged.
Heaman was a native of Carlscrona, in Sweden ;
Gautiez wa8 a Frenchman. The bodies were put
4 in coffins, and conveyed by a corporal’s escort of
’ dragoons to the rooms of the professor of anatomy.
During the execution the great bell of South Leith
church was ttilled with minute strokes, and the
papers of the day state that “ the crowd of spectators
was immense, particularly cn the sands, being little
short of from forty to fifty thousand; but, owing to
the excellent manner in which everything was
In 1823 the same thoroughfare witnessed another
legal punishment, when Thomas Hay, who had
- arranged, not the slightest accident happened.”
been tried and convicted of an attempt at assassination,
was flogged through the town by the common
executioner, and banished for fourteen years.
Between Constitution Street and the Links stands
St. James’s Episcopalian church, an ornate edifice
in the Gothic style, designed by Sir Gilbert Scott,
having a fine steeple, containing a chime of bells,
It was built in 1862-3, succeeding a previous chapel
of 1805 (erectedatthe cost ofx1,6ro)on an adjacent
site (of which a view is given on p. 240), and to which
attention was frequently drawn from the literary
celebrity of its minister, Dr. Michael Russell, the
author of a continuation o€ Prideaux’s Connection
of Sacred and Profane History,” and other works.
According to h o t , the congregation had an origin
that was not uncommon in the eighteenth century,
when the persecution
was set on foot against those of the Episcopal
communion in Scotland who did not take the
oaths required by law, the meeting-house in Leith
was shut up by the sheriff of the county. Persons
of this persuasion being thus deprived of the form
of worship their principles approved, brought from
the neighbouring country Mr. John Paul, an English
clergyman, who opened this chapel on the 23rd
June, 1749. It is called St. James’s chapel. Till
of late the congregation only rented it, but within
these few years they purchased it for Azoo. The
clergyman has about L60 a year salary, and the
organist ten guineas. These are paid out of the
seat rents, collections, and voluntary contributions
among the hearers. It is, perhaps, needless to add
that there are one or more meeting-houses for
sectaries in this place (Leith), for in Scotland there
are few towns, whether of importance! or insighificant,
whether populous or otherwise, where there
are not congregations of sectaries.”
The congregation of St. James’s chapel received,
in about the year 1810, the accession of a nonjuring
congregation of an earlier date, says a writer
in 1851, referring, doubtless, to that formed in the
time of the Rev. Mr. Paul.
The Leith Post Office is at the corner of Mitchell
and Constitution Streets; it was built in 1876, is
very small, and in a rather meagre Italian style.
The Town Hall, which is at the corner of Constitution
and Charlotte Streets, was built in 1827, at a
After the battle of Culloden,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p062.gif "Volume 6 Page 243")
... ST. JAMES’S CHAPEL. 243
CHAPTER XXVII.
LEITH-CONSTITUTION STREET, THE SHORE, COAL HILL, AND SHERIFF ...
Vol. 6 p. 243 (Rel. 0.28)
... GEORGE HERIOT. 363
diameter and 22 feet high; one school-room, 52
feet long by 26 wide ; and two ...
Vol. 4 p. 363 (Rel. 0.28)
... neighbouring .collegiate church, to a brewer’s
granary and spirit vault ! The ground floor had
been entirely ...
Vol. 4 p. 252 (Rel. 0.28)
... --
CHAPTER I
THE KIRK OF ST. MARY-IN-THE-FIELDS.
YhCD
Memorabilia of the Edifice-Its ...
Vol. 6 p. 393 (Rel. 0.28)
![307 - Trinity.] EASTER AND WESTER PILTON.
Now Trinity possesses a great number of handsome
villas in intersecting streets, a railway station,
and an Episcopal chapel called Christ Church,
which figured in a trial before the law courts of
Scotland, that made much noise in its time-the
Yelverton case.
At Wardie, not far from it, there died, in only
his thirty-eighth year, Edward Forbes, who, after
being a Professor in King’s College, London, was
appointed to the chair of Natural History in the
University of Edinburgh in May, 1854. He was
a man of distinguished talent and of an affectionate
nature, his last words being “ My own wife 1 ” when
she inquired, as he was dying, if he knew her.
Soon after she contracted a marriage with the
Hon. Major Yelverton, whose battefy of artillery
had just returned from Sebastopol, and was
quartered in Leith Fort. The marriage took place
in the little church at Trinity, and was barely
announced before the Major was arrested on a
charge of bigamy by the late Miss Theresa Longworth,
with whom he had contracted, it was
averred, an irregular marriage in Edinburgh. Before
this she had joined the Sisters of Chanty at T’arna,
and lived a life of adventure. Not satisfied with the
Scottish marriage, they went through another ceremony
before a Catholic priest in Ireland, where the
ceremony was declared legal, and she was accepted
as Mrs. Yelverton. She then endeavoured to
prove a Scottish marriage, by habit and repute, residence
at Circus Place, and elsewhere, but judgment
was given against her by the late Lord Ardmillan,
and after twenty years of wandering all over the
world, writing books of travel, she died at Natal in
September, 1881, retaining to the last the title of
Viscountess, acguired on old Lord Avonmore’s
death.
Horatio Macculloch, R.S.A., the well-known
landscape painter, lived latterly in a villa adjoining
Trinity Grove, and died there on the 15th June,
1867.
In 1836 some plans were prepared by Messrs.
Grainger and Miller, the eminent Edinburgh engineers,
and boldly designed for the construction of
a regular wet dock at Trinity, with a breakwater
outer harbour of twenty acres in extent, westward
of Newhaven pier and the sunken rock known as
the West Bush ; but the proposal met with no support,
and the whole scheme was abandoned.
On the noble road leading westward to
Queensfeny there was completed in April, 1880,
near the head of the Granton thoroughfare, a
Free Church for the congregation of Granton and
Wardie, which, since its organisation in 1876, under
the Rev. P. C. Purves, had occupied an iron building
near Wardie Crescent. The edifice is an ornament
to the swiftly-growing locality. The relative
proportions of the nave, aisles, and transepts, are
planned to form a ground area large enough tg
accommodate the increasing congregation, and
galleries can be added if required. This area is
nearly all within the nave, and is lighted by the
windows of the clerestory, which has flying buttresses.
The style is Early English, the pulpit is of
oak on a stone pedestal. This church has a tower
seventy-five feet high, and arrests the eye, as it
stands on a species of ridge between the city and
the sea.
Ashbrook, Wardieburn House, and other handsome
mansions, have been erected westward, and
ere long the old farmsteading of Windlestrawlee
(opposite North Inverleith Mains) will, of course,
disappear. It is called ‘‘ Winliestraley ” in Kincaid’s
‘‘ Local Gazetteer” for 1787, and is said to take its
name from ‘‘ windlestrae (the name given to crested
dogstail grass- Cynosurus prisfatus), and applied
in Scotland to bent and stalks of grass found OII
moorish ground.”
An old property long known as Cargilfield, lay to
the north-east of it, and to the westward are Easter
and Wester Pilton, an older property still, which
has changed owners several times.
On the 16th of May, 1610, Peter Rollock, of
Pilton, had a seat on the bench as Lord Pilton.
He had no predecessor. He had been removed,
when Bishop of Dunkeld (in 1603), says Lord
Hailes, that the number of extraordinary lards
might be reduced to four, and he was restored by
the king’s letter, with a special proviso that this
should not be precedent of establishing a fifth extraordinary
lord. The lands-or a portion thereof
-afterwards became a part of the barony of Royston,
formed in favour of Viscount Tarbet; but
previous to that had been in possession of a family
named Macculloch, as Monteith in his “ Theatre
of Mortality,” inserts the epitaph upon the tomb on
the east side of the Greyfriars Church, of Sir Hugh
Macculloch, of Pilton, Knight, descended from the
ancient family of Macculloch of CadbolI. He died
in August, 1688, and the stone was erected by his
son James. About I 780 Pilton became the property
of Sir Philip Ainslie, whose eldest daughter Jean
was married there, in 1801, to Lord Doune, eldest
son of the Earl of Moray-a marriage that does not
appear in the “Peerages ” generally, but is recorded
in the Edinburgh HeruZd for that year. She was his
second wife, the first being a daughter of General
Scott of Bellevue and Balcomie. Lord Doune
then resided, and for a few years before, in the old
Wrightshouse, or ‘‘ Bruntsfield Castle,” as it is](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p126.gif "Volume 6 Page 307")
... - Trinity.] EASTER AND WESTER PILTON.
Now Trinity possesses a great number of handsome
villas in intersecting ...
Vol. 6 p. 307 (Rel. 0.28)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Corstorphine.
of the House of Orkney. He is represented in
armour of the fifteenth ...
Vol. 5 p. 118 (Rel. 0.27)
![Holyrood.] ROYAT, MARRIAGES. 55
with the Dukes of Savoy and Burgundy. She
landed at Leith amid a vast concourse of all
classes of the people, and, escorted by a bodyguard
of 300 men-at-arms, all cap-d+e, with
the citizens also in their armour, under Patrick
Cockburn of Nevtbigging, Provost of Edinburgh
and Governor of the Castle, was escorted to the
monastery of the Greyfriars, where she was warmly
welcomed by her future husband, then in his
twentietb year, and was visited by the queenmother
on the following day.
The week which intervened between her arrival
and‘her marriage was spent in a series of magnificent
entertainments, during which, from her great
beauty and charms of manner, she won the devoted
affection of the loyal nobles and people.
A contemporary chronicler has given a minute
account of one of the many chivalrous tournaments
that took place, in which three Burgundian nobles,
two of them brothers named Lalain, and the thud
HervC Meriadet, challenged any three Scottish
knights to joust with lance, battle-axe, sword, and
dagger, a defiance at once accepted by Sir James
Douglas, James Douglas of Lochleven, and Sir
John Ross of Halkhead, Constable of Renfrew.
Lances were shivered and sword and axe resorted
to with nearly equal fortune, till the king threw
down his truncheon and ended the combat.
The royal marriage, which took place in the
church at Holyrood amid universal joy, concluded
these stirring scenes. At the bridal feast the first
dish was in the form of a boar’s head, painted and
stuck full df tufts of coarse flax, served up on an
enormous platter, with thirty-two banners, bearing
the arms of the king and principal nobles ; and the
flax was set aflame, amid the acclamations of the
numerous assembly that filled the banquet-hall.
Ten years after Holyrood beheld a sorrowful
scene, when, in 1460, James, who had been slain
by the bursting of a cannon at the siege of Roxburgh
on the 3rd August, in his thirtieth year, was
laid in the royal vault, “with the teares of his
people and his hail1 army,” says Balfour.
In 1467 there came from Rome, dated zznd
February, the bull of Pope Paul II., granting, on
the petition of the provost, bailies, and community
of the city, a con~mission to the Bishop of Galloway,
“et dilectojZio Abbafi Monasterii Sancta Cmcis mini
viuros de Rdynburgh,” to erect the Church of St.
Giles into a collegiate institution.
Two years afterwards Holyrood was again the
scene of nuptial festivities, when the Parliamen!
met, and Margaret of Norway, Denmark, and
Sweden, escorted by the Earl of Arran and a
gallant train of Scottish aad Danish nobles, landed
at Leith in July, 1469. She was in her sixteenth
year, and had as her dowry the isles of Orkney
and Shetland, over which her ancestors had hitherto
claimed feudal superiority. James III., her
husband, had barely completed his eighteenth
year when they were married in the abbey church,
where she was crowned queenconsort. ‘‘ The marriage
and coronation gave occasion to prolonged
festivities in the metropolis and plentiful congratulations
throughout the kingdom. Nor was the
flattering welcome undeserved by the queen ; in the
bloom of youth and beauty, amiable and virtuous,
educated in all the feminine accomplishments of
the age, and so richly endowed, she brought as
valuable an accession of lustre to the court as of
territory to the kingdom.”
In 1477 there arrived “heir in grate pompe,”
says Balfour, “Husman, the legate of Pope
Xystus the Fourth,” to enforce the sentence of
deprivation and imprisonment pronounced by Hjs
Holiness upon Patrick Graham, Archbishop of St.
