... I.
THE CANONGATE.
@AGE
I& Origin-Songs concerning it-Reaords-Market Cross-St. John's ...
Book 4 p. 385
(Score 0.67)
... TolbOoth.1 PORTEOUS EXECUTED. 131
some proposed to slay hini on the spot, was told
by others to prepare for ...
Book 1 p. 131
(Score 0.66)
![New Town.] ? . WOOD?S FARM. 11.5
Lang Dykes; by the old Queensferry Road that
I descended into the deep hollow, where Bell?s Mills
lie, and by Broughton Loan at the other end of the
northern ridge.
Bearford?s Parks on the west, and Wood?s Farm
on the east, formed the bulk of this portion of the
site; St. George?s Church is now in the centre of
the former, and Wemyss Place of the latter. The
hamlet and manor house of Moultray?s Hill arc now
occupied by the Register House; and where the
Royal Bank stands was a cottage called ?Peace
and Plenty,? from its signboard near Gabriel?s
Road, ? where ambulative citizens regaled themselves
with curds and cream,?? and Broughton was
deemed so far afield that people went there for
the summer months under the belief that they
were some distance from ?town, just as people
used to go to Powburn and Tipperlinn fifty years
later.
Henry Mackenzie, author of ?The Man of
Feeling,? who died in 1831, remembered shooting
snipes, hares, and partridges upon Wood?s Farm.
The latter was a tract of ground extending frGm
Canon Mills on the north, to Bearford?s Parks on
the south, and was long in possession of Mr. Wood,
of Warriston, and in the house thereon, his son,
the famous ?Lang Sandy Wood,? was born in
1725. It stood on the area between where Queen
Street and Heriot Row are now, and ?many still
alive,? says Chambers, writing in 1824, ?remember
of the fields bearing as fair and rich a crop of
wheat as they may now be said to bear houses.
Game used to be plentiful upon these groundsin
particular partridges and hares . . . . . Woodcocks
and snipe were to be had in all the damp
and low-lying situations, such as the Well-house
Tower, the Hunter?s Bog, and the borders of
Canon Mills Loch. Wild ducks were frequently
shot in the meadows, where in winter they are
sometimes yet to be found. Bruntsfield Links,
and the ground towards the Braid Hills abounded
in hares.?
In the list of Fellows of the Royal College of
Surgeons, Alexander Wood and his brother Thomas
are recorded, under date 1756 and 1715 respectively,
as the sons of ?Thomas Wood, farmer on
the north side of Edinburgh, Stockbridge Road,?
now called Church Lane.
A tradition exists, that about 1730 the magistrates
offered to a residenter in Canon Mills all the
ground between Gabriel?s Road and the Gallowlee,
in perpetual fee, at the annual rent of a crown
bowl of punch; but so worthless was the land then,
producing only whim and heather, that the offer
was rejected. (L? Old Houses in Edinburgh.?)
The land referred to is now worth more than
A15,ooo per annum. .
Prior to the commencement of the new town,
the only other edifices. on the site were the Kirkbraehead
House, Drumsheugh House, near the old
Ferry Road, and the Manor House of Coates.
Drumsheugh House, of which nothing now remains
but its ancient rookery in Randolph Crescent,
was removed recently. Therein the famous
Chevaliei Johnstone, Assistant A.D.C. to Prince
Charles; was concealed for a time by Lady Jane
Douglas, after the battle of Culloden, till he escaped
to England, in the disguise of a pedlar.
Alexander Lord Colville of Culross, a distinguished
Admiral of the White, resided there s u b
sequently. He served at Carthagena in 1741, at
Quebec and Louisbourg in the days of Wolfe, and
died at Drumsheugh on the zIst of May, 1770.
His widow, Lady Elizabeth Erskine, daughter of
Alexander Earl of Kellie, resided there for some
years after, together with her brother, the Honourable
Andrew Erskine, an officer of the old 71st,
disbanded in 1763, an eccentric character, who
figures among Kay?s Portraits, and who in
1793 was drowned in the Forth, opposite Caroline
Park. Lady Colville died at Drumsheugh in
the following year, when the house and lands
thereof reverted to her brother-in-law, John Lord
Colville of Culross. And so lately as 1811 the
mansion was occupied by James Erskine, Esq.,.
of Cambus.
Southward of Drumsheugh lay Bearford?s Parks,.
mentioned as ? Terras de Barfurd ? in an Act in.
favour of Lord Newbattle in 1587, named from
Hepburn of Bearford in Haddingtonshire.
