![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 "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. V Page 115")
... CORSTORPHINE CHURCH. 115
was no side road into which he could have disappeared.
He returned home ...
Book 5 p. 115
(Score 0.51)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Libertou.
extended from east to west over all the country.
This inequality in the ...
Book 6 p. 326
(Score 0.51)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Coltbridge;.
from Inverleith Row, and a third from the narrow
lane leading to East ...
Book 5 p. 102
(Score 0.5)
... of Belhaven, the Earl Marischal, after having
opposed the Union in all its stages, refused to be
present at ...
Book 1 p. 67
(Score 0.5)
![Portobello.] THE FIGGATE MUIR ?43
to the line of the turnpike road. The whole surface
of the district round them is studded with
buildings, and has only so far subsided from the
urban character as to acquire for these, whether
villa or cottage, the graceful accompaninients of
garden or hedge-row. ?A stroll from the beautified
city to Piershill,? says a writer, ?when the
musical bands of the barracks are striving to drown
the soft and carolling melodies of the little songsters
on the hedges and trees at the subsession ot
Arthur?s Seat, and when? the blue Firth, with its
many-tinted canopy of clouds, and its picturesque
display of islets and steamers, and little smiling
boats on its waters, vies with the luxuriant lands
upon its shore to win the award due to beauty, is
indescribably delightful.?
C H A P T E R X I V .
PORTOBELLO.
Portolxll~The Site before the Houses-The Figgate Muir-Stone Coffins-A Meeting with Cromwell-A Curious Raae--Portobello Hut-
Robbqrs-Willkq Jamieson?s Feuing-Sir W. Scott and ?The Lay ?-Portobello Tower-Review of Yeomanry and H i g h d e w
Hugh Miller-David Laing-Joppa-Magdalene Bridge-Brunstane House.
PORTOBELLO, now a Parliamentary burgh, and
favourite bathing quarter of the citizens, occupies a
locality known for ages as the Figgate Muir, a once
desolate expanse of muir-land, which perhaps was
a portion of the forest of Drumsheugh, but which
latterly was covered With whins and furze, bordered
by a broad sandy beach, and extending from Magdalene
Bridge on the south perhaps to where Seafield
now lies, on the north-west.
Through this waste flowed the Figgate Bum out
of Duddingston Loch, a continuation of the Braid.
Figgate is said to be a corruption of the Saxon
word for a cow?s-ditch, and here ?the monks of
Holyrood were wont to pasture their cattle.
Traces of early inhabitants were found here
in 1821, when three stone cofiins?were discovered
under a tumulus of sand, midway between Portobello
and Craigantinnie. These were rudely put
together, and each contained a human skeleton.
?? The bones were quite entire,?? says the Week&
JournnZ for that year, ?and from their position it
would appear that the bodies had been buried with
their legs across. At the head of each was deposited
a number of flints, from which it is conjectured
the inhumation had taken place before the
use of metal in this country; and, what is very
remarkable, the roots of some shrubs had penetrated
the coffins and skulls of the skeletons, about which
and the ribs they had curiously twisted themselves.
The cavities of the skeletons indeed were quite
filled with vegetable matter.?
It was on the Figgate Muir that, during the
War of Independence, Sir William Wallace in 1296
mustered his zoo patriots to join Robert Lauder
and Crystal Seton at Musselblirgh for the pursuit
of the traitor Earl of Dunbar, whom they fought at
Inverwick, afterwards taking his castle at Dunbar.
In the Register of the Privy Council, January,
1584, in a bond of caution for David Preston of
Craigmillar, Robert Pacok in Brigend, Thomas
Pacok in Cameron, and others, are named as sureties
that John Hutchison, mirchant and burgess
of Edinburgh, shall be left peaceably in possession
of the lands ?? callit Kingis medow, besyde the
said burgh, and of that pairt thairof nixt adjacent
to the bume callit the Figott Burne, on the north
side of the same, being a proper pairt and pertinent
of the saidis landis of Kingis Medow.?
Among the witnesses is George Ramsay, Dean of
Restalrig.
We next hear of this locality in 1650, when it
was supposed to be the scene of a secret meeting,
?? half way between Leith and Musselburgh Rocks,
at low water,? between Oliver Cromwell and the
Scottish leaders, each attended by a hundred
horse, when any question the latter proposed to
ask he agreed to answer, but declined to admit
alike of animadversion or reply. A part of this
alleged conference is said to have been-
? Why did you put the king to death ?
?? Because he was a tyrant, and deserved death.?