Andrews, an eminent and unfortunate dignitary of
the Church of Scotland. He was the first who
bore that rank, and on making a journey to Rome,
returned as legate, and thus gained the displeasure
of the king and of the clergy, who dreaded his
power. He was shut up in the monastery of Inchcolm,
and finally in the castle of Lochleven. Meanwhile,
in the following year, William Schivez, a
great courtier and favourite of the king, was
solemnly consecrated in Holyrood Church by the
papal legate, from whose hands he received a pall,
the ensign of archiepiscopal dignity, and with great
solemnity was proclaimed ‘‘ Primate and Legate of
the realm of Scotland.” His luckless rival died
of a broken heart, and was buried in St. Serf‘s
Isle, where his remains were recently discovered,
buried in a peculiar posture, with the knees drawn
up and the hands down by the side.
In 1531, when Robert Cairncross was abbot,
there occurred an event, known as “ the miracle of
John Scott,” which made some noise in its time.
This man, a citizen of Edinburgh, having taken
shelter from his creditors in the sanctuary of Holyrood,
subsisted there, it is alleged, for forty days
without food of any kind.
Impressed by this circumstance, of which some
exaggerated account had perhaps been given to
him, James V. ordered his apparel to be changed
and strictly searched. He ordered also that he
should be conveyed from Holyrood to a vaulted
room in David‘s Tower in the castle, where he was
barred from access by all and closely guarded.
Daily a small allowance of bread and water were
placed before him, but he abstained from both for](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p067.gif "Volume 3 Page 55")
... ROYAT, MARRIAGES. 55
with the Dukes of Savoy and Burgundy. She
landed at Leith amid a vast concourse ...
Vol. 3 p. 55 (Rel. 0.27)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [George Smn
could be done.” On leaving the church, the
protestors proceeded to ...
Vol. 3 p. 146 (Rel. 0.27)
![kith.] THE CITADEL 2S7
General Monk no doubt used all the stones of
the two edifices in the erection of his citadel, which
is thus described by John Ray, in his Itinerary,
when he visited Scotland in the year 1661 :-
“ At Leith we saw one of those citadels built by
and stores. There is also a good capacious chapel,
the piazza, or void space within, as large as Trinity
College (Cambridge) great court.”
This important stronghold, which must have
measured at least 400 feet one way, by 250 the
NORTH LEITH CHURCH.
the Protector, one of the best fortifications we ever
beheld, passing fair and sumptuous. There are
three forts (bastions?) advanced above the rest,
and two platfomis ; the works round about are
faced with freestone towards the ditch, and are
almost as high as the highest buildings therein, and
withal, thick and substantial. Below are very pleasant,
convenient, and well-built houses, for the
governor, officers, and soldiers, and for magazines
other (and been in some manner adapted to the
acute angle of the old fortifications there), costing,
says Wilson, “upwards of LIOO,OOO sterling, fell a
sacrifice, soon after the Restoration, to the cupidity
of the monarch and the narrow-minded jealousy
of the Town Council of Edinburgh.”
All that remains of the citadel now are some old
buildings, called, perhaps traditionally, ‘‘ Cromwell’s
Barracks”-near which was found an old](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p076.gif "Volume 6 Page 257")
... THE CITADEL 2S7
General Monk no doubt used all the stones of
the two edifices in the erection of his ...
Vol. 6 p. 257 (Rel. 0.27)
![LddI.1 JOHN
coat in which he rode, Dr. Carlyle turned a little
out of the road to procure from a clergyman of their
acquaintance the loan of a pair of saddlebags,
in which to deposit the MS.”
The latter was also rejected by Garrick, “with
the mortifying declaration that it was totally unfit
for the stage.” Yet it was brought out at Edinburgh
by Digges, on the 14th December, 1756,
and produced that storm of fanaticism to which
we have referred in a former part of this work. It
had a run then unprecedented, and though a rather
dull work, has maintained a certain popularity
almost to the present day.
To escape the censiires of the kirk, he resigned
HOME. 241
his living, and published several other tragedies;
and after the accession of George 111. to the
throne he received a pension of A300 per
annum. In 1763 he obtained the then sinecure
appointment of Conservator of Scottish Privileges
at Campvere (in succession to George Lind, Provost
of Edinburgh)] and also the office of Commissioner
for Sick and Wounded Seamen. In 1779 he removed
to Edinburgh, where he spent the latter
years of his life, and married a lady of his own
name, by whom he had no children.
Home’s ‘‘ Douglas” is now no longer regarded
as the marvel of genius it once was ; but the author
was acknowledged in his lifetime to be vain of it,
ST. JAMES’S EPISCOPALIAN CHURCH, 1882. (Affta a Pho#ogm#h by Nr.1. Clrapman.)](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p060.gif "Volume 6 Page 241")
... JOHN
coat in which he rode, Dr. Carlyle turned a little
out of the road to procure from a clergyman of ...
Vol. 6 p. 241 (Rel. 0.27)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Infirmary Street.
._
Freirs xx li. owing to them, at this last Fasterns
evin, for ...
Vol. 4 p. 286 (Rel. 0.27)
![44 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. Holyrood
of it having perhaps been reduced to ruins before
the view was taken. During the levelling of the
ground around the palace, and digging a foundation
for the substantial rai!ing with which it was
recently enclosed, the workmen came upon the
the present rampart wall, when near the same site
two stone coffins of the twelfth century, now in
the nave, were found. Each is six feet four inches.
in length, inside measurement.
In the abbey was preserved, enshrined in silver,.
CROFT-AN-RIGH HOUSE.
zealous veneration in the great cathedral near the
The texture of this remarkable cross was
said to have been of such a nature that no mortal
artificer could tell whether it was of wood, horn, OG
, field.
of other early buildings [perhaps the abbey
house?], and from their being in the direct line
of the building it is not improbable that a Lady
chapel or other addition to the abbey church
may have stood to the east of the choir. . . .
A curious relic of the ancient tenants of the
monastery was found by the vorkmen, consisting
of a skull, which had no doubt formed the solitary
companion of one of the monks. It had a hole in
the top of the cranium, which served, most probably,
for securing a crucifix, and over the brow
‘ was traced in antique characters, Memento mori.
This solitary relic of the furniture of the abbey
was procured by the late Sir Patrick Walker, and
is still in possession of his family.”](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p056.gif "Volume 3 Page 44")
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. Holyrood
of it having perhaps been reduced to ruins before
the view was taken. During ...
Vol. 3 p. 44 (Rel. 0.27)
... OLD AND NEW EDINEURGH. [Cowgate.
showed that the barrel had been placed so as to collect
the rain water from ...
Vol. 4 p. 246 (Rel. 0.27)
... 26 ’ OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [PrinerSSma.
The tower, as originally designed, terminated in
an open lantern, but ...
Vol. 3 p. 126 (Rel. 0.27)
... Old High S:hoo!.l THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL. 287
college, the pulpits, desks, lofts, and seats, were;
says Nicol, (( ...
Vol. 4 p. 287 (Rel. 0.26)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBVRGH. [Leith.
London, at the request of Lord Balgonie, afterwards
Earl of Leven.
People of ...
Vol. 6 p. 250 (Rel. 0.26)
... 88 OLD ANI) NEW EDINBURGH. [York Place
His lordship was so fond of card-playing that
he was wont to say, ...
Vol. 3 p. 188 (Rel. 0.26)
![Leith.] THE OLD TOLBCTOTH. 229
During the persecution under the Duke of
Lauderdale, Mr. John Gregg, who had been
formerly minister at Skirling, in Peeblesshire, was
apprehended and imprisoned in the Tolbooth for
house of his
that he died, was sentenced to be scourged on her
bare back from the Tolbooth of Edinburgh to the
Nether Bow, and from the Tolbooth of Leith to
the door of Isabel Lesly, and from there to the
brother-in-law
at Leith Mills.
Bass, to be detained
there
among many
other sufferers
for conscience
the Bass for “ abusing and railing ’I at Mr. Thomas
Wilkie, minister of North Leith, but in the May
of the same year he was brought back to Leith,
and thrust into the Tolbooth, where he lay for
quired for service in Leith. In 1763, a thief, who
was discovered in a peculiar manner, became, till
tried, an inmate of this old prison,
A Scottish sailor, who had served on board the
In 1678, Fi
:Ill c- - Hector Allan, -
a Quaker seaman
in Leith, TOLBOOTH wy
TABLET OF THsee.
In April, 1713, a prisoner named Jean Ramsay,
who had dragged a weak and infirm man from his
bed in the house of Isabel Lesly in Leith, near
the South Church, and used him with such severity
the water, and he found it to be his own.
The subsequent inquiry did not prove pleasant
to the half-drowned thief, who was forthwith taken
into custody, and committed to the Tolbooth.
By the beginning of the nineteenth century the](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p048.gif "Volume 6 Page 229")
... THE OLD TOLBCTOTH. 229
During the persecution under the Duke of
Lauderdale, Mr. John Gregg, who had ...
Vol. 6 p. 229 (Rel. 0.26)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [St. Giles's Church.
establishment, and Maitland gives us a roll of the
forty ...
Vol. 1 p. 140 (Rel. 0.26)
... FIRST THOROUGHFARE. Leith1
THE KIRKGATE.
CHAPTER XXIII.
LEITH - THE KIRKGATE.
The Kirkgate-Eastside-Tavern ...
Vol. 6 p. 213 (Rel. 0.26)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Restalrig,
Baron Norton was remarkable for his constant
attention to all religious ...
Vol. 5 p. 128 (Rel. 0.26)
... AND NEW EDINBURGH. cst. Andrew Sq-
ST. ANDREW SQUARE,
The Royal Eank of Scotland.
The Scottish Provident ...
Vol. 3 p. 172 (Rel. 0.26)
![Leith.] THE KING'S WARK. 237
~
Arnot adds. It was to keep one of the cellars in
the King's Wark in repair, for holding wines and
other provisions for the king's use.
This Bernard Lindsay it was whom Taylor
mentions in his '' Penniless Pilgrimage " as having
Moreover, the King's Wark was placed most
advantageously at the mouth of the harbour, to
serve as -a defence against any enemy who might
approach it from the seaward. It thus partook
somewhat of the character of a citadel; and this
BERNARD STREET.
given him so warm a welcome at Leith in
1618.
That some funds were derivable from the King's
Wark to the Crown is proved by the frequent
payments with which it was burdened by several
of our monarchs. Thus, in the year 1477 James
111. granted out of it a perpetual annuity of twelve
marks Scots, for support of a chaplain to officiate
at the altar of c'the upper chapel in the collegiate
church of the Blessed Virgin Mary at
Restalrig."
seems to have been implied by the infeftment
granted by Queen Mary in 1564 to John Chisho!ia,
Master or Comptroller of the Royal Artillery,
who would appear to have repaired the buildings
which, no doubt, shared in the general conflagrations
that signalised the English invasions of 1544
and 1547. and the queen, on the completion
of his work, thus confirms her grant to the
comptroller :-
U Efter Her Heinis lauchful age, and revocation
made in parIiament, hir majestie sett in feu farme](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p056.gif "Volume 6 Page 237")
... THE KING'S WARK. 237
~
Arnot adds. It was to keep one of the cellars in
the King's Wark in repair, for ...
Vol. 6 p. 237 (Rel. 0.26)
![Holyrood.] THE ABBEY CHURCH IN RUINS. 59
and cannon were two ship’s masts, fully rigged,
one on the right bearing the Scottish flag, another
on the left bearing the English. ‘‘ Above all these
rose the beautiful eastem window, shedding a flood
of light along the nave, eclipsing the fourteen
windows of the clerestory. The floor was laid
with ornamental tiles, some portions of which are
yet preserved.”
In the royal yacht there came to Leith from
London an altar, vestments, and images, to complete
the restoration of the church to its ancient uses.
As if to hasten on the destruction of his house,
James VII., not content with securing to his
Catholic subjects within the precincts of Holyrood
that degree of religious toleration now enjoyed
by every British subject, had mass celebrated there,
and established a college of priests, whose rules
were published on the zznd of March, 1688, inviting
people to send their children there, to be
educated gratis, as Fountainhall records. He also
appointed a Catholic printer, named Watson (who
availed himself of the protection afforded by the
sanctuary) to be “ King‘s printer in Holyrood ;”
and obtained a right from the Privy Council
to print all the “ prognostications at Edinburgh,”
an interesting fact which accounts for the number
of old books bearing Holyrood on their
title-pages. Prior to all this, on St. Andrew’s
Day, 30th November, the whole church was
sprinkled with holy water, re-consecrated, and a
sermon was preached in it by a priest named
Widerington.
