... B
CHAPTER XV.
. THE CHURCH OF ST. GILES. PAGE
SL Giles?s Church-The Patron Saint-Its Wgh and early ...
Book 2 p. 387
(Score 0.36)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Hart Street
York Place he officiated there, until a severe illness
in 1831 compelled ...
Book 3 p. 190
(Score 0.36)
... Old High S:hoo!.l THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL. 287
college, the pulpits, desks, lofts, and seats, were;
says Nicol, (( ...
Book 4 p. 287
(Score 0.36)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [ Holyrood.
The Edinburgh HeraZd of April, 1797, mentions
the departure froni Holyrood ...
Book 3 p. 78
(Score 0.36)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [North Bridge.
less than eight feet of this loose earth between his
shovels and the ...
Book 2 p. 338
(Score 0.36)
![Leith] SH EKIFF BRAE. 247
Leith by the rebels of Mary Queen of Scots, the
Earl of Lennox opened his council in the chambers
of the old tenement referred to, on the Coal Hill,
and it is, says Robertson, decorated with a rosethe
emblem of his connectian with Henry VIII. of
England-and the thistle for Scotland. Then
followed that war to which Morton?s ferocity imparted
a character so savage that ere long quarter
was neither given nor taken. And amidst it, in
connection with some private feud, some of the
followers of Sir William Kirkaldy, although they
had been ordered merely to use their batons, slew
Henry Setoun on the Shore of Leith, while his feet
were tripped up by an anchor. In escaping to
Edinburgh, one of them was taken and lodged in
the Tolbooth there ; but Kirkaldy came down from
the Castle with a party of his garrison, beat in the
doors, and rescued him, after which he seized ?? the
victualls brought into Leith from the merchants,
and (did} provide all necessarie furniture to endure
a long siege, till supplie was sent from forrane
nations.? (Calderwood.)
On the death of Lennox, John, Earl of Mar, was
made Regent, and fixed his head-quarters in the
same old tenement at the Coal Hill, Morton being
again chief lieutenant.
From the presence of these peers here, it is
probable that the adjacent gloomy, and now filthy,
court, so grotesquely called Parliament Square, obtained
its name, which seems to have been formerly
the Peat Neuk. The old Council House has been
doomed to perish by the new improvement scheme.
In December, 1797, it was ordered by the Lord
Provost, Magistrates, and Council of Edinburgh,
through the deputy shore-master at Leith, that every
vessel coming into the port with coals for public
sale, was to have a berth immediately on her arrival
off the Coal Hill, and that all other vessels were to
unmoor for that purpose, while no shore duties
were to be charged for coal vessels. (HeyaZd and
ChyonicZe, No. 1,215.)
The adjacent Peat Neuk, for years during the
last century and the beginning of the present,
afforded a shelter to those reckless and abandoned
characters who abound in every seaport ; while in
that portion of the town between the Coal Hill and
the foot of the Tolbooth Wynd were a number of
ancient and ruinous houses, the abode of wandering
outcasts, from whom no rent was ever derived
or expected. It was further alleged, in the early
part of the nineteenth century, to be the favourite
haunt of disembodied spirits, whose crimes or
sufferings in life compelled them to wander ; so,
every way, the Coal Hill seems to have been an
unpleasant, as it is still an unsavoury, locality.
From thence, another quarter known as the
Sheriff, or Shirra Brae, extends in a south-westerly
direction, still abounding in ancient houses. Here,
facing the Coal Hill, there stood, till 1840, a very
fine old edifice, described as having been the residence
of a Logan of Restalrig. The dormer
windows, which rose high above the eaves, were
elaborately sculptured with many dates and quaint
devices. Some of these have been preserved in
the north wall of the manse of St. Thomas?s Church.