? Why did you dissolve the Parliament ? I?
?? Because they .were greater tyrants than the
king, and required dissolution.?
The Mercurius CaZtdoonius of 1661 records a very
different scene here, under the name of the Thicket
Burn, when a foot-race was run from thence to the
summit of Arthur?s Seat by twelve browster-wives,
?all of them in a condition which makes violent
exertion unsuitable to the female form.? The prizes
on this occasiofi were, for the first, a hundredweight
of cheese and ?a budge11 of Dunkeld aquavite,
andarumpkin of Brunswick rum for the second, set
down by the Dutch midwife. The next day six](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p154.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. V Page 143")
... THE FIGGATE MUIR ?43
to the line of the turnpike road. The whole surface
of the district round them ...
Book 5 p. 143
(Score 0.5)
![Burghmuir.] GOLF ON BRUNTSFIELD LINKS. 31
Lord High Treasurer, under James IV., the following
entries are found :-
In virtue of a bet in 1798, Mr. Scales of Leith,
and Mr. Smellie, a printer, were selected to perform
..
King , . . . . . . . ixs.
1503, Feb. 22. Item, xij Golf Balls to the King iiijs.
1506. Item, the 28th day of Julii for ij Golf Clubbes to the
King . . . . . . . ijs.
During the reign of James VI. the business of
club making had become one of some importance,
and by a letter, dated Holyrood, 4th April, 1603,
William Mayne, Bowyer, burgess of Edinburgh, is
appointed maker of bows, arrows, spears, and clubs
to the king. From thenceforward the game took a
firm hold of the people as a national pastime, and
it seems to have been a favourite one with Henry,
Duke of Rothesay, and with the great Marquis of
Montrose, as the many entries in his ?? Household
Book ? prove. ?? Even kings themselves,? says a
writer in the Sots Magazine for 1792, ?did not
decline the princely sport; and it will not be
displeasing to the Society of Edinburgh Golfers to
be informed that the two last crowned heads that
ever visited this country (Charles I. .and James
VII.) used to practise golf on the Links of Leith,
now occupied by the society for the same purpose.?
In 1744 the city gave a silver club, valued at
LIS, to be played for on the 1st of April annually
by the Edinburgh Company of Golfers, the victor
to be styled captain for the time, and to append
a gold or silver -medal to the club, bearing his
name and date of victory. The Honourable Company
was incorporated by a charter froni the
magistrates in 1800, and could boast of the most
illustrious Scotsmen of the day among its members.
Until the year 1792 St. Andrews had a species of
monopoly in the manufacture of golf balls. They
are small and hard, and of old were always stuffed
with feathers. The clubs are from three to four
feet long. ?The heads are of brass,? says Dr.
Walker, in a letter to the famous Dr. Carlyle of
Inveresk ; ?? and the face with which the ball is
struck is perfectly smooth, having no inclination,
such as might have a tendency to raise the ball
from the ground. The game may be played by
any number, either in parties against each other,
or each person for himself, and the contest is to
hole the course in the fewest strokes.?
?Far!? or ?Fore!? is the signal cry before the ball
is struck, to warn loiterers or spectators; and
?Far and Surc !? is a common motto with golf clubs.
.
the Erle of Bothwile . . . . xlijs
Feb. 4- Item to Golf? Clubbes and Ballis to the
the church. They were allowed the use of six
balls each. These? all went considerably higher
than the vane, and were found in the Advocate?s
Close, on the north side of the High Street.
Duncan Forbes, the Lord President, was so fond
of golf that he was wont to play on the sands of
Leith when the Links were covered with snow.
Kay gives us a portrait of a famous old golfer,
Andrew McKellar, known as the ?Cock o? the
Green,? in the act of striking the ball. This enthusiast
spent entire days on Bruntsfield Links,
club in hand, and was often there by night too,
playing at the ?short holes? by lantern light
Andrew died about 1813.
Bruntsfield Links and those of Musselburgh are
the favourite places yet of the Edinburgh Club ;
but the St. Andrews meetings are so numerously
attended that the old city by the sea has been
denominated the MefropoZis of golfing.
In a miscellaneous collection, entitled ? Mistura
Curiosa,? a song in praise of golf has two verses
? I love the game of golf, my boys, though there are folks in
Who, when upon the Links they walk, delight to run it
But then those folks who don?t love golf, of coursc, can?t
The fond love that exists between the golfer and his friend.