Tidings of the landing of William of Orange
roused the Presbyterian mobs to take summary vengeance,
and on being joined by the students of the
University, they assailed the palace and chapel royal.
The guard, IOO strong-“ the brats of Belia1”-
under Captain Wallace, opened a fire upon them,
killing twelve and wounding many more, but they
were ultimately compelled to give way, and the
chapel doors were burst open. The whole interior
was instantly gutted and destroyed, and
the magnificent throne, stalls, and orgab, were
ruthlessly tom down, conveyed to the Cross, and
there consigned to the flames, amid the frantic
shrieks and yells of thousands. Not content with
all this, in a spirit of mad sacrilege, the mob, now
grown lawless, burst into the royal vault, tore some
of the leaden coffins asunder, and, according to
Amot, camed off the lids.
By the middle of the eighteenth century the rooG
which had become ruinous, was restored with flagstones
in a manner too ponderous for the ancient
arches, which gave way beneath the superincumbent
weight on the 2nd of December, 1768; and again
the people of Edinburgh became seized by a spirit
of the foullest desecration, and from thenceforward,
until a comparafively recent period, the ruined
church remained open to all, and was appropriated ‘
tu the vilest uses. Grose thus describes what he
saw when the rubbish had been partly cleared
away :-“ When we lately visited it we saw in the
middle of the chapel the columns which had been
borne down by the weight of the roof. Upon
looking into the vaults which were open, we found
that what had escaped the fury of the mob at the
Revolution became a prey to the mobwho ransacked
it after it fell. In A.D. 1776 we had seen the body
of James V. and others in their leaden coffins;
the coffins are now stolen. The head of Queen
Margaret (Magdalene?), which was then entire, and
even beautiful, and the skull of Damley, were also
stolen, and were last traced to the collection of a
statuary in Edinburgh.”
In 1795 the great east window was blown out
in a violent storm, but in 1816 was restored from
its own remains, which lay scattered about on the
ground. In the latter year the north-west tower,
latterly used as a vestry, was still covered by an
ogee leaden roof.
The west front of what remains, though the W0i-k
perhaps of different periods, is in the most beautiful
style of Early English, and the boldly-cut heads
in its sculptured arcade and rich variety of ornament
in the doorway are universally admired.
The windows above it were additions made so
latelyas the time of Charles I., and the inscriptions
which that upfortunate king had carved on the
Ornamental tablet between them is a striking illustration
of the vanity of human hopes. One runs :-
Ultimately this also fell.
“Basiluam ham, Carolus Rex, @firnus imtaxravit, 1633.”
The other :-
“HE SHALL ESTABLISH ANE HOUSE FOR MY NAME, AND I
WILL ESTABLISH THE THRONE OF HIS KINGDOM FOR
EVER.”
In the north-west tower is amarble monument to
Robert, Viscount Belhaven, who was interred there
in January, 1639. His nephews, Sir Archibald and
Sir Robert Douglas, placed there that splendid
memorial to perpetuate hisvirtues as a man and
steadiness as a patriot. A row of tombs of Scottish
nobility and others lie in the north aisle. The
Roxburgh aisle adjoins the royal vault in the
south aisle, and in front of it lies the tomb of the
Countess of Errol, who died in 1808. Close by.
it is that of the Bishop of Orkney, already referred
to. “ A flattering inscription enumerates the.
bishop’s titles, and represents this worldly hypocrite](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p071.gif "Volume 3 Page 59")
... THE ABBEY CHURCH IN RUINS. 59
and cannon were two ship’s masts, fully rigged,
one on the right bearing ...
Vol. 3 p. 59 (Rel. 0.26)
... AND NEW EDINBURGH.
Scotland. But it does not appear that any of
this family ever sat in Parliament. The title ...
Vol. 6 p. 316 (Rel. 0.25)
... 14 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. . [Castle Terrace.
Place, and now chiefly used as a coal dep8t.
Some of the merchants ...
Vol. 4 p. 214 (Rel. 0.25)
... 1,,firwry Strert.1 1NFIRMARY SUGGESTED.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE OLD ROYAL INFIRMARY-SURGEON SQUARE.
The Old Royal ...
Vol. 4 p. 297 (Rel. 0.25)
... 283, 335, 343 343
III, 140; dew of, II. 169
vanous buildings in, 11. 172; it!
early residents, 11. ...
Vol. 6 p. 389 (Rel. 0.25)
... the street, reached Holyrood, where he
sought sanctuary in the chapel of St. Augustine;
there his English ...
Vol. 3 p. 53 (Rel. 0.25)
... with legends, dates, and coats of arms,
for ages formed one of the most important features
of the ...
Vol. 5 p. 32 (Rel. 0.25)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Grassmarket.
Some English writers have denied that Henry
was ever in Edinburgh at any ...
Vol. 4 p. 234 (Rel. 0.25)
... 48 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. LCowgate.
the historian) became senior minister of the Cowgate
chapel.
One of his ...
Vol. 4 p. 248 (Rel. 0.25)
... AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Victoria Terrace. 292
of subscribers, and is transferable under certain
rules.
Judging ...
Vol. 2 p. 292 (Rel. 0.25)
![North Bridge.] THE ORPHAN HOSPITAL 359
c
CHAPTER XLVI:
EAST SIDE OF THE NORTH BRIDGE (concZdeJJ.
The Old Orphan Hospital-Its Foundation. Object, and Removal-Lady Glenorchy’s Chapel-Her Disputes with the Presbytery-Dr. SnelI
Jones-Demolition of the Chapel and School-Old Physic Gardens Formed-The Gardens-Sir Andrew Balfm-James Sutherland-
Inundated in x68pSutherland‘s Efforts to Improve the Gardcn-Professor Hope.
ABOUT IOO feet east of the bridge, and the same
distance south of the theatre which Whitefield
to his dismay saw built in the park of the Orphan
Hospital, stood the latter edifice, the slender,
pointed spire of which was a conspicuous object in
this quarter of the city.
A hospital for the maintenance and education
of orphan children was originally designed by Mr.
Andrew Gardiner, merchant, and some other
citizens, in 1732. The suggestion met with the
approval of the Society for the Propagation of
Christian Knowledge, then located in what was
anciently named Bassandyne’s Close ; and it was
moreover assisted by liberal subscriptions and
collections at the church doors. At first a house
was hired, and thirty orphans placed in it. According
to Maitland, in November, 1733, the
hospital was founded; it stood 340 feet northwest
of the Trinity College Church, and in its
formation a part of the burial ground attached to
the latter was used.
In 1738 the Town Council granted the hospital
a seal of cause, and in 1742 they obtained royal
letters patent creating it a corporation, by which
most of the Scottish officers of State, and the heads
of different societies in Edinburgh, are constituent
members. This chanty is so extensive in its
benevolence, that children from any part of the
British Empire have the right of admission, SO far
as the funds will admit-indigence, and the
number of children in a poor family being the
None, however, are admitted under the age of
seven, or retained after they are past fourteen, as
at that time of life the managers are seldom at a
loss to dispose of them, “the young folks,” says
Arnot, “ choosing to follow trades, and the public
entertaining so good an opinion of the manner in
which they have been brought up, that manufacturers
and others are very ready to take them into
their employment. There are about,” he adds, in
1779, “one hundred orpham maintained in this
hospital.”
This number was increased in 1781, when Mr.
Thomas Tod, merchant in Edinburgh, became
treasurer. It was then greatly enlarged for the
better accommodation of the children, ‘‘ and to
enable them to perform a variety of work, from the
. best title to it.
produce of which the expenses of their education
and maintenance were lessened, and healthy and
cheerful exercise furnished, suitable to their years.”
It is remarkable,” says Kincaid, “ that from
January, 1784, to January, 1787, out of from 130 to
140 young children not one has died. A particular
account of the rise, progress, present state,
and intended enlargement of this hospital was
publisted by the treasurer (Mr. Tod), wherein is a
print of the elevation, with two wings,.which the
managers intend to build so soon as the funds will
permit, when there will be room for zoo orphans.”
In its slender spire hung two bells, and therein
also stood the ancient clock of the Netherbow
Port, now in use at the Dean.
The revenues were inconsiderable, and it was
chiefly supported by benefactions and collections
made at the churches in the city. Howard, the
philanthropist, who visited it more than once, and
made himself acquainted with the constitution and
management of this hospital, Acknowledged it to be
one of the best and most useful charities in Europe.
A portrait of him hangs in the new Orphan Hospital
at the Dean, the old building we have described
having been removed in 1845 by the operations
of the North British Railway, and consequently
being now a thing of the past, like the chapel of
Lady Glenorchy, which shared the same fate at the
same time.
This edifice stood in the low ground, between
the Orphan Hospital and the Trinity College
Church, about 300 feet eastward of the north arch
of the Bridge.
Wilhelmina Maxwell, Viscountess Dowaget of
John Viscount Glenorchy, who was a kind of
Scottish Countess of Huntingdon in her day, was
the foundress of this chapel, which was a plain,
lofty stone building, but neatly fitted up- within
with two great galleries, that ran round the sides
of the edifice, and was long a conspicuous object
to all who crossed the Bridge. It was seated for
2,000 persons, and the middle was appropriated to
the poor, who sat there gratis to the number of
some hundreds. ‘‘ Whether,” says Arnot, “before
Lady Glenorchy founded this institution there were
churches sufficient for accommodating the inhabitants
we shall not pretend to determine. Such,
indeed, is the demand for seats, and so little arg](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p179.gif "Volume 2 Page 359")
... Bridge.] THE ORPHAN HOSPITAL 359
c
CHAPTER XLVI:
EAST SIDE OF THE NORTH BRIDGE (concZdeJJ.
The Old Orphan ...
Vol. 2 p. 359 (Rel. 0.25)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
This marriage is also referred to by Nisbet in
his Heraldry,” Vol. I., so ...
Vol. 6 p. 248 (Rel. 0.25)
![Hawthornden,] HAWTHORNDEN. 353
ROSLIN CHAPEL :-THE @' 'PRENTICE PILLAR." (From a Phtogra#h by G. W. WiAm Ct Co.)
CHAPTER XLII.
THE ENVIRONS OF EDINBURGH-(codinwed).
Hawthornden-The Abernethys-The Drummonds-The Cavalier and Poet-The Cavern+Wallace's Cave and Camp-Count Lockhart's
Monument-Captain Philip Lockhart of Dryden--Lauwade-The Ancient Church-The Coal Seams-"The Gray Brother "--soolt-De
Quincey-Clerk of Eldin.
HAWTHORNDEN, the well-known seat of the Drummond
family, stands on the south bank of the
North Esk, amidst exquisitely picturesque and
romantic scenery. Constructed with reference to
strength, it surmounts to the very edge a grey and
almost insulated cliff, which starts perpendicularly
up from the brawling river. There it is perched
high in air amid a wooded ravine, through which
the Esk flows between two walls of lofty and
141
abrupt rock, covered by a wonderful profusion of
foliage, interwoven with festoons of ivy-a literal
jungle of mosses, ferns, and creepers. The greatest
charm of the almost oppressive solitude is due
to the bold variety of outline, and the contrast of
colour, which at every spot the landscape exhibit.
On the summit of that insulated rock are still
the ruins of a fortalice of unknown antiquity4
vaulted tower, fifteen feet square internally, with](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p172.gif "Volume 6 Page 353")
... HAWTHORNDEN. 353
ROSLIN CHAPEL :-THE @' 'PRENTICE PILLAR." (From a Phtogra#h by G. W. WiAm Ct ...
Vol. 6 p. 353 (Rel. 0.25)
![Holyrood.] SUCCESSION. OF ABBOTS. 47
between Randolph the famous’ Earl of Moray and
Sir William Oliphant, in connection with the forfeited
estate of William of Monte Alto. Another
species of Parliament was held at Holyrood on
the 10th of February, in the year 1333-4, when
Edward 111. received the enforced homage of his
creature Baliol.
XVI. JOHN II., abbot, appears as a witness to
three charters in 1338, granted to William of
Livingston, William of Creighton, and Henry of
Brade (Braid?).