One of them displays a shield charged with a heart,
surmounted by a fleur-de-lis, with the initials 1.L
and the date 1636 ; another has the initials I.L.,
M.C., with the date 24 Dec., 1636; a third has
the initials M.C., with a shield; while a fourth
gablet has the initials D.D., M.C., and the comparatively
recent date I 734
The supposed grandsoq of the luckless Logan
of the Gowrie conspiracy married Isabel Fowler,
daughter of Ludovic Fowler of Burncastle (says
Robertson), the famous ? Tibbie Fowler ? of
Scottish song, and here she is said to have resided ;
but her husband has been otherwise said to have
been a collateral of the ancient house of Restalrig,
as it is recorded, under date 12th June, 1572-
Majestro Joanne Logan de Shireff Braye,? who
poitpones the case of Christian Gudsonne, wife of
Andrew Burne in Leith, ?dilatit of the mutilation
of Willkm Burne, burgess of Edinburgh, of his
foremost finger be byting thereof.?
In the chartulary, says Robertson, we have also
John Logane of the Coatfield (Kirkgate), and George
Logane of Bonnington Mills is repeatedly alluded
to; ?? and we believe,? he adds, that these branches
?existed as early as the charter of King David.?
The old house at Bmnington still shows a curious
doorway, surmounted by a carefully sculptured
tablet bearing a shield, with a chevron and three
fleurs-de-lis; crest, a ship with sails furled. The
motto and date are obliterated.
. Another writer supposes that if the old house on
the Sheriff Brae was really the residence of George
Logan, it may have been acquired by marriage,
? seeing that the forfeiture of the family possessions
occurred so shortly before ; and this in itself affords
some colour to the tradition that he was the successhl
wooer of Tibbie Fowler.?
In support of this, the historian of Leith says :-
?f We think it not improbable that it was Tibbie?s
tocher that enabled Logan, who was ruined by the
attainder of 1609, to build the elegant mansion on
the Sheriff Brae. The marriage contract between
Logan and Isabella Fowler (supposed to be the
Tibbie of the song) is now in possession of a
gentleman in Leith.?](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p066.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. VI Page 247")
... SH EKIFF BRAE. 247
Leith by the rebels of Mary Queen of Scots, the
Earl of Lennox opened his council in ...
Book 6 p. 247
(Score 0.36)
... 1 MARRIAGE OF MARY AND BOTHWELL. 71
dragged through the bed-room to the door of the
presence-chamber, where the ...
Book 3 p. 71
(Score 0.36)
... HALL. 319 Riccar&&l
He was at once-for some reasons known at the
time-accused of having ...
Book 6 p. 319
(Score 0.36)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Bmughton.
superiority of Broughton was yielded by the
Crown, partly in payment of ...
Book 3 p. 182
(Score 0.36)
![Leith.] TRADE OF THE PORT. 289
Even in times of undoubted depression the
docks at Leith have always retained an appearance
of bustle and business, through the many large sailing
ships laden with guano and West Indian sugar
lying at the quays; but guano having been partly
superseded by chemical manures, and West Indian
by Continental sugar, the comparatively few vessels
that now arrive are discharged with the greatest
expedition. In the close of 1881 one came to
port with the largest cargo of sugar ever delivered
at Leith, the whole of which was for the Bonnington
Refinery.
As a source of revenue to the Dock Commission,
steamers which can make ten voyages for one performed
by a sailing vessel are, of course, very much
preferred ; and, as showing the extent of the Continental
sugar trade, it may be mentioned that quite
recently 184,233 bags were imported in a single
month. Most of this sugar is taken direct from the
docks to the refiners at Greenock.
A very important element in the trade of Leith
is the importation of esparto grass, both by sailing
vessels and steamers. This grass is closely pressed
by steam power into huge square bales, and these
are discharged with such celerity by the use of
donkey-engines and other appliances, that it is a
common thing to unload 150 tons in a single day.
The facilities for discharging vessels at Leith
with extreme rapidity are so admirable that few
ports can match it-the meters, the weighers, and
the stevedore firms who manage the matter, having
every interest in getting the work performed with
the utmost expedition.
As a wine port Leith ranks second in the British
Isles, and it possesses a very extensive timber trade;
and though not immediately connected with ship
ping, the wool trade is an important branch of
industry there, the establishments of Messrs. Macgregor
and Pringle, and of Messrs. Adams, Sons, and
Co., being among the most extensive in Scotland.