In 1767 the Earl of Morton proposed to have a
wooden bridge thrown across the North Loch
from these parks to the foot of Warriston?s Close, but
the magistrates objected, on the plea that the property
at the dose foot was worth A20,ooo. The
proposed bridge was to be on a line with ?the
highest level ground of Robertson?s and Wood?s
Farms.? In the Edinburgh Adnediser for 1783
the magistrates announced that Hallow Fair was
to be ?held in the Middle Bearford?s Park.?
Lord Fountainhall, under dates 1693 and 1695,
records a dispute between Robert Hepburn of
Bearford and the administrators of Heriot?s hospital,
concerning ?the mortified annual rents
acclaimed out of his tenement in Edinburgh, called
the Black Turnpike,? and again in 1710, of an
action he raised against the Duchess of Buccleuch,
in which Sir Robert Hepburn of Bearford,
in I 633, is referred to, all probably of the same family.
The lands and houses of Easter and Wester](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p127.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. III Page 115")
... Town.] ? . WOOD?S FARM. 11.5
Lang Dykes; by the old Queensferry Road that
I descended into the deep hollow, ...
Book 3 p. 115
(Score 0.66)
... SKETCHES. 47
maps of the counties, besides a general one. The work was reprinted in eight
volumes, ...
Book 8 p. 64
(Score 0.66)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Moultray?s HilL
of the realm have been open to all genuine scholars.
Another result ...
Book 2 p. 369
(Score 0.66)
... SKETCHES. 443
Clerk (Hope) observed-“ I do not know what the intellects of the gentleman
who ...
Book 9 p. 592
(Score 0.66)
... SKETCHES.
countries of Europe. The “Theory of Moral Sentiments” appeared in 1’759,
and the ...
Book 8 p. 106
(Score 0.65)
... SKETCHES. 241
enrolled as privates, no unfrequent occurrence to find barristers pleading in
the ...
Book 8 p. 338
(Score 0.65)
... SKETCHES. 31
June 1791. Mr. William Graham is still alive (July 1836), being eighty-one
years of ...
Book 8 p. 41
(Score 0.65)
... SKETCHES. I41
Having abandoned all thoughts of the clerical profession, LESLIEw ent over
to ...
Book 9 p. 189
(Score 0.65)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. Holyrood.
Wllliam, who had property in Broughton, after his
death, none bore even ...
Book 3 p. 50
(Score 0.65)
... SKETCHES. 409
believe him guilty of such an absurdity; for, with all his preciseness in
matters of ...
Book 8 p. 568
(Score 0.65)
... SKETCHES. 405
until regularly exchanged, which was effected in 1780. Lord Kapier subsequently
held ...
Book 8 p. 564
(Score 0.65)
... lock was placed upon it for the same purpose.
In 1647 only three open thoroughfares are shown
OLD AND ...
Book 3 p. 17
(Score 0.65)
![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 "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. III Page 11")
... JVHN PATERSON. I1
The latter is an anagram on the name of ?John
Paterson,? while the quatrain was the ...
Book 3 p. 11
(Score 0.64)
... SKETCHES. 207
strength of mind, as well as one of the best hearts and keenest wits that I have
ever ...
Book 8 p. 292
(Score 0.64)
... SKETCHES. 5s
deliver in the public hall the usual academical exercise prescribed prior to ...
Book 8 p. 84
(Score 0.64)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith
by the enterprising firm, but was conducted by
them in conjunction with other ...
Book 6 p. 274
(Score 0.64)
... SKETCHES, 49
system. But, while he deprecated patronage in the abstract, he was equally
averse to ...
Book 9 p. 66
(Score 0.64)
... I0 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Claigcrook.
perhaps to raise the printing trade in Edinburgh to
the high position it ...
Book 5 p. 110
(Score 0.64)
... will, in a short space, run a great length. I desire
you may disperse this news abroad, if it be not in ...
Book 1 p. 62
(Score 0.64)
![High Street.] CONSTABLES SHOP. 211 .
Oxford ; Mr. Alexander Campbell, author of the
(? History of Scottish Poetry ?; Dr. Alexander
Murray, the famous self-taught philologist ; Dr.
John Leyden, who died at Java; Mr. (afterwards
Sir Walter) Scott ; Sir John Graham Dalzell ; and
many others distinguished for a taste in Scottish
literature and historical antiquities, including I)r.
Jarnes Browne, author of the ?History of the
Highland Clans,? and one of the chief contributors
to Constable?s Edinburgh Magazine.