XVII. BARTHOLOMEW, abbot in 1342.
XVIII. THOMAS, abbot, witnessed a charter to
William Douglas of that ilk, Sir James of Sandilands,
and the Lady Elenora Bruce, relict of Alexander
Earl of Carrick, nephew of Robert I., of the
lands of the West Calder. On the 8th of May,
1366, a council was held at Holyrood, at which the
Scottish nobles treated with ridicule and contempt
the pretensions of the kings of England, and sanctioned
an assessment for the ransom of David II.,
taken prisoner at the battle of Durham. That
monarch was buried before the high altar in 1371,
and Edward 111. granted a safe conduct to certain
persons proceeding to Flanders to provide for the
tomb in which he was placed.
XIX. JOHN III., abbot on the 11th of January,
~372. During his term of office, John of Gaunt
Duke of Lancaster, fourth son of Edward III., was
hospitably entertained at Holyrood, when compelled
to take flight from his enemies in England.
XX. DAVID, abbot on the 18th of January, in
the thirteenth year of Robert 11. The abbey was
burned by the armyof Richard 11. whose army
encamped at Restalrig; but it was soon after
repaired. David is mentioned in a charter dated
at Perth, 1384-5.
XXI. JOHN (formerly Dean of Leith) was abbot
on the 8th of May, 1386. His name occurs in
several charters and other documents, and for the
last time in the indenture or lease of the Canonmills
to the city of Edinburgh, 12th September,
1423. In his time Henry IV. spared the monastery
in gratitude for the kindness of the monks to
his exiled father John of Gaunt.
XXII. PATRICK, abbot 5th September, 1435.
In his term of office James II., who had been born
in the abbey, was crowned there in his sixth year,
on the 25th March, 1436-7; and anothet high
ceremony was performed in the same church when
Mary of Gueldres was crowned -as Queen Consort
in July, 1449. In the preceding year, John Bishop
of Galloway elect became an inmate of the abbey,
and was buried in the cloisters.
XXIII. JAMES, abbot 26th April, 14~0.
XXIV. ARCHIBALD CRAWFORD, abbot in 1457.
He was son of Sir William‘ Crawford of Haining,
and had previously been Prior of Holytood. In
1450 he was one of the commissioners who treated
with the English at Coventry concerning a truce ;
and again in 1474, concerning a marriage between
James Duke of Rothesay and the Princess Cecile,
second daughter of Edward IV. of England. He
was Lord High Treasurer of Scotland in 1480.
He died in 1483. On the abbey church (according
to Crawford) his arms were carved niore than
thirty times. “He added the buttresses on the
walls of the north and south aisles, and probably
built the rich doorway which opens into the north
aisle.” Many finely executed coats armorial are
found over the niches, among them Abbot Crawford’s
frequently- fesse ermine, with a star of five
points, in chief, surmounted by an abbot’s mitre
resting on a pastoral staff.
XXV. ROBERT BELLENDEN, abbot in 1486,
when commissioner concerning a truce with
England. He was still abbot in 1498, and his
virtues are celebrated by his namesake, the archdean
of Moray, canon of ROSS, and translator of
Boece, who says ‘‘ he left the abbey, and died ane
Chartour-monk.” In 1507 the Papal legate presented
James IV., in the name of Pope Julius II.,
in the church, amid a brilliant crowd of nobles,
with a purple crown adorned by golden lilies, and
a sword of state studded with gems, which is still
preserved in the Castle of Edinburgh. He also
brought a bull, bestowing upon James the title of
Defender of the Faith. Abbot Bellenden, in 1493,
founded a chapel in North Leith, dedicated to St.
Ninian, latterly degraded into a victual granary
The causes moving the abbot to build this chapei,
independent of the spiritual wants of the people,
were manifold, as set forth in the charter of
erection. The bridge connecting North and South
Leith, over which he levied toll, was erected at the
same time.
XXVI. GEORGE CRICHTOUN, abbot in 1515,
and Lord Privy Seal, was promoted to the see of
Uunkeld in 1528. As we have recorded elsewhere,
he was the founder of the Hospital of St. Thomas,
near the Water Gate. An interesting relic of his
abbacy exists at present in England.
About the year 1750, when a grave was being
dug in the chancel of St Stephen’s church, St.
Albans, in Hertfordshire, there was found buried
in the soil an ancient lectern bearing his name, and
which is supposed to have been concealed there at
some time during the Civil Wars. It is of cast
brass, and handsonie in design, consisting of an eagle
with expanded wings, supported by a shaft deco-
The piers still remain.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p059.gif "Volume 3 Page 47")
... SUCCESSION. OF ABBOTS. 47
between Randolph the famous’ Earl of Moray and
Sir William Oliphant, in ...
Vol. 3 p. 47 (Rel. 0.25)
![coate3 Street.] ST, MARY’S CATHEDRAL 211
ward of Princes Street, this estate includes the sites
of Coates Crescent, Melville,Walker, Stafford Streets,
and other thoroughfares, yielding a rental of aboul
&zo,ooo yearly, and representing a capital oi
~400,000, the whole of which, in 1870, was be
queathed by the late Misses Walker of Coates and
Drumsheugh, for the erection of a cathedral for the
Scottish Episcopal Church, dedicated to St. Maq
facing the west end of Melville Street.
Miss Mary Walker-the last of an old Episcopalian
family-died in 1871, her sister Barbara having
pre-deceased her. The foundation-stone was laid
with impressive ceremony, by the Duke of Buccleuchj
assisted by some zoo clergy and laymen 01
the Episcopal communion on the zIst of May, 1874;
and when fully completed it will be the largest and
most beautiful church that has been erected in
Scotland, or perhaps in Great Britain since the
Reformation. The total cost, when finished, will
be about .&132,567.
The architect, Sir Gilbert Scott, founded his
design on the early Pointed style of architecture.
The axis of this cathedral coincides with the
centre of Melville Street, its site being immediately
to the south of Coates House, the sole example of
an old Scottish mansion surviving in the New Town.
The form adopted is that of a cruciform church, the
general effect being enhanced by the introduction
to the central tower of two minor, though still lofty,
towers at the western end. The plan embraces a
choir with north and south aisles ; at the intersection
of the transepts rises the central or rood tower,‘z75
feet inheight; the total length of the edifice externally
is 278 feet 2 inches, and the breath 98 feet 6 inches.
The choir is 60 feet 9 inches long and 29 broad,
with aisles 16 feet wide, divided into two great and
four minar bays by beautifully clustered columps.
From the floor to the key-stones of the vaulting,
which is all of stone, the height is 58 feet. The
transepts, which project by one ‘bay beyond the
nave and choir, are .35 feet 4 inches long, by 30
feet g inches broad, with aisles above 13 feet wide.
This unusual proportion of breadth -was given to
the transepts to provide ample accommodation for
congregational purposes. To the north of the north
chancel aisle is the library, an apartment measuring
30 feet by I 9 feet. The main entrance of the church
is from Palmerston Place, opposite what are grotesquely
named Grosvenor Gardens. This elevation
is the most imposing modern Gothic fapde in Scotland,
severe in its purity, and rich in elaboration.
The most important features here are the portal and
great west window. The shafts and flanking arches
of the former are of red granite, from Shap in Westmoreland,
harmonising well with the fine nunmore
and Polmaise freestone of which the edifice i s built.
In the vesica of the centre pediment is a seated
figure of the Saviour, supporting with the left hand
a lamb, and with the outstretched right holding a
key. Around is the legend :-
SALVABITUR”
“EGO SUM OSTIUM; PER ME SI QUIS INTROIERIT
In the spandrils are figures of St. Peter and
John the Baptist. Below this grouping are ranged
along the door lintel angels bearing a scroll inscribed-
“TU ES CHRISTUS FILIUS DEI.”
The side elevations of the nave present the
usual features of the early Pointed style, the walls
of the aisle being substantially buttressed, dividing
the length into five bays, in each of which is a
double window. Above the clerestory runs a bold
cotnice, and from the wall head there springs a high
pitched roof. In the gable of the south transept is
anotherportal, the mouldings of which are exquisitely
carved. The window consists of three lancets separated
by massively clustered buttress shafts. Above
it is a rose window 24 feet in diameter, filled
in with geometrical tracery. Above it are five
pointed niches, containing statues of St. Paul and
St. Luke, Titus, Silas, and Timotheus.
the gable of the north transept has some features
peculiarly its own. The wheel window, 24 feet
in diameter, is of a later period than that in the
south gable, Over it is a statue of David. As
usual in cathedrals, the choir has been treated
with greater elaboration of design and detail than
the nave, especially in the triforium and clerestory.
The gable fronting Melville Street is nearly
occupied by a triple lancet window, the apex of
the arches being 54 feet from the ground. Above
is an arcade, the arches of which are filled by
statues of the mother of our Lord and the four
Evangelists. In the vesica is a figure of the
Saviour surrounded by angels in the act of adoration.
The four shafted and clustered pillars of the roodtower,
though framed to support a superincumbent
mass of no less than 6,000 tons, are finely proportioned
and even light in appearance. The tower
rises square from the roof in beautiful proportions,
the transition to the octagonal form taking place
at the height of 120 feet from the foundation.
Viewed from any point, the nave, with its longdrawn
aisles and interlacing arches, has a peculiarly
p n d and impressive effect. Designed in the
style of the twelfth century, the font stands in the
baptistery under the south-west tower. It is
massive, of yellowish alabaster streaked with red
Though treated in a somewhat similar manner, ,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p031.gif "Volume 4 Page 211")
... Street.] ST, MARY’S CATHEDRAL 211
ward of Princes Street, this estate includes the sites
of Coates ...
Vol. 4 p. 211 (Rel. 0.25)
![Greyfriars Church.] PERSECUTION OF THE COVENANTERS. 371
guards, and a few, driven almost mad, achieved their
escape, but many died. All this, at the hands of their
own countrymen, these poor people had to endurethe
stubborn Scottish peasant, with his pride and
rectitude of heart, his tender, it might be weak and
ailing wife, with his infants and his aged parents.
to administer to the wants of the prisoners there
was one lady who was wont to come attended by
a young daughter possessed of considerable personal
attractions. Periodically they came to the iron gate
with food and raiment, collected among the charitable,
and between the young lady and one of the
A ROYAL EDINBURGH VOLUNTEER. (p?W7?J a Print Of tk Psriod.)
Some who signed a bond never to take up arms
against the Government were released ; others
found rest amid the graves on which they lay;
the remainder, to the number of two hundred and
fifty-seven, were sent to be sold as slaves in Barbadoes,
Jamaica, and New Jersey, but many were
drowned at sea
“ From the gloom of this sad story there is shed
one ray of romance,” says Chambers, in his ‘‘ Traditions.”
Among the sympathising people who dared
B6
younger captives an attachment sprang up.
Doubtless she loved him for the dangers he had
dared, and he loved her because she pitied them.
In happier days, long after, when their constancy
had been well tried by an exile which he suffered
in the plantations, this pair were married and settled
in Edinburgh, where they had sons and daughters.
A respectable elderly citizen,” adds Chambers,
‘‘ tells me he is descended from them”
After the Duke of Albany and York came, as](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p197.gif "Volume 4 Page 377")
... Church.] PERSECUTION OF THE COVENANTERS. 371
guards, and a few, driven almost mad, achieved ...
Vol. 4 p. 377 (Rel. 0.25)
![The Castle Hill.] THE RAGGED SCHOOL. 87
the said burgh situated under the Castle Hill t+
wards the north, to the head of the bank, and so
going down to the said North Loch,” &c.
This right of proprietary seems clear enough,
yet Lord Neaves decided in favour of the Crown,
and found that the ground adjacent to the
Castle of Edinburgh, including the Esplanade and
the north and south banks or braes,” belonged,
(‘jure coronte, to Her Majesty as part and pertinent
of the said Castle.”
CHAPTER IX.
THE CASTLE HILL (cmclded).
Dr. Guthrie’s Original Ragged School-Old Houses in the Streetof the Castle Hill-Duke of Gordon’s House, Blair’s Close-Webster‘s
CloscDr. Alex. Webster-Boswell’s Court-Hyndford House-Assembly Hall-Houses of the Marquis of Argyle, Sir Andrew Kcnnedy,
the Earl of Cassillis, the Laird of Cockpen--Lord Semple’s House-Lord Semple-Palace of Mary of Gub-Its Fate.