The largest fleet of Continental trading steamers
sailing from Leith is that of Messrs. James Cume
and Co. In 18Sr this firm had twenty-two
steamers, with a capacity of 17,000 tons. Messrs.
Gibson and Co. have many fine steamers, which
are. constantly engaged, while the Baltic is open
and free of ice, in making trading voyages to Riga,
Cronstadt, and other Russian ports
A trade with Iceland has of late years been
rapidly developed, the importation consisting of
ponies, sheep, wild fowl, and dried fish ; while in
the home trade, the London and Edinburgh Ship
ping Company do a very active and lucrative business,
having usually two, and sometimes three large
steamers plying per week between Leith and Loo-
133
don ; and in 1880, important additions were mad&
to tht lines .of trading steamers by several large
vessels owned by the Arrow Line being put on
the berth, to ply between Leith and New York ;
while the North of Scotland Steam Shipping
Company transferred their business to the port
from Granton.
So steadily has the trade with New York developed
itself, that from three to four steamers per
month now arrive at Leith, bringing cargoes of
grain, butter, oilcakes, linseed meal, tinned meats,
grass seeds, etc. Over 200,ooo sacks of flour Came
to Leith in one year from New York, and in one
month alone 33,312 sacks were imported.
Some of the Leith steamers sail direct to NewYork
with mixed cargoes; others load with coal, and proceed
there, vid the Mediterranean, after exchanging
their cargo for fruit. Then Messrs. Blaik and
Co., of Constitution Street, have large steamers of
3,650 tons burden each, built specially for this
trade. The passage from New York, ?north
about,? i.e., through the Pentland Firth, usually
occupied sixteen days, but now it is being reduced
to twelve
Prior to the opening of the Edinburgh Dock a
difficulty was found in berthing some of the great
ocean-going steamers, and many that used to bring
live stock from New York had to land them on the
Thames or Tyne, the regulations of the Privy
Council flot permitting these animals to be landed
at Leith.
?( Permission was first asked by the Commission,?
says a local print in 1881, ?to enable the animals
to be taken to the Leith slaughter-house, which is
on the south side of the new docks, and only a few
yards from one of the entrances. The Privy
Council having refused this request, the Dock
Commission, with a desire to foster the trade, then
made arrangements with the Leith Town Council,
by which they could build a slaughter-house within
the docks. Asite was proposed and plans prepared;
but being objected to again by the Privy
Council, the subject was allowed to lie over.?
We have mentioned the transference of the
North of Scotland steamers from Granton to
Leith, and this change has proved monetarily
advantageous, not only to the Cornmission, but to
the majority of the shippers and passengers, and a
special berth was assigned at the entrance of the
Prince of M?ales?s Dock for the Aberdeen steamers,
so that they sail even after high water. Besides
the usual consignments of sheep, cattle, and ponies,
vast quantities of herrings, in barrel, are brought to
Leith, generally for re-shipment to the Continent of
Europe.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p108.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. VI Page 289")
... TRADE OF THE PORT. 289
Even in times of undoubted depression the
docks at Leith have always retained an ...
Book 6 p. 289
(Score 0.36)
![238 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street.
other, Willielmina, became the wife of John Lord
Glenorchy.
The fate of the Earl of Sutherland, and of his
countess, whose beauty excited the admiration of
all at the coronation of George III., was a very
cloudy one. In frolicking with their first-born, a
daughter, the earl let the infant drop, and it sustained
injuries from which it never recovered, and
the event had so serious an effect on his mind,
that he resorted to Bath, where he died of a
malignant fever. For twenty-one days the countess,
then about to have a babe again, attended him
unremittingly, till she too caught the distemper, and
predeceased him by a few days, in her twenty-sixth
year. Her death was sedulously concealed from
him, yet the day before he expired, when delirium
passed away, he said, I am going to join my dear
Wife,? as if his mind had already begun to penetrate
the veil that hangs between this world and the
next.
