... HALL. 319 Riccar&&l
He was at once-for some reasons known at the
time-accused of having ...
Book 6 p. 319
(Score 0.48)
![Koslin.] THE THREE BATTLES ON ONE DAY. 351
hillside, and not beneath, but is attached to its
eastern end, the means of communication between
the two being by a steep descent of steps. Its use
has sorely puzzled antiquaries, though it forms a
handsome little chapel, with ribbed arches and roof
of stone. Under its eastern window is an altar, and
there is a piscina and anibry for the sacramental
plate, together with a comfortable fireplace and a
rob+ of closets.
?? Its domestic appurtenances,? says a writer,
clearly- show. it. to have been the <house of: the
priestvrcustodier of the chapel, and the ecclesiastical?types
first named were for his private nieditation
; and thus the puzzle ceases.?
Near the,chapel is St, Mathew?s Well. The
parish of Roslin possesses many relics and traditions
of the famous three battles which were fought
there in one day-the 24th of February, 1302 :-
? Three triumphs in a day,
Three hosts subdued in one,
Beneath one common sun !?
Three armies scattered like the spray
On the 26th of January, 1302, the cruel and
treacherous Edward I. of England concluded a
treaty of truce-not peace-with Scotland, while,
on the other hand, he prepared to renew the war
against her. To this end he marched in an army
of 2o,ooo--Some say 30,ooo-men, chiefly cavalry,
under Sir John de Segrave, with orders?less to
fight than to waste and devastate the already wasted
country.
To obtain ptovisions with more ease, Segrave
marched his force in three columns, each a mile or
two apart, and the 24th of February saw them on
the north bank of the Esk, at three places, still
indicated by crossed swords on the county map ;
the first at Roslin ; the second . at Loanhead, on
high ground, still named, from the battle, ? Killrig,?
north of the village ; and the third at Park Bum,
near Gilmerton Grange.
Meanwhile, Sir John Comyn, Guardian of the
Kingdom, and Sir Simon Fraser of Oliver Castle
(the friend and comrade of Wallace), Heritable
Sheriff of Tweeddale, after mustering a force of
only 8,000 men-but men carefully selected and
well armed-marched from Biggar in the night,
and in the dull grey light of the February morning,
in the wooded glen near Roslin Castle, came
suddenly on the first column, under Segrave.
Animated by a just thirst for vengeance, the
Scots made a furious attack, and Segrave was
rapidly routed, wounded, and taken prisoner, together
with his brother, his son, sixteen knights,
and thirty esquires, called sergeants by the rhyming
English chronicler Langtoft.
.
The contest was barely over when the second
column, alarmed by the fugitives, advanced from its
camp at Loanhead, ?? and weary though the Scots
were with their forced night march, flushed with
their first success, and full of the most rancorous
hate of their invaders, they rushed to the charge,
and though the conflict was fiercer, were victorious.
A vast quantity of pillage fell into their hands,
together with Sir Ralph the Cofferer, a paymaster
of the English army.?
The second victory had barely been achieved,
when the third division, under Sir Robert Neville,
with all its arms and armour glittering in the
morning sun, came in sight, advancing from the
neighbourhood of Gilmerton, at a time when
many of the Scots had laid aside a portion of their
arms and helmets, and were preparing some to eat,
and others to sleep.
Frase; and Comyn at first thought of retiring,
but that was impracticable, as Neville was so close
upon, them. They flew from rank to rank, says
Tytler, ?and having equipped the camp followers
in the arms of their slain enemies, they made a
furious charge on the English, and routed them
with great slaughter.?
Before the second and third encounters took
place, old historians state that the Scots had recourse
to the cruel practice of slaying their prisoners,
which was likely enough in keeping with the spirit
with which the wanton English war was conducted
in those days. Sir Ralph the Cofferer begged Fraser
to spare his life, offering a large ransom for it.
? Your coat of mail is no priestly habit,? replied
Sir Simon. ? Where is thine alb-where thy hood ?