ON the north side of this thoroughfare-which,
within 150 years ago, was one of the most
aristocratic quarters of the old city-two great
breaches have been made: one when the Free
Church College was built in 1846, and the other, a
little later, when Short’s Observatory was built in
Ramsay Lane, together with the Original Ragged
School, which owes its existence to the philanthropic
efforts of the late Dr. Guthrie, who, with
Drs. Chalmers, Cunningham, and Candlish, took
so leading a part in the pon-intrusion controversy,
which ended in the disruption in 1843 and the
institution of the Free Church of Scotland. In 1847
Guthrie’s fervent and heart-stirring appeals on behalf
of the homeless and destitute children, the little
street Arabs of the Scottish capital, led to the
establishment of the Edinburgh Original Ragged
Industrial School, which has been productive of
incalculable benefit to the children of the poorer
classes of the city, by affording them the blessing of
a good common and Christian education, by training
them in habits of industry, enabling them to
earn an honest livelihood, and fitting them for
the duties of life,
All children are excluded who attend regular
day-schools, whose parents have a regular income,
or who receive support or education from the parochial
board; and the Association consists of all subscribers
of 10s. and upwards per annum, or donors
of A5 and upwards; and the general plan upon
which this ragged school and its branch establishment
at Leith Walk, are conducted is as follows,
viz.:-“To give children an adequate allowance of
food for their daily support; to instruct them in
reading, writing, and arithmetic ; to train them in
habits of industry, by instructing and employing
them in such sorts of work as are suited to their
years; to teach them the truths of the Gospel,
making the Holy Scriptures the groundwork of
instruction. On Sabbath the children shall receive
food as on other days, and such religious instruction
as shall be arranged by the acting committee,”
which consists of not less than twelve members.
To this most excellent institution no children
are admissible who are above fourteen or under five
years of age, and they must either be natives of
Edinburgh or resident there at least twelve months
prior to application for admission, though, in special
cases, it may be limited to six. None are admitted
or retained who labour under infectious disease, or
whose mental or bodily constitution renders them
incapable of profiting by the institution. All must ,
attend church on Sunday, and no formula of
doctrine is taught to which their parents may
object ; and children are excused from attendance
at school or worship on Sunday whose parents
object to their attendance, but who undertake that
the children are otherwise religiously instructed in
the tenets of the communion to which they belong,
provided they are in a condition to be entrusted
with the care of their children.
Such were the broad, generous, and liberal views
of Dr. Guthne, and most ably have they been
carried out.
According to the Report for 187g-which may
be taken as fairly typical of the work done in this
eminently useful institution-there was an average
attendance. in the Ramsay Lane Schools of 216
boys and 89 girls. The Industrial Department
comprises carpentry, box-making, shoemaking, and
tailoring, and the net, profits made by the boys
in these branches amounted to &;I& 14s. 5+d.
Besides this the boys do all the washing, help the
cook, make their beds, and wash the rooms they
occupy twice a week. The washing done by boys
was estimated at A130, and the girls, equally
industrious, did work to the value (including the
washing) of A109 7s.
Full of years and honour, Dr. Thomas Guthne
died 24th February, 1873.
Memories of these old houses that have passed
away, yet remain, while on the opposite side of the](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p099.gif "Volume 1 Page 87")
... Castle Hill.] THE RAGGED SCHOOL. 87
the said burgh situated under the Castle Hill t+
wards the north, to the ...
Vol. 1 p. 87 (Rel. 0.24)
![The water of Leith.] GEORGE RANKINE LUKE 81
memoir of him was prefixed by Dr. Leonhard
Schmitz to his last work, which was published six
years after his death, which occurred in his seventyfourth
year, at No. 21, St. Bernard’s Crescent, on
the 9th of July, 1859.
Academy, everywhere bearing off more prizes than
any of his contemporaries. Leaving the last in
1853, he w’ent to the University of Glasgow, and
at the close of the first session, when in his. seventeenth
year, he carried off the two gold medals
ST. STEPHEN’S CHURCH.
Our list of Stockbridge notabilities would be
incomplete were we to omit the name of one
whose fame, had he been spared, might have
been very glorious : young George Rankine Luke,
a Snell Exhibitioner at Baliol College, and one of
the most brilliant students at Oxford. Born in
Brunswick Street, in March, 1836, the son of Mr.
Tames Luke, a master baker, he passed speedily
through the ranks of the Hamilton Place Academy,
the Circus Place School, and the Edinburgh
107
for the senior Latin and Greek, three prizes for
Greek and Latin composition, the prize for the
Latin Blackstone, and the Muirhead prize. The
close of the second year saw him win the medal
for the Greek Blackstone, the highest classical
honour the University offers, Professor Lushington’s
final Greek prize, another for Logic, and for
Composition four others.
In 1855, as a Snell Exhibitioner at Oxford, he
, rapidly gained the Gaisford prizes for Greek prose](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p092.gif "Volume 5 Page 81")
... water of Leith.] GEORGE RANKINE LUKE 81
memoir of him was prefixed by Dr. Leonhard
Schmitz to his last work, ...
Vol. 5 p. 81 (Rel. 0.24)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Canangate.
~ ~~ ~ ~~ ~~~ ~
house of the burgh. It was established by ...
Vol. 3 p. 20 (Rel. 0.24)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Canangate.
~ ~~ ~ ~~ ~~~ ~
house of the burgh. It was established by ...
Vol. 3 p. 19 (Rel. 0.24)
... CANONGATE TOLBOOTH.
OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. -
CHAPTER I.
THE CANONGATE.
Its Origin-Songs concerning ...
Vol. 3 p. 1 (Rel. 0.24)
... made the ornate edifice we find it now, with
‘oriel windows and clustering turrets. He was
author of “The ...
Vol. 5 p. 50 (Rel. 0.24)
![Gnonpnte.] JVHN PATERSON. I1
The latter is an anagram on the name of “John
Paterson,” while the quatrain was the production
of Dr. Pitcairn, and is referred to in the first
volume of Gilbert Stuart’s Edinburgh Magazine
andRevim for 1774, and may be rendered thus:
--“In the year when Paterson won the prize in
golfing, a game peculiar to the Scots (in which his
ancestors had nine times won the same honour), he
then raised this mansion, a victory more honourable
than all the rest.”
According to tradition, two English nobles at
Holyrood had a discussion with the royal duke
as to the native country of golf, which he was
frequently in the habit of playing on the Links of
Leith with the Duke of Lauderdale and others,
and which the two strangers insisted to be an
English game as well, No evidence of this being
forthcoming, while many Scottish Parliamentary
edicts, some as old as the days of James II., in
1457, could be quoted concerning the said game,
the Englishmen, who both vaunted their expertness,
offered to test the legitimacy of their pretensions
on the result of a match to be played by them
against His Royal Highness and any other .Scotsman
he chose to select. After careful inquiry he
chose a man named John Paterson, a poor shoemaker
in the Canongate, but the worthy descendant
of a long line of illustrious golfers, and the association
will by no means surprise, even in the present
age, those who practise the game in the true old
Scottish spirit The strangers were ignominiously
beaten, and the heir to the throne had the best of
this practical argument, while Paterson’s merits
were rewarded by the stake played for, and he
built the house now standing in the Canongate.
On its summit he placed the Paterson arms-three
pelicans vuZned; on a chief three mullets ; crest,
a dexter-hand grasping a golf club, with the wellold
and well-known tradition, Chambers says, “it
must be admitted there is some uncertainty. The
house, the arms, and the inscriptions only indicate
that Paterson built the house after being victor at
golf, and that Pitcairn had a hand in decorating it.’’
In this doubt Wilson goes further, and believes
that the Golfers’ Land was Zmt, not won, by the
gambling propensities of its owner. It was acquired
by Nicol Paterson in 1609, a maltman in Leith,
and from him it passed, in 1632, to his son John
(and Agnes Lyel, his spouse), who died 23rd April,
1663, as appears by the epitaph upon his tomb in
the churchyard of Holyrood, which was extant in
Maitland’s time, and the strange epitaph on which
is given at length by Monteith. He would appear
to have been many times Bailie of the Canongate.
known mOttO-FAR AND SURE. Concerning this
Both Nicol and John, it may be inferred from the
inscriptions on the ancient edifice, were able and
successful golfers. The style of the bNilding, says
Wilson, confirms the idea that it had been rebuilt
by him “with the spoils, as we are bound to
presume, which he won on Leith Links, from ‘OUT
auld enemies of England.’ The title-deeds, however,
render it probable that other stakes had been
played for with less success. In 1691 he grants
a bond over the property for A400 Scots. This is
followed by letters of caption and hornhg, and
other direful symptoms of legal assault, which
pursue the poor golfer to his grave, and remain
behind as his sole legacy to his heirs.”
The whole tradition, however, is too serious to
be entirely overlooked, but may be taken by the
reader €or what it seems worth.
Bailie Paterson’s successor in the old mansion
was John, second Lord Bellenden of Broughton
and Auchnoule, Heritable Vsher of the Exchequer,
who married Mary, Countess Dowager of Dalhousie,
and daughter of the Earl of Drogheda. Therein
he died in 1704, and was buried in the Abbey
Church ; and as the Union speedily followed, like
other tenements so long occupied by the old
courtiers in this quarter, the Golfers’ Land became,
as we find it now, the abode of plebeians.
Immediately adjoining the Abbey Court-house
was an old, dilapidated, and gable-ended mansion
of no great height, but of considerable extent,
which was long indicated by oral tradition as the
abode of David Rizzio. It has now given place
to buildings connected with the Free Church of
Scotland. Opposite these still remain some of
the older tenements of this once patrician burgh,
distinguishable by their lofty windows filled in with
small square panes of glass ; and on the south side
of the street, at its very eastern end, a series of
pointed arches along the walls of the Sanctuary
Court-house, alone remain to indicate the venerable
Gothic porch and gate-house of the once famous,
Abbey of Holyrood, beneath which all that was
great and good, and much that was ignoble and
bad have passed and repassed in the days that are
no more.
. This edifice, of which views from the east and
west are still preserved, is supposed to have been
the work of “the good-Abbot Ballantyne,” who
rebuilt the north side of the church in 1490, and
to whom we shall have occasion to refer elsewhere.
His own mansion, or lodging, stood here on the
north side of the street, and the remains of it,
together With the porch, were recklessly destroyed
and removed by the Hereditary Keeper of the
Palace in 1753.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p023.gif "Volume 3 Page 11")
... JVHN PATERSON. I1
The latter is an anagram on the name of “John
Paterson,” while the quatrain was the ...
Vol. 3 p. 11 (Rel. 0.24)
... by the hand of the Major-General commanding.
From the “ Archieologia Scotica ” we cull the
following ...
Vol. 1 p. 56 (Rel. 0.24)
... of the siege, he says, “ upon the twentieth
day, the principal block-house of Leith, called St.
Anthony’s ...
Vol. 6 p. 222 (Rel. 0.24)
... of the siege, he says, “ upon the twentieth
day, the principal block-house of Leith, called St.
Anthony’s ...
Vol. 6 p. 223 (Rel. 0.24)
... .OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
CHAPTER VIII.
HOLYROOD ABBEY (mnrZu&d).
PAGE
Charter of W X i I.-Trial of the ...
Vol. 4 p. 386 (Rel. 0.24)
... OLD AKD NEW EDINBURGH. [The Mound
and ten elders, of whom five shall retire ‘by
rotation from year to year, ...
Vol. 3 p. 98 (Rel. 0.24)
![Newhaven.] REV. DR. FAIRBAIRN. 303
In 1820 there were landed at the old stone
pier of Newhaven, John Baud and fourteen other
prisoners, ‘f Radicals ” who had been taken after
the skirmish at Bonny Bridge, by the 10th Hussars
and the Stirlingshire yeomanry. They had been
brought by water from the castle of Stirling, and
were conveyed to gaol from Newhaven in six carriages,
escorted by a macer of justiciary, and the
detachment of a Veteran Battalion.
In the following year, and while railways were
still in the womb of the future, the Scots Magazine
announces, that a gentleman who had left
Belfast on a Thursday, “reached Glasgow the
same evening, and embarked on board the Tounit
(steamer) at Newhaven on Friday, and arrived at
Aberdeen that night. Had such an event been
predicted fifty years ago, it would have been as
easy to make people believe that this journey would
have been accomplished by means of a balloon.”