In one grave in Holyrood, near the north-east
corner of the ruined chapel, the remains of this
ill-fated couple were laid, on the 9th of August,
1766.
Lady Glenorchy, a woman remarkable for the
piety of her disposition, was far from happy in her
marriage j but we are told that she met with her
rich reward, even iii this world, for she enjoyed
the applause of the wealthy and the blessings of the
poor, with that supreme of all pleasures-the conviction
that the eternal welfare of those in whose
fate she was chiefly interested was forwarded by
her precepts and example.?
In after years, the Earl of Hopetoun, when
acting as Royal Commissioner to the General
Assembly, was wont to hold his state levees in the
house that had been Lord Alva?s.
To the east of hfylne?s Square stood some old
alleys which were demolished to make way for the
North Bridge, one of the greatest local undertakings
of the eighteenth century. One of these alleys was
known as the Cap and Feather Close, immediately
above Halkerston?s Wynd. The lands that formed
the east side of the latter were remaining in some
places almost intact till about 1850.
In one of these, but which it was impossible
to say, was born on the 5th of September, 1750,
that luckless but gifted child of genius, Robert
Fergusson, the poet, whose father was then a clerk
in the British Linen Company; but even the site
of his house, which has peculiar claims on the
interest of every lover of Scottish poetry, cannot
be indicated.
How Halkerston?s Wynd obtained its name we
have already told. Here was an outlet from the
ancient city byway of a dam or dyke across the
loch, to which Lord Fountainhall refers in a case
dated zIst February, 1708. About twenty years
before that time it would appear that the Town
Council ?had opened a new port at the foot
of Halkerston?s Wynd for the convenience of those
who went on foot to Leith; and that Robert
Malloch, having acquired some lands on the other
side of the North Loch, and made yards and built
houses thereon, and also having invited sundry
weavers and other good tradesmen to set up
on Moutree?s Hill [site of the Register House], and
the deacons of crafts finding this prejudicial
to them, and contrary to the 154th Act of Parliament,
I 592,?? evading which, these craftsmen paid
neither scot, lot, nor stent,? the magistrates closed
up the port, and a law plea ensued between them
and the enterprising Robert Malloch, who was
accused of filling up a portion of the bank of the
loch with soil from a quarry. ?The town, on the
other hand, did stop the vent and passage over the
loch, which made it overtlow and drown Robert?s
new acquired ground, of which he complained as
an act of oppression.?
Eventually the magistrates asserted that the loch
was wholly theirs, and ?( that therefore he could
drain no part of it, especially to make it regorge
and inundate on their side. The Lords were
going to take trial by examining the witnesses, but
the magistrates prevented it, by opening the said
port of their own accord, without abiding an order,
and let the sluice run,? by which, of course, the
access by the gate was rendered useless.
Kinloch?s Close adjoined Halkerston?s Wynd, and
therein, till about 1830, stood a handsome old
substantial tenement, the origin and early occupants
of which were all unknown. A mass of curious
and abutting projections, the result of its peculiar
site, it had a finely-carved entrance door, with
the legend, Peir. God. in . Luzy., 1595, and the
initials I. W., and the arms of the surname of
Williamson, together with a remarkable device, a
saltire, from the centre of which rose a crosssymbol
of passion.
Passing Allan Ramsay?s old shop, a narrow bend
gives us access to Carrubber?s Close, the last stronghold
of the faithful Jacobites after 1688. Episcopacy
was abolished in 1689, and although from
that period episcopal clergymen had no legal provision
or settlement, they were permitted, without
molestation, to preach in meeting-houses till I 746 ;
but as they derived no emolument from Government,
and no provision from the State, they did not,
says Arnot, perplex their consciences with voluminous
and unnecessary oaths, but merely excluded](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p058.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. II Page 238")
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street.
other, Willielmina, became the wife of John Lord
Glenorchy.
The fate of ...
Book 2 p. 238
(Score 0.36)
![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 "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. III Page 42")
... I KING DAVID?S CHARTER. 43
sake of trade ; and if it happen that they do no
come, I grant the aforesaid ...