The works of some of these named were among
the first issued from Constable?s premises in the
High Street, where his obliging manners, professional
intelligence, personal activity, and prompt
attention to the wishes of all, soon made him
popular with a great literary circle ; but his actual
reputation as a publisher may be said to have
commenced with the appearance, in October, I 802,
of the first number of the Edihburgh Rtwiew.
His conduct towards the contributors of that
famous quarterly was alike discreet and liberal,
and to his business tact and straightforward
deportment, next to the genius and talent of the
projectors, much of its subsequent success must
be attributed.
In 1804 he admitted as a partner Mr. Hunter
of Blackness, and the firm took the name of
Constable and Co. ; and after various admissions,
changes, and deaths, his sole partner in 1812 was
Mr. Robert Cadell. In 1805 he started 2%
Edinburgh Medical and Surgicd Journal, a work
nrojected in concert with Dr. Andrew Duncan;
and in the same year, in conjunction with Longman
and Co., of London, he published ? The Lay
of the Last Minstrel,? the first of that long series of
romantic publications in poetry and prose which
immortalised the name of Scott, to whom he gave
LI,OOO for ?Marmion? before a line of it was
written. In conjunction with Messrs. Millar
and Murray, and after many important works, including
the ? Encyclopzedia Britannica,? had issued
from his establishment in 1814, he brought out the
first of the ? Waverley Novels.?
Constable?s shop ?? is situated in the High Street,?
says Peter in his ?Letters to his Kinsfolk,? ?in
the midst of the old town, where, indeed, the
greater part of the Edinburgh booksellers are still
to be found lingering (as the majority of their
London brethren also do) in the neighbourhood of
the same old haunts to which long custom has
attached their predilections. On entering, one
sees a place by no means answering, either in point
of dimensions or in point of ornament, to the
notion one might be apt to form of the shop from
which so many mighty works are every day issuing
-a low, dusky chamber, inhabited by a few clerks,
ind lined with an assortment of unbound books and,
stationery-entirely devoid of all those luxurious
attractions of sofas and sofa-tables and books of
prints, &c., which one meets with in the superb
nursery of the Quarter+ Revim in Albemarle
Street. The bookseller himself is seldom to be
seen in this part of his premises ; he prefers to sit
in a chamber immediately above, where he can
proceed with his owo work without being disturbed
by the incessant cackle of the young Whigs who
lounge beiow ; and where few casual visitors are
admitted to enter his presence, except the more
important members of the great Whig Corporation
-reviewers either in esse, or at least supposed to
be so in posse-contributors to the supplement of
the ?Encyclopxdia Britannica.? . . . . The
bookseller is himself a good-looking man, apparently
about forty, very fat in his person, with a
face having good lines, and a fine healthy complexion.
He is one of the most jolly-looking
members of the trade I ever saw, and, moreover,
one of the most pleasing and courtly in his address.
One thing that is?remarkable about him,
and, indeed, very distinguishingly so, is his total
want of that sort of critical jabber of which most
of his brethren are so profuse, and of which custom
has rendered me rather fond than otherwise. Mr.
Constable is too much of a bookseller to think it
at all necessary that he should appear to be
knowing in the merits of books. His business is
to publish books ; he leaves the work of examining
them before they are published, and criticising
them afterwards, to others who have more leisure
on their hands than he has.?
In the same ?Letters? we are taken to the
publishing establishment of Manners and Millar,
on the opposite side of the High Street--(? the true
lounging-place of the blue-stockings and literary
beau monde of the Northern metropolis,? but long
since extinct.
Unlike Constable?s premises, there the anterooms
were spacious and elegant, adorned with
busts and prints, while the back shop was a veritable
btjbu ; ?its walls covered with all the?most
elegant books in fashionable request, arrayed in
the most luxurious clothing of Turkey and Russia
leather, red, blue, and green-and protected by
glass folding doors from the intrusion even of the
little dust which might be supposed to threaten a
place kept so delicately trim. The grate exhibits
a fine blazing fire, or in its place a fresh bush of
hawthorn, stuck all over with roses and lilies, and
gay as a maypole,? while paintings by Turner,
Thomson, and Williams meet the eye on every?](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p031.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. II Page 211")
... Street.] CONSTABLES SHOP. 211 .
Oxford ; Mr. Alexander Campbell, author of the
(? History of Scottish Poetry ...
Book 2 p. 211
(Score 0.64)
... BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
Formerly, the purses gifted to the Blue-Gowns were delivered to them at the
Old ...
Book 9 p. 354
(Score 0.63)
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