?For on the green the new command, that ye love one
Is, as a rule, kept better by a golfer than a brother;
For if he?s struck, a brother?s rage is not so soon appeased,
But the harder that Zhit my friend, the better he is pleased.?
Until the Royal Park at Holyrood was opened
up, levelled, and improved, at the suggestion of the
late Prince Consort, Bruntsfield Links was the
invariable place for garrison reviews and field days
by the troops ; but >neither they nor any one else
can interfere with the vested rights of the golfers
to play over any part of the open ground at all
times.
On the summit of the green slope now crowned
by the hideous edifice known as Gillespie?s Hospital,
a picturesque mansion of very great antiquity,
quadrangular in form, striking in outline, with its
peel-tower, turrets, crowstepped gables and gablets,
thus :-
town
down ;
comprehend
another,
1 east corner of the Parliament Square over the
weathercock of St. Giles?s, 161 feet from the base of](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p042.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. V Page 31")
... GOLF ON BRUNTSFIELD LINKS. 31
Lord High Treasurer, under James IV., the following
entries are found ...
Book 5 p. 31
(Score 0.5)
... OLD AND NEW? EDINBURGH. [Canongate.
refain its distinct dignity as a burgh of regality.
In its arms it bears ...
Book 3 p. 2
(Score 0.5)
![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 "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. VI Page 227")
... THE TOLBOOTH WYND. 1 0
marrow alley adjoining the latter, a house bearing
the date 1688 has the two ...
Book 6 p. 227
(Score 0.5)
... Arbuthnot, who twice held the chair in
1815, and again in 1821. He was created a
baronet by the King in ...
Book 4 p. 284
(Score 0.5)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
under distinguished patronage has in no way
altered.
In 1763, on the 28th ...
Book 6 p. 270
(Score 0.5)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith
for many generations an ancient and lofty signaltower,
the summit of which was ...
Book 6 p. 228
(Score 0.49)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Corstorphine.
of the House of Orkney. He is represented in
armour of the fifteenth ...
Book 5 p. 118
(Score 0.49)
... 2 2 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Convivialii
CHAPTER XII.
THE OLD EDINBURGH CLUBS.
Of Old Clubs, and some Notabilii ...
Book 5 p. 122
(Score 0.49)
![The Old High School.] RECTORS AND TEACHERS, 291
, in use to teach in those mornings and forenoons.
And considering that the ordinary Latin rudiments
in use to be taught children at their beginning to
the Latin tongue is difficult and hard for beginners,
and that Wedderburn?s Rudiments are more plain
and easy, the Council ordain the said masters in
time coming, to teach and begin their scholars with
Wedderburn?s Rudiments in place of the Latin
Rudiments in use as taught formerly. Ro. CHIESLIE,
Provost.??
David Wedderburn, whose work is thus referred
to, was born about 1570, and was the accomplished
author of many learned works, and died, it is supposed,
about 1644, soon after the publication of
his ?? Centuria Tertia.?
In 1699 A40 Scots was voted by the magistrates
to procure books as a reward for the best scholars,
and when the century closed the institution was in
a most creditable condition, and they-as patrons
-declared that ?? not a few persons that are now
eminent for piety and learning, both in Church and
State, had been educated there.?
In the year I 7 I 6 there was an outbreak among
the scholars for some reason now unknown ; but
they seem to have conducted themselves in an outrageous
manner, demolishing every pane of glass
in the school, and also of Lady Yester?s church,
levelling to the earth even the solid stone wall
which enclosed the school-yard. About this time
the janitor of the institution was David Malloch, a
man distinguished in after life as author of the
beautiful ballad of ? William and Margaret,? a poet
and miscellaneous writer, and under-secretary to the
Prince of Wales in 1733; to please the English
ear, he changed his name to Mallet, and became
an avowed infidel, and a venal author of the worst
description. Dr. Steven refers to his receipt as
being extant, dated 2nd February, 1718, ?for
sixteen shillings and eight pence sterling, being his
full salary for the preceding half-year. That was
the exact period he held the office.?
In 1736 we again hear of the BZeis-siher, cca
profitable relic of popery, which it seemed difficult
to relinquish.? Heartburnings had arisen because
it had become doubtful in what way the Candlemas
offerings should be apportioned between the rector
and masters; thus, on the 28th January in that
year, the Council resolved that the rector himself,
and no other, shall collect, not only his own quarterly
fees, but also the fee of one shilling from
each scholar in the other classes. The Council
also transferred the right from the master of the
third, to the mzster of the first elementary class,
to demand a shilling quarterly from each pupil in
the rector?s class; and declared that the rector
and four masters should favourably receive from
the scholars themselves whatever benevolence or
Candlemas offerings might be presented.?