Often have you robbed us all and done us grievous
wrong, and now is our time to sum up the account,
and exact strict payment.??
With these words he hewed off the gauntleted
hands of the degraded priest, and then by one
stroke severed his head from his body.
Old English writers always attribute the glory of
the day to Wallace ; but he was not present. The
pursuit lasted sixteen miles, even as far as Biggar,
and 12,000 of the enemy perished, says Sir James
Balfour. English historians have attempted to
conceal the triple defeat of their countrymen on
this occasion. They state that Sir Robert Neville?s
division stayed behind to hear mass, and repelled the
third Scottish attack, adding that none who heard
mass that morning were slain. But, unfortunately
for this statement, Neville himself was among the
dead ; and Langtoft, in his very minute account of
the battle, admits that the English were utterly
routed.
Many places in the vicinity still bear names con-
.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p170.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. VI Page 351")
... THE THREE BATTLES ON ONE DAY. 351
hillside, and not beneath, but is attached to its
eastern end, the ...
Book 6 p. 351
(Score 0.48)
![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 0.48)
... 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 0.48)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [ hlorningside.
reported to the Privy Council that he and the
Napiers of Edinbellie, ...
Book 5 p. 38
(Score 0.48)
![Lasswade.] CLERK OF ELDIN. 359
nishing supplies for local consumption and to
other quarters, Lasswade sends about 30,000 tons
of coal to Edinburgh every year.
Auchindinny is a small village situated on the
right bank of the Esk at the boundary with Penicuick,
and is about five-and-a-half miles distant
from Lasswade. It is inhabited by lace and paper
makers.
Scott, in his ballad ? The Gray Brother,? groups
all the localities we have noted with wonderful
effect :-
? I Sweet are the paths, oh passing sweet I
By Esk?s fair streams that run,
Impervious to the sun.
O?er airy steep, through copsewood deep,
? There the rapt poet?s step may rove,
And yield the muse the day ;
There Beauty, led by timid Love,
May shuq the tell-tale ray.
? From that fair dome, where suit is paid
By blast of bugle free,
To Auchindinny?s hazel shade,
And haunted Woodhouselee.
Who knows not Melville?s beechy grove,
Dalkeith, which all the virtues love,
And Roslin?s rocky glen,
And classic Hawthornden I
?Yet never path from day to day,
The pilgrim?s footsteps range,
To Burndale?s ruined grange.?
Save but? the solitary way,
South of Lasswade Bridge, on the road to Polton
-an estate which, in the early part of the eighteenth
century, gave the title of Lord Polton to a senator
of the College of Justice, Sir William Calderwood,
called to the bench in I 71 I in succession to Lord
Anstruther-is a house into which a number 01
antique stones were built some years ago. One
of these, a lintel, bears the following date and
legend :-
? 1557. A. A. NOSCE TEIPSVM.
Lasswade has always been a favourite summe1
resort of the citizens of Edinburgh. Sir Walter
Scott spent some of the happiest summers of his
life here, and amid the woodland scenery is supposed
to have found materials for his description
of Gandercleugh, in the Tales of my Land.
lord.?
His house was a delightful retreat, embowered
among wood, and close to the Esk. There he
continued all his favourite studies, and commenced
that work which Erst established his name i-2 litera.
ture, ? The Minstrelsy of the Scottish %order,?
which he published at Edinburgh in 1802, and
_ _ _
dedicated to his friend and chief, Henry Duke of
Buccleuch.
In prosecuting the collection of this work, Sir
Walter made various excursions-? raids ? he used
to call them-from Lasswade into the most remote
recesses of the Border glens, assisted by one or
two other enthusiasts in ballad lore, pre-eminent
among whom was the friend, whose ?untimely fate
he lamented so long, and whose memory he embalmed
in verse-Dr. John Leyden.