About five hundred yards westward oi the stone
pier, a chain pier was constructed in the year 1821,
by Captain (afterwards Sir Samuel) Brown, of the
Royal Navy, at the cost of A4,ooo. It is five
hundred feet long, four feet wide, has a depth
at low water of from five to six feet, and served
for the use of the steam packets to Stirling,
Queensferry, and other places above and below
Leith; yet, being unable to offer accommodation for
the bulky steam vessels that frequent the harbour
of the latter or that of Granton, it is now chiefly
used by bathers, and is the head-quarters of the
Forth swimming club.
It was opened on the 14th of October, ISzr,
and was afterwards tested by a weight of twentyone
tons placed upon the different points of
suspension. In 1840 it became the property of
the Alloa Steam Packet Company.
In 1838 Newhaven was erected into a quoad
sma parish, by the aathority of the Presbytery .of
Edinburgh, when a handsome church was erected
for the use of the community, from a design by
John Henderson of Edinburgh.
Near it, in Main Street, is the Free Church,
designed in good Gothic style by James A. Hamilton
of Edinburgh, an elegant feature in the locality,
but chiefly remarkable for the ministry of the late
Rev. Dr. Fairbairn, who died in January, 1879-
a man who came of a notable race, as the wellknown
engineers of the same name were his
cousins, as was also Principal Fairbairn of Glasgow.
He was ordained minister at Newhaven in 1838.
The great majority of his congregation were fishermen
and their families, who were always keenly
sensible of the mode in which he prayed for those
who were exposed to the dangers of the deep.
During his long pastorate these prayers were.a
striking feature in his ministrations, and Charles
Reade, while residing in the neighbourhood, frequently
attended Newhaven Free Church, and has,
in his novel of “ Christie Johnstone,” given a lifelike
portrait of his demeanour when administering
consolation, after a case of drowning.
Perhaps the most useful of thii amiable old
pastor’s philanthropic schemes was that of the
reconstruction of the Newhaven fishing fleet. He
perceived early that the boats in use were wholly
unsuited for modem requirements, and some years
before his death he propounded a plan for replacing
them by others having decks, bunks, and
other compartments. As soon as a crew came forward
with a portion of the money required, Dr. Fairbairn
had no difficulty in getting the remainder
advanced. Thirty-three large new boats, each
costing about Lzso, with as much more for fishing
gear, were the result of his kindly labours. They
have all been prosperous, and hundreds of the
inhabitants of Newhaven, when they stood around
his grave, remembered what they owed to the
large-hearted and prudent benevolence of this old
ministei.
In 1864 a local committee was appointed for
the purpose of erecting a breakwater on the west
side of the present pier, so as to form a harbour
for the fishing craft. Plans and specifications
were prepared by Messrs. Stevenson, engineers,
Edinburgh, and the work was estimated at the
probable cost of L;~,OOO ; and while soliciting aid
from the Board of Fisheries, the Board of Trade,
and the ,magistrates of Edinburgh, the fishermen
honourably and promptly volunteered to convey ’
all the stonework necessary in their boats or otherwise
from the quarry at‘ Qleensferry.
The fishermen of Newhaven rarely intermany
With the women of other fisher communities ; and
a woman of any other class, unacquainted with the
cobbling of nets, baiting and preparation of lines,
the occasional use of a tiller or oar, would be useless
as a fisherman’s wife; hence their continued
intermarriages cause no small confusion in the
nomenclature of this remarkable set of people.
The peculiar melodious and beautiful cry of the
Newhaven oyster-woman-the last of the quaint
old Edinburgh street cries-is well known ; and so
also is their costume ; yet, as in time it may become
a thing of the past, we may give a brief description
of it here. “A cap of linen or cotton,’J says a
writer in Chambers’s EdinQurgh Journal, ‘‘ surmounted
by a stout napkin tied below the chin,
composes the investiture of the hood ; the showy
structures wherewith other females are adorned
,
.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p122.gif "Volume 6 Page 303")
... REV. DR. FAIRBAIRN. 303
In 1820 there were landed at the old stone
pier of Newhaven, John Baud and ...
Vol. 6 p. 303 (Rel. 0.23)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. me Old High Schaol‘
display the dresses so used should be given to the
poor.”
For ...
Vol. 4 p. 290 (Rel. 0.23)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. Uuhnsrone Terrace.
selection, without regard to the Government order of
merit. The ...
Vol. 2 p. 296 (Rel. 0.23)
... Bridge. __ 362 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
Magazine (started in Edinburgh), and minister of’ son of Sir Michael ...
Vol. 2 p. 362 (Rel. 0.23)
![Craigcrook.] HISTORY OF CRAIGCROOK. 107
summer residence of Lord Jeffrey-deeply secluded
amid coppice.
The lands of Craigcrook appear to have belonged
in the fourteenth century to the noble family of
Graham. By a deed bearing date 9th April, 1362,
Patrick Graham, Lord of Kinpunt, and David
Graham, Lord of Dundaff, make them over to
John de Alyncrum, burgess of Edinburgh. He
in turn settled them on a chaplain officiating at
“Our Lady’s altar,” in the church of St. Giles,
and his successors to be nominated by the magistrates
of Edinburgh.
John de Alyncrum states his donation of those
lands of Craigcrook, was “ to be for the salvation
of the souls of the late king and queen (Robert
and Elizabeth), of the present King David, and of
all their predecessors and successors ; for the salvation
of the souls of all the burghers of Edinburgh,
their predecessors and successors ; of his own father
and mother, brothers, sisters, etc. ; then of himself
and of his wife; and, finally, of all faithful souls
deceased.”
The rental of Craigcrook in the year 1368 was
only A6 6s. 8d. Scots per annum; and in 1376 it
was let at that rate in feu farm, to Patrick and
John Lepars.
At an early period it became the property of
the Adamsons. William Adamson was bailie of
Edinburgh in 1513, and one of the guardians of
the city after the battle of Flodden, and Williim
Adamson of Craigcrook, burgess of Edinburgh
(and probably son of the preceding), was killed at
the battle of Pinkie, in 1547 ; and by him or his
immediate successors, most probably the present
castle was built-an edifice wbich Wood, in his
learned ‘‘ History of Cramond Parish,” regards
as one of the most ancient in the parish.
In consequence of the approaching Reformation,
the proceeds of the lands were no longer required
for pious purposes, and the latter were made over by
Sir Simon Prestonof Craigmillar, when Provost, to Sir
Edward Marj oribanks, styled Prebend of Craigcrook.
They were next held for a year, by George Kirkaldy,
brother of Sir James Kirkaldy of Grange in
Fifeshire, Lord High Treasurer of Scotland, who
engaged to pay for them A27 6s. 8d. Scots.
In June, 1542, they reverted again to Sir Edward
Majoribanks, who assigned them in perpetual feufarm
to William Adamson before-named. This
wealthy burgess had acquired much property in
the vicinity, including Craigleith, Cammo, Groat
Hall, Clermiston, Southfield, and part of Cramond
Regis. After Pinkie he was succeeded by his son
William, and Craigcrook continued to pass through
several generations of his heirs, till it came into
~~
the hands of Robert Adamson, who, in 1656, sold
to different persons the whole of his property.
Craigcrook was purchased by John Muir, merchant
in Edinburgh, whose son sold it to Sir John
Hall, Lord Provost of the city in 1689-92. He was
created a baronet in 1687, and was ancestor of the
Halls of Dunglass, on the acquisition of which, in
East Lothian, he sold Craigcrook to Walter Pringle,
advocate, from whose son it was purchased by John
Strachan, clerk to the signet.
When the latter died in 1719, he left the whole
of his property, with North Clermiston and the
rest of his fortune, both in land and movables
(save some small sums to his relations) ‘‘ mortified
for charitable purposes,”
The regulations were that the rents should be
given to poor old men and women and orphans ;
that the trustees should be “two advocates, two
Writers to the Signet, and the Presbytery of Edinburgh,
at the sight of the Lords of Session, and any
two of these members,” for whose trouble one
hundred merks yearly is allowed.
There are also allowed to the advocates, poor
fifty merks Scots, and to those of the writers to the
signet one hundred merks ; also twenty pounds
annually for a Bible to one of the members of the
Presbytery, beginning with the moderator and
going through the rest in rotation.
This deed is dated the 24th September, 1712.
The persons constituted trustees by it held a meeting
and passed resolutions respecting several
points which had not been regulated in the will. A
clerk and factor, each with a yearly allowance of
twenty pounds, were appointed to receive the
money, pay it out, and keep the books.
They resolved that no old person should be
admitted under the age of sixty-five, nor any orphan
above the age of twelve; and that no annuity
should exceed five pounds.
Among the names in a charter by William
Forbes, Provost of the Collegiate Church of St.
Giles, granting to that church a part of the ground
lying contiguous to his manse for a burial-place,
dated at Edinburgh, 14th January, 1477-8, there
appears that of Ricardus Robed, jrebena‘anks de
Cragmk mansepropie (“ Burgh Charters.”)
Over the outer gate of the courtyard a shield
bore what was supposed to have been the arms of
the Adamsons, and the date 1626 ; but Craigcrook
has evidently been erected a century before that
period. At that time its occupant was Walter
Adamson, who succeeded his father Willian~
Adamson in 1621, and whose sister, Catharine,
married Robert Melville of Raith, according to
the Douglas Peerage.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p118.gif "Volume 5 Page 107")
... HISTORY OF CRAIGCROOK. 107
summer residence of Lord Jeffrey-deeply secluded
amid coppice.
The lands ...
Vol. 5 p. 107 (Rel. 0.23)
![Bell’s Mills.] LADY SINCLAIR. 63
portray. She was born Margaret Learmouth, at
~ 6 , St John Street, in the Canongate, in January)
1794, while that street and much of the neighbour.
hood around it were still the centre of the literaq
and fashionable society of the then secluded
capital of Scotland.
Thus she was old enough to have seen and
known many who were “ QUt with the Prince ” b
1745, and reminiscences of these people and 01
their days were ever a favourite theme with hei
when she had a sympathetic listener. “Old
maiden ladies,” she was wont to say, with a sort 01
sad pitifulness in her tone, “were the last lea1
Jacobites in Edinburgh ; spinsterhood in its loneli.
ness remained then ever true to Prince Charlit
and the vanished dreams of youth.” Lady Sinclaii
used to relate how in the old Episcopal Chapel in
the Cowgate, now St. Patrick‘s Church, the last
solitary representative of these Jacobite ladies nevei
failed to close her prayer-book and stand erect, in
d e n t protest, when the prayer for King George 111.
‘( and the reigning family ” was read in the Church
Service. Early in her girlhood her family removed
from St. John Street to Picardy Place, and the
following adventure, which she used to relate,
curiously evinces the difference between the social
customs of the early years of this century and those
of the present day.
“ Once, when she was returning from a ball, the
bearers of her sedan-chair had their bonnets carried
off by the wind, while the street oil-lamps were
blown out, and the ‘ Donalds ’ departed in pursuit
of their head-gear. It was customary in those
times for gentlemen to escort the sedan-chairs
that held their fair partners of the evening, and
the two gentlemen who were with her-the Duke
af Argyle and Sir John Clerk of Penicuickseized
hold of the spokes and carried her home.
‘Gentlemen were gentlemen in those days,’ she was
wont to add, ‘and Edinburgh was the proper
residence of the Scottish aristocracy-not an inn
.or a half-way house between London and the
Highland muirs.’ ”
In 1821 she was married to Mr. Sinclair, afterwards
Sir John Sinclair, Bart., of Dunbeath, and
for fifty years afterwards her home was at the
House of Barock, in Caithness, where her influence
among the poor was ever felt and gratefully
acknowledged. She was a staunch and
amusingly active Liberal, and, with faculties clear
and unimpaired in the last week of her long life,
noted and commented on Mr. Gladstone’s famous
“ hlidlothian speeches,” and rejoiced over his
success. She was always scrupulously dressed,
and in the drawing-room down to the day of
her death. She saw all her children die before
her, in early or middle life; her eldest, Colonel
Sinclair, dying in India in his forty-fifth year. After
Sir John’s death she settled in Edinburgh.
“I am the last leaf on the outmost bough,”
she was wont to say, “and want to fall where I
was born.” And so she passed away.
When she was interred within the Chapel Royal
at Holyrood, it was supposed that she would be one
of the last to whom that privilege would be accorded.