Book 3 p. 42
(Score 0.36)
![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 "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. V Page 63")
... Mills.] LADY SINCLAIR. 63
portray. She was born Margaret Learmouth, at
~ 6 , St John Street, in the ...
Book 5 p. 63
(Score 0.36)
![Castle Terrace.] THE UNION CANAL 215
newest mechanical appliances, including hydraulic
machinery for shifting the larger scenes. The
proscenium was 32 feet wide by 32 feet in height,
with an availabie width behind of 74 feet, expanding
backwards to 114 feet.
The lighting was achieved ?by a central sunlight
and lamps hung on the partition walls. The ventilation
was admirable, and the temperature was
regulated by steam-pipes throughout the house.
But the career of this fine edifice as a theatre
was very brief, and proved how inadequate Edinburgh
is, from the peculiar tastes and wishes of
its people, to supply audiences for more than two
or three such places of entertainment. It speedily
proved a failure, and being in the inarket was
purchased by the members of the United Presbyterian
Church, who converted it into a theological
hall, suited for an audience of 2,ooo in all.
The total cost of the building to the denomination,
including the purchase of the theatre, amounted
to ~47,000. Two flats under the street $oor are
fitted up as fireproof stores, which will cover in all
an area of 3,500 square yards.
In connection with this defunct theatre it was
proposed to have a winter garden and aquarium.
Near it the eye is arrested by a vast pile of new
buildings, fantastic and unique in design and
detail, the architect of which has certainly been
fortunate, at least, in striking out something
original, if almost indescribable, in domestic architecture.
Free St. Cuthbert?s Church is in Spittal Street,
which is named from Provost Sir James Spittal,
and is terminated by the King?s Bridge at the base
of the Castle Rock.
All this area of ground and that lying a little
to the westward have the general name of the
Castle Barns, a designation still preserved in a
little street near Port Hopetoun. A map of the
suburbs, in 1798, shows Castle Barns to be an
isolated hamlet or double row of houses on Lhe
Falkirk Road, distant about 250 yards from the
little pavilion-roofed villa still standing at the Main
Point. Maitland alleges that somewhere thereabout
an ediiice was erected for the accommodation
of the royal retinue when the king resided
in the Castle; and perhaps such may have been
the case, but the name implies its having been
the grange or farm attached to the fortress, and
this idea is confirmed by early maps, when a considerable
portion of the ground now lying on both
sides of the Lothian Road is included under the
general term.
On the plateau at the head of the latter, bordered
on the south-east by the ancient way to Fountainbridge,
stands one of the most hideous features
of Edinburgh-the Canal Basinl with its surrounding
stores and offices. 8
In 1817 an Act of Parliament was procured,
giving power to a joint stock company to cut a
a canal from Edinburgh to the Forth and Clyde
Canal at a point about four miles before the communication
of the latter with the Forth. The canal
was begun in the following year and completed in
1822. The chief objects of it were the transmission
of heavy goods and the conveyance of passengers
between the capital and Glasgow-a system long
since abandoned ; the importation to the former
of large coal supplies from places to the *estward,
and the exportation of manure from the city into
agricultural districts. The eastern termination,
calledPort Hopetoun, occasioned the rapid erect;on
of a somewhat important suburb, where before there
stood only a few scattered houses surrounded by
fields and groves of pretty trees; but the canal,
though a considerable benefit to the city in prerailway
times, has drained a great deal of money
from its shareholders.
Though opened in 182, the canal was considerably
advanced in the year preceding. In the
Week0 Journd for November 7, 1821, we read
that ?from the present state of the works, the
shortening of the days, and the probability of being
retarded by the weather, it seems scarcely possible
that the trade of this navigation can be opened up
sooner than the second month of spring, which
will be exactly four years from its commencement.