Thomas Ruddiman, the eminent grammarian and
scholar, who was born at Boyndie in 1674 and
who in 1724 began to vary his great literary
undertakings by printing the ancient Cdedonian
Mercqv, about I 737 established-together with
the rector, the masters, and thirty-one other persons-
a species of provident association for their
own benefit and that of their widows and children,
and adopting as the title of the society, ?The
Company of the Professors and Teachers of the
liberal arts and sciences, or any branch or part
thereof, in the City of Edinburgh and dependencies
thereof.?
The co-partners were all taxed equally; but
owing to inequalities in the yearly contributions, a
dissolution nearly took place after an existence of
fifty years; but the association rallied, and stcl
exists in a flourishing condition.
One of the most popular masters in the early
part of the eighteenth century was Mr. James
Barclay, who was appointed in June, 1742, and
whose experience as a teacher, attainments, and
character, caused him to be remembered by his
scholars long after his removal to Dalkeith, where
he died in 1765.
When Henry Mackenzie, author of the ?? Man of
Feeling,? was verging on his eightieth year, he
contributed to Dr. Steven?s CL History,? his reminiscences
of the school in his own early years,
between 1752 and 1757, which we are tempted to
quote at length :-
?Rector Lees, a very respectable, grave, and
gentlemanlike man, father or uncle, I am not sure
which, of Lees, the Secretary for Ireland. He
maintained great dignity, treating the other masters
somewhat de had a bar; severe, and rather too
intolerant of dulness, but kind to more promising
talents. It will not be thought vanity, I trust-for
I speak with the sincerity and correctness of a
third person-when I say that I was rather a
favourite with him, and used for several years after
he resigned his office to drink tea with him at his
house in a large land or building at the country
end of the suburb called Pleasance, built by one
Hunter, a tailor, whence it got the name of
? Hunter?s Folly,? or the Castle 0? Clouts.?
cc MAsrERs continued-Ersf, or youngest class,
when I was put to school, Farquhar, a native of
Banffshire, cousin-german of Farquhar, author of
admired-and indeed t h q may be called admirable-
sermons, and of Mr. Farquhar, the Vicar of
Hayes, a sort of Parson Adams,? a favourite ot](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p111.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. IV Page 291")
... Old High School.] RECTORS AND TEACHERS, 291
, in use to teach in those mornings and forenoons.
And ...
Book 4 p. 291
(Score 0.49)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith
helmet, now preserved in the Antiquarian Museum
-and the entrance gate or ...
Book 6 p. 258
(Score 0.48)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Hawthornden.
walls seven feet thick, and the remains of a banqueting-
hall with large ...
Book 6 p. 354
(Score 0.48)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [West Church.
When peace came, Messrs. McVicar and Pitcairn,
his coadjutor, continued ...
Book 3 p. 134
(Score 0.48)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Potterrow.
~~~ ~
very distinguished and accomplished circle, among
whom David Hume, ...
Book 4 p. 330
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![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 "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. VI Page 303")
... REV. DR. FAIRBAIRN. 303
In 1820 there were landed at the old stone
pier of Newhaven, John Baud and ...
Book 6 p. 303
(Score 0.48)
... . OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Inverleith.
the long hill on the south side of the West Port,
from Cowfeeder Row to ...
Book 5 p. 94
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... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Ravelston.
shady with wood, strikes from the Murrayfield Road
northward past the ...
Book 5 p. 106
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... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Picardy Place.
It would appear that so early as 1730 the
Governors of Heriot?s ...
Book 3 p. 186
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![kith.] THE OLD SMACKS AND FERRY-BOATS. e11
smacks in their southward voyage merely touching
at Berwick for their cargoes of salmon.
In ISOZ the merchants of Leith established a
line for themselves, ?? The Edinburgh and Leith
Shipping Company,? which commenced with six
armed smacks, the crews of which were protected
from the impress.
On the 23rd of October, 1804, one of these
smacks, the Brifunnia, Captain Brown, and another
named the Sprz$fO, Captain Taylor, off Cromer,
fell in with a large French privateer, which bore
down on them both, firing heavily, particularly with
musketry; but the Leith smacks? men stood to
their guns, engaged her briskly, and so damaged her
sails and rigging that she sheered off and dropped
astern. The smacks had many shots through their
canvas, but none of their men were killed.