It was not so ; for the remains of James,
Earl of Caithness, who died in America, were laid
there in April, 1881.
The Dean, or Den, seems to have been the old
general name for the rocky hollow now spanned
by the stately bridge of Telford.
Bell’s Mills, a hamlet deep down in a grassy
glen, with an old bridge, aver which for ages lay
the only road to the Queensferry, and now overshadowed
by fashionable terraces and crescents, is
described by Kincaid in 1787 as a village, “one and
three-quarter niiles north-west of Edinburgh, on the
north bank of the Water of Leith, and .a quarter
of a mile west of West Leith village.” * It received
its name from an old proprietor of the
flour-mills, which are still grinding there, and have
been long in existence. ‘‘ On Thursday night
last,” says the Zdinburgh Advertseer of 3rd January:
1764, “ the high wall at Bells Brae, near the
Water of Leith Bridge, fell down, by which accident
the footpath and part of the turnpike road are
carried away, which makes it hazardous for carriages.
This notice may be of use to those who have
occasion to pass that road.”
At the head of the road here, near the Dean
Bridge, is a Free Church, built soon after the
Disruption-a little edifice in the Saxon style, with
a square tower ; and a quaint little ancient crowstepped
building, once a toll-house, has built into
it some of the old sculpture from the Dean House.
At the foot of the road, adjoining Bell’s Mills
Bridge, are old Sunbury distillery and house, in a
lelta formed by the Leith, which sweeps under a
steep and well-wooded bank which is the boundary
3f the Dean Cemetery.
The Water of Leith village, which bears marks of
peat antiquity, is fast disappearing amid the enxoachments
of modern streets, and yet all that renains
of it, deep down in the rocky hollow, where
:he stream, flowing under its quaint old bridge,
3etween ancient mills, pours in a foaming sheet
wer a high, broad weir, is wonderfully striking
ind picturesque. Dates, inscriptions, crowstepped
:ables, and other features of the seventeenth
:entury, abound here in profusion.
.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p074.gif "Volume 5 Page 63")
... Mills.] LADY SINCLAIR. 63
portray. She was born Margaret Learmouth, at
~ 6 , St John Street, in the ...
Vol. 5 p. 63 (Rel. 0.23)
... 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. 0.23)
... might be baptised in Protestant form,
The queen only replied by placing the child in
his arms. Then the ...
Vol. 1 p. 47 (Rel. 0.23)
![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. 0.23)
... Giles.
elasticity which the nation displayed in its endless ’ naceus,” in the Harleian Collection in the ...
Vol. 1 p. 142 (Rel. 0.23)
![THE AULD KIRK STYLE. I53 The Luckenbootha.]
turesque and heavily-eaved buildings, stood in the
thoroughfare of the High Street, parallel to St.
Giles's church, from which they were separated
by a close and gloomy lane for foot passengers
alone, and the appellation was shared by the
opposite portion of the main street itself. This
singular obstruction, for such it was, existed from
among whom we may well include the well-known
firm of Messrs. M'Laren and Sons.
It was pierced in the middle by a passage called
the Auld Kirk Style, which led to the old north
door of St. Giles's, and there it was that in 1526
the Lairds of Lochinvar and Drumlanrig slew Sir
Thomas MacLellan of Bombie (ancestor of the
'
CREECH'S LAND. (Frmn an Ewaving ix Air "Fugitive Pircer.")
' the reign of James 111. till 1817, and the name is
supposed to have been conferred on the shops
in that situation as being close buuths, to distinguish
them from the open ones, which then lined the great
street on both sides, Zacken signifying close, thus
implying a certain superiority to the ancient traders
in these booths ; and it was considered remarkable
that amid all the changes of the old town there
is still in this locality an unusual proportion of
mercers, clothiers? and drapers, of very old standing,
a0
Lords Kirkcudbright), with whom they mere at
feud-an act for which neither of them was ever
questioned or punished.
Prior to the year 18 I I there remained unchanged
in the Luckenbooths two lofty houses of great
strength and antiquity, one of which contained
the town residence of Sir John Byres, Bart., of
Coates, an estate now covered by the west end of
new Edinburgh. He was a gentleman who made
a great figure in the city during the reign of](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p165.gif "Volume 1 Page 153")
... AULD KIRK STYLE. I53 The Luckenbootha.]
turesque and heavily-eaved buildings, stood in the
thoroughfare of ...
Vol. 1 p. 153 (Rel. 0.23)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [ Burghmuir.
hollows are still discernible, and in them thc
Scots Foot Guards were ...
Vol. 5 p. 30 (Rel. 0.23)
... cross was raised, " In memory of Colonel
Kenneth Douglas Mackenzie, C.B., who served for
forty-two ...
Vol. 1 p. 80 (Rel. 0.23)
... to his new monastery were the churches
of St. Cuthbert. and of the Castle, among which
one plot of land ...
Vol. 1 p. 20 (Rel. 0.22)
![The Water of Leith.] THE LAUDERS. 83
massive little mansion of Groat Hall, with a thatched
roof, whilom the property of Sir John Smith, Provost
of the city in 1643, whose daughter figured
as the heroine of the strange story connected with
the legend of the Morocco Land in the Canongate,
and whose sister (Giles Smith) was wife of Sir
William Gray of Pittendrum.
St. Cuthbert’s Poorhouse, a great quadrangular
edifice, stands in the eastern vicinity of Craigleith
Quarry. It was built in 1866-7, at a cost of
jG40,000, and has amenities of situation and
elegance of structure very rarely associated with
a residence for the poor.
Eastward of Stockbridge, and almost forming an
integral part of it, lies the now nearly absorbed and
half extinct, but ancient, village of Silvermills, a secluded
hamlet once, clustering by the ancient milllade,
and which of old lay within the Earony of
Broughton. It was chiefly occupied by tanners,
whose branch of trade is still carried on there by
the lade, which runs under Clarence Street: through
the village, and passes on to Canonmills. Some of
the houses still show designs of thistles and roses
on gablets, With the crowsteps of the sixteenth
century.
A little to the west of St. Stephen’s Church, a
narrow lane leads downward to the village, passing
through what was apparently the main street, and
emerges at Henderson Row, so called from the
Lord Provost of that name. According to
Chambers, a walk on a summer day from the old
city to the village, a hundred years ago, was considered
a very delightful one, and much ‘adopted
by idlers, the roads being then through corn-fields
and pleasant nursery-grounds.
No notice, says Chambers, has ever been taken
of Silvermills in any of the books regarding Edicburgh,
nor has any attempt ever been made to
account for its somewhat piquant name. “I
shall endeavour to do so,” he adds. “In 1607
silver was found in considerable abundance at
Hilderstone, in Linlithgowshire, on the property of
the gentleman who figures as Tarn 0’ the Cowgate.
Thirty-eight barrels of ore were sent to the mint in
the Tower of London to be tried, and were found
to give twenty-four ounces of silver for every
hundredweight. Expert persons were placed upon
the mine, and mills were erected upon the Water
of Leith for the melting and fining the ore. The
sagacious owner gave the mine the name of Go8s
BZessing. By-and-bye the king heard of it, and,
thinking it improper that any such fountain of
wealth should belong to a private person, purchased
‘ God‘s Blessing’ for L~,OOO, that it might
be worked upon a larger scale for the benefit of
the public But somehow, from the time it left
the hands of the original owner, ‘ God’s Blessing’
ceased to be anything like so fertile as it had been,
and in time the king withdrew from the enterprise,
a great loser. The Silvermills I conceive to have
been a part of the abandoned plant.”
This derivation seems extremely probable, but
Wilson thinks the name may have originated in
some of the alchemical projects of James IV., or
his son, James V.
city,” says the Edinburgh Week& Magazine for
January, 1774, “we are informed of a very singular
accident. On the nights of the zznd, 23rd, and
24th inst., the Canonmills dam, by reason of the
intenseness of the frost, was so gorged with ice and
snow, that at last the water, finding no vent, stagnated
to such a degree that it overfIowed the
lower floors of the houses in Silvermills, which
obliged many of the inhabitants to remove to the
risi,ng grounds adjacent. One family in particular,
not perceiving their danger till they observed the
cradle with a child in it afloat, and all the furniture
swimming, found it necessary to make their
escape out of the back windows, and were carried
on horseback to dry land.”
St. Stephen’s Established Church, at the foot
of St. Vincent Street, towers in a huge mass over
Silvermills, and was built in 1826-8, after designs
by W. H. Playfair, It is a massive octagonal
structure in mixed Roman style, with a grand, yet
simple, entrance porch, and a square tower 165 feet
high. It contains above 1,600 sittings. The parish
was disjoined from the conterminous parishes in
1828 by the Presbytery of Edinburgh and the Teind
Court. Itwas opened on Sunday, the 20th December,
1828, when the well-known Dr, Brunton preached
to the Lord Provost and magistrates in their official
robes, and the Rev. Henry Grey officiated in the
afternoon.
In an old mansion, immediately behind where
this church now stands, were born Robert Scott
Lauder, R.S. A., and his brother, James Eckford
Lauder, RSA., two artists of considerable note in
their time. The former was born in 1803, and for
some years, after attaining a name, resided in.No. 7,
Carlton Street. A love of art was early manifested
by him, and acquaintance with his young neighbour,
David Roberts, fostered it. The latter instructed
him in the mode of mixing colours, and urged him
to follow art as a profession ; thus, in his youth he
entered the Trustees’ Academy, then under the
care of Mr. Andrew Wilson.
After this he went to London, and worked with
great assiduity in the British Museum. In 1826
“From Silvermills, a little northward of this .](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p094.gif "Volume 5 Page 83")
... Water of Leith.] THE LAUDERS. 83
massive little mansion of Groat Hall, with a thatched
roof, whilom the ...
Vol. 5 p. 83 (Rel. 0.22)
![The Water of Leith.] DANIEL STEWART. 67
with sword and sash, wig and cocked hat, queue
and ruffles. After looking at him steadily, but sadly,
the figure melted away; and, as usual with such
spectral appearances, it is alleged young Nisbet was
shot at the same moment, in an encounter with the
colonists.
In 1784 the Dean House was the residence of
Thomas Miller, Lord Barskimming, and Lord
Justice Clerk. In 1845 it was pulled down, when
the ground whereon it had stood so long was
acquired by a cemetery company, and now-save
the sculptured stones we have described--no relic
remains of the old Nisbets of Dean but their burial
place at the West Church-a gloomy chamber of
the dead, choked up with rank nettles and hemlock.
By 1881 the old village of Dean was entirely
cleared away. Near its centre stood the blacksmith’s
forge of Robert Orrock, who was indicted for
manufacturing pikes for the Friends of the People
in 1792. He and his friend, Arthur McEwan,
publican in Dean Side, Water of Leith village,
were legally examined at the time, and it is supposed
that many of the pikes were thrown into the
World’s End Pool, below the waterfall at the
Damhead. South of the smithy was the village
school, long taught by “ auld Dominie Fergusson.”
North of it stood the old farmhouse and steading
of the Dean Farm, all swept away like the quaint
old village, which’was wont to be a bustling place
when the commander-in-chief of the forces in
Scotland tenanted the Dean, and mounted orderlies
came galloping up the steep brae, and often reined
up their horses at the “Speed the Plough” alehouse,
before the stately gate.
Somewhere in the immediate vicinity of this
old village a meeting-house was erected in 1687
for the Rev. David Williamson, of St. Cuthbert’s,
who was denounced as a rebel, and intercommuned
in 1674 for holding conventicles, but was sheltered
secretly in the Dean House by Sir Patrick Nisbet.
In 1689 he was restored to his charge at the West
Church, and was one of the commissioners sent to
congratulate King William on his accession to the
throne.
Now all the site of the village and farms, and
the land between them and the Dean Bridge, is
covered by noble streets, such as Buckingham
Terrace and Belgrave Crescent, the position of
which is truly grand. In 1876 a movement was
se: on foot by the proprietors of this crescent, led
by Sir James Falshaw, Bart, then Lord Provost,
which resulted in the purchase of the ground between
it and the Dean village, at a cost of about
A5,ooo. In that year it was nearlyall covered by
kitchen gardens, ruinous buildings, and brokendown
fences. These and the irregularities of the
place have been removed, while the natural undulations,
which add such beauty to the modem
gardens, have been preserved, and the plantations
and walks are laid out with artistic effect,
The new parish church-which was built in
1836, in the Gothic style, for accommodation of
the inhabitants of the Water of Leith village1 and
those of the village of Dean-stands on the western
side of the old Dean Path.