Much has been done within the last few months
on the west end of the line, while at the east end
the forming of the basin, which is now ready to
receive the water, together with the numerous
bridges necessary in the first quarter of a mile, have
required great attention. , Of the passage boats
building at the west end of Lochrin distillery, two
of which we mentioned some time ago as being
in a forward state, one is now completed ; she is
in every respect an elegant and comfortable vessel,
and is called the FZoora Mac Ivor; the second is
considerably advanced, and a third boat after the
same model as the others is commenced building.?
In the same (now defunct) periodical, for 1st
January, 1822, we learn that the RZora, ?the first
of the Union Canal Company?s passage boats, was
yesterday launched from the company?s building
yard, at the back of Gilmore Place.?
One of the best features of street architecture
that sprung up in this quarter after the formation
of the canal was Gardiner?s Crescent., with its
chapel, which was purchased from the United
Secession Congregation by the Kirk Session of St.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p035.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. IV Page 215")
... Terrace.] THE UNION CANAL 215
newest mechanical appliances, including hydraulic
machinery for shifting the ...
Book 4 p. 215
(Score 0.36)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Parliament Close.
their money brought on horseback to the Parliament
Close, where r ...
Book 1 p. 178
(Score 0.36)
... 467
Macbeth, 4
Macdonald, Andrew, 162
MacEwan, James, 199
Mackenzie, Sir Roderick, 169
Sir James. See ...
Book 10 p. 506
(Score 0.36)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. : [Convivialia
In 1783, ? a chapter of the order? was adver
tised ?to be held at their ...
Book 5 p. 124
(Score 0.36)
![Merchiston.] THE NAPIERS OF MERCHISTON. 35
likeness of the founder, painted by Sir James
Foulis of Woodhall, Bart.
In 1870 the original use to which the foundation
was put underwent a change, and the hospital
became a great public school for boys and girls.
At the western extremity of what was the Burghmuir,
near where lately was an old village of that
name (at the point where the Colinton road diverges
from that which leads to Biggar), there stands, yet
unchanged amid all its new surroundings, the
ancient castle of Merchiston, the whilom seat of a
race second to none in Scotland for rank and talent
-the Napiers, now Lords Napier and Ettrick. It
is a lofty square tower, surmounted by corbelled
battlements, a ape-house, and tall chimneys. It
was once surrounded by a moat, and had a secret
avenue or means of escape into the fields to the
north. As to when it was built, or by whom, no
record now remains.
In the missing rolls of Robert I., the lands of
Merchiston and Dalry, in the county of Edinburgh,
belonged in his reign to William Bisset, and under
David II., the former belonged to William de
Sancto Claro, on the resignation of Williani Bisset,
according to Robertson?s ?Index,? in which we find
a royal charter, ?datum est apud Dundee,? 14th
August, 1367, to John of Cragyof the lands of
Merchiston, which John of Creigchton had resigned.
So the estate would seem to have had several
proprietors before it came into the hands of
Alexander Napier, who was Provost of Edinburgh
in 1438, and by this acquisition Merchiston became
the chief title of his family.
His son, Sir Alexander, who was Comptroller of
Scotland under James 11. in 1450, and went on a
pilgrimage to St. Thomas of Canterbury in the
following year-for which he had safe-conduct from
the King of England-was Provost of Edinburgh
between 1469 and 1471- He was ambassador to
the Court of the Golden Fleece in 1473, and was
no stranger to Charles the Bold ; the tenor of his
instructions to whom from James II., shows that he
visited Bruges a d the court of Burgundy before
that year, in 1468, when he was present at the
Tournament of the Golden Fleece, and selected a
suit of brilliant armour for his sovereign.
Sir Alexander, fifth of Merchiston, fell at Flodden
with James IV.
John Napier of Merchiston was Provost 17th
of May, 1484, and his son and successor, Sir Archibald,
founded a chaplaincy and altar in honour of St.
Salvator in St. Giles?s Church in November, 1493.
His grandson, Sir Archibald Napier, who married
a daughter of Duncan Campbell of Glenorchy, was
slain at the battle of Pinkie, in 1547.