On the 9th January, 1805, another, the SwaZZm,
Captain White, was attacked off Flamborough
Head by a heavy French privateer, carrying fourteen
guns, and very full of men. Passing through a
fleet of Newcastle colliers, she came within pistolshot
of the Swallow, and poured in a broadside,
accompanied by volleys of musketry.
Captain White replied with his carronades and
small arms. The round shot of the former told so
well that the privateer was fairly beaten off, while
neither the smack nor her crew sustained much
injury. ?In these two actions,? says the Scots
Magazine, ? both seamen and passengers showed a
becoming spirit.? But such encounters were of
very common occurrence in those days.
In 1809 the new company had ten of these
smacks ; eventually, there were no fewer than four
companies trading between Leith and London ;
but in 182 I one was formed under the name of the
London and Edinburgh Steam Packet Company,
With three large steamers-the City of Eninbuqh,
theJnmes Watt, and the Solo.
So great was their success that in 1831 the London,
Leith, Edinburgh, and Glasgow Shipping
Company superseded their fine smacks by the
introduction of powerful steamers, with beautiful
cabin accommodation, the WiZliam, Addaide, and
Victoria. In 1836 the London and Edinburgh
Steam Packet Company became merged in the
General Steam Navigation Company, sailing from
Granton to London. The old smacks were retained
by only two of the companies ; but having
been found expensive to build and to maintain,
from the number of men required to handle their
unwieldy canvas-particularly their great boom
main-sail-they were in 1844 superseded by clipper
schooners ; so these once celebrated craft, the old
Leith smacks, have entirely disappeared from the
harbour with which they were so long and exclusively
identified.
Before quitting the subject of passenger traffic,
we may glance at the ancient ferries of Leith.
By an Act of James I., in 1425, it was ordained
that all femes where horses were conveyed, should
?have for jlk boate a treene brig,? or wooden gangway,
under the pain of ?? 40 shillings of ilk boate ;?
and again, by an Act of James III., 1467, the
ferries at Leith, Kinghorn, and Queensferry are
ordained to have ?brigges of buuds,? under penalty
of the ? tinsel ? or forfeitursof their boats. In 1475
the charge for a passenger was twopence, and for
a horse sixpence; at Queensferry one penny for
a man, and twopence for a horse. (Scots Acts,
Glendoick.)
Nicoll records that in 1650 the ferrymen at Leith
and Burntisland (taking advantage probably of the
confusion of affairs) became so exorbitant in their
charges that complaints were made to the Deputy
Governor of Leith, who ordered that the fare for a
man and horse should be only one shilling sterling,
and for a single person one groat, ?quhairas it
wqs tripled of beioir.?
In July, 1633, a boat at the ferry between
Burntisland and Leith foundered in a fair summer?s
day, according to Spalding, and with it perished
thirty-five domestic servants of Charles I., with his
silver plate and household stuff, ?but it foretokened
great troubles to fall out betwixt the king
and his subjects, as after does appear.? Balfour
states that there was a great stoi-m, that the king
crossed ?in grate jeopardy of his lyffe,? and that
only eight servants perished.
In the early part of the present century the ferry
traffic between Leith, Kinghorn, and Burntisland
was carried on by means of stout sloops of forty oc
fifty tons, without topmasts, and manned generally
by only four men, and always known as ?the
Kinghorn Boats,? although Pettycur was adopted
as the more modern harbour.
Generally there were two crossings between
Leith and Fife every tide, though subsequently,
as traffic increased, the number of runs was increased
by having a boat anchored outside the
harbour when there was not sufficient water for it
to enter. Small pinnaces were used for the voyage
in dead calms. The old ferrymen were strong,
rough, and quaint fellows, and Leith still abounds
with anecdotes of their brusque ways and jovial
humour.
A recent writer mentions that if a passenger
had a dog whose acquaintance he was disposed
to ignore, in order to escape paying its fare, he
would be sure to be accosted by a blue-bonneted](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p030.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. VI Page 211")
... THE OLD SMACKS AND FERRY-BOATS. e11
smacks in their southward voyage merely touching
at Berwick for their ...
Book 6 p. 211
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![North Bridge.] THE PLAYHOUSE GHOST. 347
youthful frolic ; and it was a rich treat to hear him
tell of a Highland solicitor?s apprentice, who, on
hearing some one express a hope there would be
no blows, exclaimed, ? Plows, by Got ! ? and fell
on. At a distance of thirty years, on an opportunity
occurring of speaking a good word in favour
of an application of this person for a situation in the
Exchequer, Scott felt bound to use his influence,
from a friendly feeling about the Rayhouse Row.?