De Quincey, the ? English opium-eater,? spent
the last seventeen years of his life in a humble
cottage near Midfield House, on the road from
Lasswade to Hawthornden, and there he prepared
the collected edition. of his works. He died in
Edinburgh on the 8th December, 1859.
On high ground above the village stands Eldin
House (overlooking Eldindean), the residence of
John Clerk, inventor of what was termed in its day,
before the introduction of ironclads and steam rams,
the modern British system of naval tactics. He
was the sixth son of Sir George Clerk of Penicuick,
oneof the Barons of Exchequer in Scotland, and
inherited the estate of Eldin in early life from his
father. Although the longest sail he ever enjoyed
was no farther than to the Isle of Arran, in the Firth
of Clyde, he had from his boyhood a passion for
nautical affairs, and devoted much of his time to
the theory and practice ot naval tactics.
After. communicating to some of his friends the
new suggested system of breaking an enemy?s line
of battle, he visited London in 1780, and conferred
with several eminent men connected with the navy,
among others, Mr. Richard Atkinson, the friend of
the future Lord Kodney, and Sir Charles Douglas,
Rodney?s ?? Captain of the Fleet ? in the mernorable
action of 12th April, 1782, when the latter
was victorious over the Comte de Grasse between
Dominica and Les Saintes, in the West Indies.
Since that time his principle was said to have
been adopted by all our admirals ; and Howe, St.
Vincent, Duncan, and even Nelson, owe to the
Laird of Eldin?s manmuvre their most signal
victories.
In 1782 he had fifty copies of his ?Essay on
Naval Tactics ? printed, for distribution among his
private friends. It was reprinted in 1790, and
second, third, and fourth parts were added in the
seven subsequent years, and eventually, in 1804,
the whole work was re-published anew, with a
preface explaining the origin of his discoveries.
? Although Lord Rodney, as appears by a fragmentary
life of Clerk written by Professor Playfair,
in the ? Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh,?
never concealed in conversation his obliga](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p178.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. VI Page 359")
... CLERK OF ELDIN. 359
nishing supplies for local consumption and to
other quarters, Lasswade sends about ...
Book 6 p. 359
(Score 0.48)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [St. Gilea Street.
Russel never failed to meet the requirements of
the day ; and for ...
Book 2 p. 286
(Score 0.47)
... OLD -AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Calton Hill.
It was finished in 1832, and is a beautiful restoration,
with some ...
Book 3 p. 110
(Score 0.47)
... Street.! BISHOP BOTHWELL. 219 .
CHAPTEX X Y v r .
THE. HIGH STREET ( ~ ~ ~ f h t d ) .
The Ancient ...
Book 2 p. 219
(Score 0.47)
... he delighted in music and the theatre, and
it was his own advanced taste and spirit that led
.him, in 1725, ...
Book 1 p. 83
(Score 0.47)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith Walk.
belonged to different vehicles. It is standing opposite
the Tron Kirk. ...
Book 5 p. 154
(Score 0.47)
![Liberton?s Wynd.] DOWIE?S TAVERN. 119
town mansion of the abbot, with a beautiful chapel
attached to it, and may serve to remind us how
little idea we can form of the beauty of the
Scottish capital before the Reformation, adorned
as it was with so many churches and conventual
buildings, the very sites of which are now unknown,
Over the doorway of an ancient stone land in Gosford?s
Close,which stood immediately east of the Old
Bank Close, there existed a curious sculptured
lintel containing a representation of the crucifixion,
and which may with every probability be regarded
as another relic of the abbot?s house that once
occupied its site.?
This lintel is still preserved, and the house
which it adorned belonged to Mungo Tennant, a
wealthy citizen, whose seal is appended to a reversion
of the half of the lands of Leny, in 1540. It
also bears his arms, with the then common legend
-Soli. Deo. Honor. et. GZona.