Farther westward is Stewart’s Hospital, built in
1849-53, after designs by David Rhind, at a cost
of about ~30,000, in a mixture of the latest
domestic Gothic, with something of the old castellated
Scottish style. It comprises a quadrangle,
about 230 feet in length by IOO feet in minimum
breadth, and has two main towers, each 120 feet
high, with several turrets.
Mr. Daniel Stewart, of the Scottish Exchequer,
who died in 1814, left the residue of his property,
amounting (after the erection and endowment of a
free school in his native parish of Logieraitj to
about ;G13,000, with some property in the old
town, to accumulate for the purpose of founding a
hospital for the maintenance of boys, the children
of honest and industrious parents, whose circumstances
do not enable them suitably to support and
educate their children at other schools. Poor boys
of the name of Stewart and Macfarlane, resident
within Edinburgh and the suburbs, were always
to have a preference. The age for admission was
to be from seven to ten, and that for leaving at
fourteen .
The Merchant Company, as governors, taking
advantage of the powers given them by the provisional
order obtained in 1870, opened the hospital
as a,day school in the September of that
year. The education provided is of a very superior
order, qualifying the pupils for commercial
or professional life, and for the universities. The
course of study includes English, Latin, Greek,
French, German, and all the usual branches, including
drill, fencing, and gymnastics.
The Orphan Hospital at the Dean was erected
in 1833, after elegant designs by Thomas Hamilton,
at a cost of A16,000, in succession to the
older foundation, which we have already described
as standing eastward of the North Bridge, on the
site of the railway terminus. It comprises a large
central block, with two projecting wings, a portico
of Tuscan columns, and two light, elegant quadrangular
towers with arches, and has within its
clock-turret on the summit of its front the ancient
clock of the Nether Bow Port.
Its white facade stands boldly and pleasingly](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p078.gif "Volume 5 Page 67")
... Water of Leith.] DANIEL STEWART. 67
with sword and sash, wig and cocked hat, queue
and ruffles. After looking ...
Vol. 5 p. 67 (Rel. 0.22)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith Wynd.
broad and spacious thoroughfare, named St. Mary’s
Street, presenting on ...
Vol. 2 p. 300 (Rel. 0.22)
![Kolyrood.] THE COFFIN OF JAMES V. 65
Appended to this scroll was a minute of thei
possessions, with a hint of the pecuniary advantager
to result from forfeiture. This dangerous policy
James repelled by exclaiming, ‘‘ Pack you, javels !
(knaves). Get you to your religious charges ; reform
your lives, and be not instruments of discord
between me and my nobles, or else I shall reform
you, not as the King of Denmark does, by im
prisonment, nor yet as the King of England does
by hanging and heading, but by sharp swords,
if I hear of such hotion of you again ! ”
From this speech it has been suppqsed that
Jxnes contemplated some reform in the then
dissolute Church. But the rout at Solway
followed; his heart was broken, and on learning
the birth of his daughter Mary, he died in despair
at Falkland, yet, says Pitscottie, holding up his
hands to God, as he yielded his spirit. He was
interred in the royal vault, in December, 1542,
at Holyrood, where, according to a MS. in the
Advocates’ Library, his body was seen by the Earl
of Forfar, the Lord Strathnaver, and others, who
examined that vault in 1683. “We viewed the
body of James V. It lyeth within ane wodden
coffin, and is coverit with ane lead coffin. There
seemed to be hair upon the head still. The
body was two lengths of my staff with twa inches
more, which is twae inches and more above twae
Scots elms, for I measured the staff with an ellwand
afterward. The body was coloured black with ye
balsam that preserved it, and which was lyke
melted pitch. The Earl of Forfar took the measure
with his staf lykewayes” On the coffin was the
inscription, flhstris Scoturum, Rex Jacobus, gus
Nominis E, with the dates of his age and death.
The first regent after that event was James,
second Earl of Arran (afterwards Duke of Chatelherault,
who had been godfather to James, the
little Duke of Rothesay, next heir to the crown,
failing the issue of the infant Queen Mary), and in
1545 this high official was solemnly invested at
Holyrood, together with the Earls of Angus, Huntly,
and Argyle, with the collar and robes of St.
Michael, sent by the King of France, and at the
hands of the Lyon King of Arms.
We have related how the Church suffered at
the hands of English pillagers after Pinkie, in
1547. The Palace did not escape. Seacombe, in
his ‘‘ History of the House of Stanley,” mentions
that Norns, of Speke Hall, Lancashire, an
English commander at that battle, plundered
from Holyrood all or most of the princely
library of the deceased King of Scots, James V.,
“particularly four large folios, said to contain
the Records and Laws of Scotland at that time.”
He also describes a grand piece of wainscot,
now in Speke Hall, as having been brought from
the palace, but this is considered, from its style,
doubtful.
During the turmoils and troubles that ensued
after Mary of Guise assumed the regency, her
proposal, on the suggestion of the French Court,
to form a Scottish standing army like that of
France, so exasperated the nobles and barons,
that three hundred of them assembled at
Holyrood in 1555, and after denouncing the
measure in strong terms, deputed the Laird of
Wemyss and Sir James Sandilands of Calder to
remonstrate with her on the unconstitutional step
she was meditating, urging that Scotland had
never wanted brave defenders to fight her battles
in time of peril, and that they would never submit
to this innovation on their ancient customsc
This spirited remonstrance from Holyrood had the
desired effect, as the regent abandoned her pro--
ject. She came, after an absence, to the palace in
the November of the following year, when the
magistrates presented her with a quantity of new
wine, and dismissed McCalzean, an assessor of the
city, who spoke to her insultingly in the palace on
the affairs of Edinburgh; and in the following
February she received and entertained the ambassador
of the Duke of Muscovy, who had been
shipwrecked on his way to England, whither she
sent him, escorted by 500 lances, under the Lord
Home.
After the death of Mary of Guise and the arrival
of her daughter to assume the crown of her ancestors,
the most stirring scenes in the history of the
palace pass in review.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p077.gif "Volume 3 Page 65")
... THE COFFIN OF JAMES V. 65
Appended to this scroll was a minute of thei
possessions, with a hint of the ...
Vol. 3 p. 65 (Rel. 0.22)
![TU Cowpate.] THE HAMMERMEN. 263
reference to those trades which form the United
Incorporation of Hammermen, and to the old city
companies and trades in generaL
‘6 The Hammerer’s Seill of Cause,” was issued
on the 2nd Nay, 1483, by Sir Patrick Baron of
Spittalfield, Knight, Provost ‘of the City, Patrick
Balbirge of that ilk, David Crawford of St. Giles’s
Grange, and Archibald Todrig, being bailies ; and
under the general name are’included at that time,
blacksmiths, goldsmiths, lorimers, saddlers, cutlers,
buckler-makers, armourers, (( and all others
within the said burgh of Edinburgh.” Pewterers
were afterwards included, and a heckle-maker so
lately as 1609. By the rule of the corporation it
was statute and ordained, that ‘‘ na hammerman,
maister, feitman, servand, nor utheris, tak vpon
hand fra this tyme furth, to exercise or use ony
mair craftis but alanerly ane, and to live thairupon,
sua that his brether craftismen be not hurt throu
his large exercitation and exceeding of boundis,”
Src. And all the privileges of the haminermen
were ratified by Act of Parliament so recently
as September, 1681, when shearsmiths appear as
members of the corporation. In those days all the
operations of industry were treated as secrets.
Each trade was a craft, and those who followed
it were called craftsmen ; and skilled artisans were
‘‘ cunning men.” (Smiles.)
The Hammermen’s seal bears the effigyof St.
Eloi, in apostolical vestments, in a church porch
surmounted by five pinnacles, holding in one hand
a hammer, and in the other a key, with the legend,
(( Sig2lum commune artis tudiatorum.”
By the end of the 16th century the manufacture
of offensive weapons predominated over all other
trades in the city. The essay-piece ofa cutler, prior
to his admission to the corporation, was a wellfinished
“quhinzier,” or sword; and there were
gaird-makers, whose business consisted in fashioning
the hilts ; dalmascars, who gilded weapons and
armour. In 1582 sword blades were damascened
at Edinburgh ; but ‘‘ Hew Vans, dalmascar, was
ordained not to buy blades to sell again,” his business
being confined to gilding steel. There were
also the belt-makers, who wrought military girdles ;
dag-makers, who made hackbutts (short guns),
and dags, or pistols ; but all these various trades
became associated in the general one of armourers
or gunsmiths, as the wearing of weapons
began to fall into desuetude, and other arts connected
with civilisation and luxury began to take
their places.
In 1586 a locksmith is first found in Edinburgh,
where he was the cnly one, and could only make
a ‘‘ kist-lock.” Tirling-pins, wooden latches, and
transom bars, were the appurtenances of doors
before his time generally. But by 1609, “as the
security of property increased,” says Chambers,
the essay was a kist-lock and a hing and bois
lock with ane double plate lock ;” and, in 1644,
‘‘ a key and sprent band were added to the essay.”
In 1682 “a cruik and cruik band’ were further
added; and in 1728, for the safety of the liegeq
the locksmiths’ essay was appointed to be ‘‘ a cruik
and cruik-band, a pass-lock with a round filled
bridge, not cut or broke in the backside, with nobs
and jamb bound.” The trade of a shearsmith
appears first in 1595 in Edinburgh, and in 1613
Thomas Duncan, the first tinkler in the city was
admitted a hammerman. The trade of a pewterer
is found as far back as 1588; the first knockmaker
(or clockmaker) appears in 1647, but his
business was so limited that he added thereto
the making of locks. (“ Traditions of Edin.”) In
1664 the first white iron smith was admitted a
hammerman, and the first harnessmaker, though
lorimers-manufacturers of the iron-work used in
saddlery-were members. since 1483. The first
maker of surgical instruments in Edinburgh was
Paul Martin, a French Protestant refugee, in 1691.
In 1720 the first pin-maker appears ; and in 1764
the first edge-tool maker, and the first manufacturer
of fish-hooks.
By the first charter of the hammermen all a p
plicants for admission were examined by the
deacons and masters of their respective arts, as to
their qualifications ; and any member found guilty
of a bre?ch of any one of the articles contained in
their charter, was fined eight shillings Scots towards
the support of the corporation’s altar of St. Eloi in
St Giles’s Church and the chaplain thereof. The
goldsmiths were separated from the hammermen in
1581 ; but since then many other crafts have joined
them, including gunsmiths, watchmakers, founders,
braziers, and coppersmiths.
The cordiners, or shoemakers, were first created
into a society by the magistrates on the 28th of
July, 1449 (according to Maitland), in terms of
which each master of the trade who kept a booth
within the town, paid one penny Scots, and the;.
servants one halfpenny, towards the support of
their altar of St. Crispin, in St. Giles’s Church. A
new seal of cause was granted to them in 1509, and
another in 1586, which enacted that their shops were
not to be open on Sundays after g AM., and that no
work was to be done on that day under pain of twenty
shillings fine. It also regulated the days of the
week on which leather boots and shoes could be sold
by strangers in booths. This charter was confirmed
on 6th March, 1598, by James VI., in considera](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p083.gif "Volume 4 Page 263")
... Cowpate.] THE HAMMERMEN. 263
reference to those trades which form the United
Incorporation of Hammermen, and ...
Vol. 4 p. 263 (Rel. 0.22)
... OLD APU'D NEW EDINBURGH.
CHAPTER XXII.
ST. ANDREW SQUARE.
PAGE
St. Andrew Sq-Lst .of Early R e s i d e n u t ...
Vol. 4 p. 388 (Rel. 0.22)
... a man named Clark, in the Fleshmarket Close.
He had the tact and art to keep his secret profligacy
unknown, ...
Vol. 1 p. 113 (Rel. 0.22)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Castle HX
one going plump down a vent they set up a shout
of joy. Sir David ...
Vol. 1 p. 90 (Rel. 0.22)
![253 Leith.] ST. NINIAN’S CHURCH.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p072.gif "Volume 6 Page 253")
![Corstorphine.] CORSTORPHINE CHURCH.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p128.gif "Volume 5 Page 117")