In 1797 there appeared in the Edinburgh
Theatre Henry Erskine Johnston, known in his
time as ? The Scottish Roscius,? from the circumstance
of his having been born in the High Street,
where his father was a barber ; the latter happened
to be shaving Henry Erskine, when intelligence
was brought that his wife had just presented him
with a son, whom he named from the learned
barrister then under his hands. Old Johnston
afterwards kept an oyster tavern in Shakespeare
Square, where he died in 1826.
Quitting a writer?s oflice in which he was a clerk,
his son came forth as an actor, his favourite parts
being those of Hamlet and Norval, and he was
nightly the attraction of Scottish playgoers, whom
he was wont to astonish by playing the Danish
Prince and Harlequin alternately. A young lady
who saw him acting in a piece called The Storming
of Srhgafatam fell deeply in love with him,
? and after a short, albeit impassioned courtship,
she became Mrs. Johnston, although at that period
only about fifteen.? From Edinburgh he went to
Dublin and elsewhere. We shall have to recur to
him as manager of the rival theatre in the city.
Prior to that his story was a painful one. His
young wife became, as an actress, the rage in
London, and, unhappily for him, yielded to the
temptations thrown in her way-she shone for a
few short years in the theatrical atmosphere of the
English metropolis, and then sank into insignificance,
while poor Johnston became a houseless
and heart-broken wanderer.
The old Theatre Royal had an unpleasant
tenant in the shape of a ghost, which made its appearance,
or rather made itself heard first during
the management of Mr. Jackson. His family
occupied a small house over the box-office and
immediately adjoining the theatre, and it was
alleged that long after the latter had closed and
the last candle been snuffed out, strange noises
pervaded the entire building, as if the mimic
scenes of the plays were being acted over again by
phantoms none could see. As the story spread
and grew, it caused some consternation. What
the real cause of this was has never been explained,
but it occurred for nights at a time.
Between 1794 and 1809 the old theatre was in
B very struggling condition. The debts that encumbered
it prevented the management from
bringing to it really good actors, and the want of
these prevented the debts from being paid OK
For the sum of ;EB,ozo Mr. Jackson, the old
manager, became the ostensible purchaser of the
house in 1800, and for several years after that date
it was conducted by Mr. Rock, who, though an
able and excellent actor, could never succeed in
making it an attractive or paying concern, ?? One
of the few points of his reign worthy of notice was
the appearance here of the Yourg Ros&s, a boy
who, for a brief space, passed as a great actor.
The Edinburgh public viewed with intense interest
this lad playing young Norval on the stage, and the
venerable author of the play blubbering in the
boxes, and declaring that until now his conception
of the character had never been realised.?
Many old favourites came in succession, whose
names are forgotten now. Among these was Mrs.
Charters, a sustainer, with success, of old lady
parts. Her husband, who died in 1798, had been
a comic actor on the same boards, in conjunction
with Mr. Henderson, in 1784. He had by nature
an enormous nose, and was deemed the perfection
of a Bardolph, in which character Kay depicts him,
with a three-cocked hat and knee breeches; and
Henderson, as FalstaK, in long slop-trousers, and
armed with a claymore! Mrs. Charters died in
1807, and her obituary is thus recorded in the
Edinburgh papers of the day :-
?Died here on Monday last, with the wellmerited
reputation of an honest and inoffensive
woman, Mrs. Charters, who has been in this
theatre for more than thirty years. She succeeded
the much-admired Mrs. Webb, and for many years
after that actress left the city was an excellent
substitute in Lady Dacre, Juliet?s Nurse, Deborah
Woodcock, Dorcas, Mrs. Bunale, &c., &c.?
In her own line she was worthily succeeded by
Mrs. Nicol, who retired from the Theatre Royal in
1834, after a brilliant career of twenty-seven years,
and died in 1835. In her old lady parts she was .
ably succeeded by her daughter, Miss Nicol, whose
name is still remembered with honour and regard
by all the old playgoers of Edinburgh.
Another Edinburgh favourite for upwards of
thirty years was Mr. Woods, the leading actor,
whom the public strenuously opposed every attempt
on the part of the management to change.
He retired from the boards in April, 1802, intending
to open an elocution class in the city, but died
in the December of that year. For his benefit in
I 784, he appeared as ?(Young Riot ? in a local](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p167.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. II Page 347")