Sir Alexander Napier of Merchiston and Edinbellie,
who was latterly Master of the Mint to
James VI., was father of John Napier the
celebrated inventor of the Logarithms, who was
born in Merchiston Castle in 1550, fgur years after
the birth of Tycho Brahe, and fourteen before that
of Galileo, at a time when the Reformation in
Scotland was just commencing, as in the preceding?
year John Knox had been released from the
French galleys, and was then enjoying royal
patronage in England. His mother was Janet,
only daughter of Sir Francis Bothwell, and sister
of Adam, Bishop of Orkney. At the time of his
birth his father was only sixteen years of age. He
was educated at St. Salvator?s College, St. Andrews,
where he matriculated 1562-3, and afterwards spent
several years in France, the Low Countries, and
Italy; he applied himself closely to the study of
mathematics, and it is conjectured that he gained
a taste for that branch of learning during his residence
abroad, especially in Itily, where at that
time were many mathematicians of high repute.
While abroad young Napier escaped some perils
that existed at home. In 150s a dreadful pest
broke out in Edinburgh, and his father and family
were exposed to the contagion, ? by the vicinity,?
says Mark Napier, ?? of his mansion to the Burghmuir,
upon which waste the infected were driven
out to grovel and die, under the very walls of
Merchiston.?
In his earlier years his studies took a deep theological
turn, the fruits of which appeared in his
? Plain Discovery of the Revelation of St John,?
which he published at Edinburgh in 1593, and
dedicated to James VI. But some twenty years
before that time his studies must have been sorely
interrupted, as his old ancestral fortalice lay in the
very centre of the field of strife, when Kirkaldy
held out the castle for Queen Mary, and the savage
Douglas wars surged wildly round its walls.
On the 2nd April, 1572, John Napier, then in his
twenty-second year, was betrothed to Elizabeth,
daughter of Sir James Stirling of Keir ; but as he
had incurred the displeasure of the queen?s party
by taking no active share in her interests, on the
18th of July he was arrested by the Laid of Minto,
and sent a prisoner to the Castle of Edinburgh,
then governed by Sir TVilliam Kirkaldy, who in the
preceding year had bombarded Merchiston with
his iron guns because certain soldiers of the king?s
party occupied it, and cut off provisions coming
north for the use of his garrison. The solitary
tower formed the key of the southern approach
to the city ; thus, whoever triumphed, it became the
object of the opponent?s enmity.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p046.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. V Page 35")
... THE NAPIERS OF MERCHISTON. 35
likeness of the founder, painted by Sir James
Foulis of Woodhall, ...
Book 5 p. 35
(Score 0.36)
... THE NEW ROYAL INFIRMARY. 359
aunt Elizabeth, ordered that on application for
taking children ...
Book 4 p. 359
(Score 0.36)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [North Bridge.
Newcastle, to witness what all spoke of with
wonder. There were one day ...
Book 2 p. 346
(Score 0.36)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Water of Leith.
and verse, the Ireland Scholarship, and a studentship
at Christ ...
Book 5 p. 82
(Score 0.36)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Gregfriars Church.
encroaching on one not fit to be touched ! The
whole presents a ...
Book 4 p. 382
(Score 0.36)
![High Street.] STRICHEN?S CLOSE. 255
pike stairs compelled the use of taverns more than
now. There the high-class advocate received his
clients, and the physician his patients-each practitioner
having his peculiar how$ There, too,
gentlemen met in the evening for supper and conversation
without much expense, a reckoning of a
shilling being deemed a high one, so different then
were the value of money and the price of viands. In
1720 an Edinburgh dealer advertises his liquors at
the following prices :-? Neat claret wine at I Id.,
strong at 15d.; white wine at ~ z d . ; Rhenish at
16d.; old hock at zod., all per bottle; cherrysack
at 28d. per pint; English ale at 4d. per
bottle.?
In those days it was not deemed derogatory for
ladies of rank and position to join oyster parties in
some of those ancient taverns; and while there
was this freedom of manner on one hand, we are
told there was much of gloom and moroseness on
the other; a dread of the Deity with a fear of hell,
and of the power of the devil, were the predominant
feelings of religious people in the age subsequent
to the Revolution; while it was thought, so says
the author of ? I Domestic Annals ? (quoting Miss
Mure?s invaluable Memoirs), a mark of atheistic
tendencies to doubt witchcraft, or the reality of
apparitions and the occasional vaticinative character
of dreams.