In the lower storcy of this house was a stronglyarched
cellar, in the floor of which was a concealed
trap-door, admitting to another lower down, hewn
out of the living rock. Tradition averred it was a
chamber for torture, but.it has more shrewdly been
supposed to have been connected with the smugglers,
to whom the North Loch afforded by boat such
facilities for evading the duties at the city gates,
and running in wines and brandies. This vault is
believed to be still remaining untouched beneath
the central roadway of the new bridge. On the
first floor of this mansion the fifth Earl of Loudon,
a gallant general officer, and his daughter, Lady
Flora (latterly countess in her own right) afterwards
Marchioness of Hastings, resided when in town.
Here, too, was the mansion of Hume Rigg of
Morton, who died in it in 1788. It is thus described
in a note to Kay?s works :-? The dining and
drawing-rooms were spacious ; indeed, more so
than those of any private modern house we have
seen. The lobbies were all variegated marble, and
a splendid mahogany staircase led to the upper
storey. There was a large green behind, with a
statue in the middle, and a summer-house at the
bottom; but so confined was the entry to this
elegant mansion that it was impossible to get even
a sedan chair near to the door.?? On the zoth
January, 1773, at four k.~., there was? a tempest,
says a print of the time, ? and a stack of chimneys
on an old house at the foot of Gosfords Close,
possessed by Hugh Mossman, writer, was blown
down, and breaking through the roof in that part
of the house where he and his spouse lay, they
both perished in the ruins. . . . . In the
storey below, Miss Mally Kigg, sister to Rigg of
Morton, also perished.?
So lately as 1773 the Ladies Catharine and
Anne Hay, daughters of John Marquis of Tweeddale,
and in that year their brother George, the
fifth Marquis, resided there too, in the thud floor
of the front ? land ? or tenement. ? Indeed,? says
Wilson, ?the whole neighbourhood was the favourite
resort of the most fashionable and distinguished
among the resident citizens, and a perfect
nest of advocates and lords of session.? In the
pear 1794 the hall and museum of the Society of
Antiquaries were at the bottom of this ancient
thoroughfare.
Next it was Liberton?s Wynd, the avenue of which
is still partially open, and which was removed to
make way for the new bridge and other buildings.
Like many others still extant, or demolished, this
alley, called a wynd as being broader than a
close, had the fronts of its stone mansions so added
to and encumbered by quaint projecting out-shot
Doric gables of timber, that they nearly met overhead,
excluding the narrow strip of sky, and, save
at noon, all trace of sunshine. Yet herein stood
Johnnie Dowie?s tavern, one of the most famous in
the annals of Convivialia, and a view of which, by
Geikie, is preserved by Hone in his Year Book.?
Johnnie Dowie was the sleekest and kindest of
landlords ; nothing could equal the benignity of
his smile when he brought ?ben? a bottle of his
famous old Edinburgh ale to a well-known and
friendly customer. The formality with which he
drew the cork, the air with which he filled the long,
slender glasses, and the regularity with which he
drank the healths of all present in the first, with
his dozrce civility at withdrawing, were as long remembered
by his many customers as his ?Nor?
Loch trouts and Welsh rabbits,? after he had gone
to his last home, in 1817, leaving a fortune to his
son, who was a major in the amy. With a laudable
attachment to the old costume he always wore
a cocked hat, buckles at the knees and shoes, as
well as a cross-handled cane, over which he
stooped in his gait. Here, in the space so small
and dark, that even cabmen would avoid it now,
there came, in the habit of the times, Robert Fergusson
the poet, David Herd the earliest collector
of Scottish songs, ? antiquarian Paton,? and others
forgotten now, but who were men of local note
in their own day as lords of session and leading
advocates. Here David Martin, a well-known
portrait painter, instituted a Club, which was
quaintly named after their host, the ?Dowie
College;? and there his far more celebrated
pupil Sir Henry Raeburn often accompanied
him in his earlier years; and, more than all,
it was the favourite resort of Robert Bums,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p131.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. I Page 119")
... Wynd.] DOWIE?S TAVERN. 119
town mansion of the abbot, with a beautiful chapel
attached to it, and may ...