A country gentleman, writing in 1729, remarks
on ?? the increase in the expense of housekeeping
which he had seen going on during the past twenty
years. While deeming it indisputable that Edinburgh
was now much less populous.than before the
Union, yet I am informed,? says he, ? that there is
a greater consumption since than before the Union
of all -provisions, especially fleshes and wheat.
bread. The butcher owns that he now kills thret
of every species for one he killed before the Union.
. . . . Tea in the morning and tea in tht
evening had now become established. There
were more livery servants, and better dressed.
and more horses than formerly.?
Lord Strichen did not die in the house in thf
close wherein he had dwelt so long, but at Stricher
in Aberdeenshire, on the 15th January, 1775, ir
his seventy-sixth year, leaving behind him the repu
tation of an upright judge. ? Lord Strichen was i
man not only honest, but highly generous; for
after his succession to the family estates, he paic
a large sum of debts contracted by his prede
cessor, which he was not under any obligation tc
pay.?
One of the last residents of note in Strichen?!
Close was Mr. John Grieve, a merchant in thc
Royal Exchange, who held the office of Lorc
?rovost in 1782-3, and again in 1786-7, and who
ras first a Town Councillor in 1765. When a
nagistrate he was publicly horsewhipped by some
r Edinburgh bucks ? of the day, for placing some
emales of doubtful repute in the City Guard
Xouse, under the care of the terrible Corporal
ihon Dhu--an assault for which they were arrested
.nd severely fined.
The house he 6ccupied had an entrance from
itrichen?s Close ; but was in reality one that beonged
to the Regent hlorton, having an entrance
rom the next street, named the Blackfriars Wynd.
3e afterwards removed to a house in Princes
street, where he became one of the projectors of
he Earthen Mound, which was long-as a mistake
n the picturesque-justly stigmatised as the RIud
Brig,? the east side of which was commenced a
ittle to the eastward of the line of Hanover Street,
ipposite to the door of Provost Grieve?s house,
ong ago turned into a shop.
John Dhu, the personage refTrred to, was a wellmown
soldier of the C;ty Guard, mentioned by Sir
Walter Scott as one of the fiercest-looking men he
lad ever seen. ?That such an image of military
violence should have been necessary at the close of
:he eighteenth century to protect the peace of a
British city,? says the editor of ?( Kay?s Portraits,?
?presents us with a strange contrast of what we
lately were and what we have now become. On
me occasion, about the time of the French Revolution,
when the Town Guard had been signalising
the King?s birthday by firing in the Parliament
Square, being unusually pressed and insulted by
the populace, this undaunted warrior turned upon
one peculiarly outrageous member of the democracy,
and, by one blow of his battle-axe, laid him
lifeless on the causeway.?
The old tenement, which occupied the ground
between Strichen?s Close and the Blackfriars Wynd
(prior to its destruction in the fire of zznd February,
18zj), and was at the head of the latter,
was known as ?Lady Lovat?s Land.? It was
seven storeys in height. There lived Primrose
Campbell of Mamore, widow of Simon Lord
Lovat, who was beheaded on Tower Hill in 1747,
and there, 240 years before her time, dwelt Walter
Chepman of Ewirland, who, with Miller, in 1507,
under the munificent auspices of James IV., introduced
the first printing press into Scotland, and on
the basement of whose edifice a house of the Revolution
period had been engrafted.
Though his abode was here in the High Street,
his printing-house was in the Cowgate, from whence,
in 1508, ?The Knightly Tale of Golagras and
Gawane ? was issued ; and this latter is supposed
He died in 1803.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p075.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. II Page 255")
... Street.] STRICHEN?S CLOSE. 255
pike stairs compelled the use of taverns more than
now. There the high-class ...
Book 2 p. 255
(Score 0.36)
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