Book 1 p. 119
(Score 0.47)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [North Loch.
whose windows perhaps the accident occurred
?that the fox will not set his ...
Book 3 p. 82
(Score 0.47)
... Street I ST. CECILTA?S HALL. 25 I
years, and in June, 1749, died in a cottar?s humble
dwelling at Idragal, ...
Book 2 p. 251
(Score 0.47)
![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 0.47)
... OLD -4KD NEW EDINBURGH. ELauristollr - _
.. . . .
whom were the Duke of Buccleuch, the Earl 01
Stair, and ...
Book 4 p. 358
(Score 0.46)
... BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
"The edition said to be nndertaken with his
approbation : obsolete words altered, ...
Book 8 p. 514
(Score 0.46)
... SIR JOHN WHITEFORD OF THAT ILK 35
but who, after being sentenced to death, escaped to
Rome, where he ...
Book 3 p. 35
(Score 0.46)
![Canonmills.] THE ROYAL GYMNASIUM. 87
to search for and seize them for his own use.
Hunter also prosecuted him for throwing his wife
into the mill-lade and using opprobrious language,
for which he was fined 650 sterling, and obliged
to find caution.
A hundred years later saw a more serious tumult
in Canonmills.
In 1784 there was a great scarcity of food in
Edinburgh, on account of the distilleries, which
were said by some to consume enormous quantities
of oatmeal and other grain unfermented, and
to this the high prices were ascribed. A large mob
proceeded from the town to Canonmills, and attacked
the great distillery of the Messrs. Haig
there j but meeting with an unexpected resistance
from the workmen, who, as the attack had been
expected, were fully supplied with arms, they retired,
but not until some of their number had been
killed, and the ?Riot Act? read by the sheriff,
Baron Cockburn, father of Lord Cockburn. TheiI
next attempt was on the house of the latter;
but on learning that troops had been sent for, they
desisted. In these riots, the mob, which assembled
by tuckof drum, was charged by the troops, and
several of the former were severely wounded.
These were the gth, or East Norfolk Regiment,
under the command of Colonel John Campbell 01
Blythswood, then stationed in the Castle.
During the height of the riot, says a little ?Histoq
of Broughton,? a private carriage passed through thc
village, and as it was said to contain one of thc
Haigs, it was stopped, amid threats and shouts
Some of the mob opened the door, as the bIindr
had been drawn, and on looking in, saw that th<
occupant was a lady; the carriage was therefore
without further interruption, allowed to proceed tc
its destination-Heriot?s Hill.
On the 8th of September subsequently, two of thf
rioters, in pursuance of their sentence, were whippei
through the streets of Edinburgh, and afterwards
transported for fourteen years.
In the famous ?Chaldee MS.,? chapter iv.
reference is made to ?a lean man who hath hi!
dwelling by the great pool to the north of the Nelr
City.? This was Mr. Patnck Neill, a well-knowr
citizen, whose house was near the Loch side.
In this quarter we now find the Patent Roya
Gymnasium, one of the most remarkable anc
attractive places of amusement of its kind in Edin
burgh, and few visitors leave the city without seeing
it. At considerable expense it was constructed bj
Mr. Cox of Gorge House, for the purpose of afford
ing healthful and exhilarating recreation in the ope1
air to great numbers at once, and in April, 1865
was publicly opened by the provosts, magistrates
tnd councillors of Edinburgh and Leith, accom-
?anied by all the leading inhabitants of the city and
:ounty.
Among the many remarkable contrivances here
was a vast ?rotary boat,? 471 feet in circumference,
seated for 600 rowers ; a ? giant see-saw,? named
I? Chang,? IOO feet long and seven feet broad, supported
on an axle, and capable of containing zoo
?ersons, alternately elevating them to a height of
ifty feet, and then sinking almost to the ground;
i ? velocipede paddle merry-go-round,? 160 feet
in Circumference, seated for 6co persons, who propel
the machine by sitting astride on the rim, and
push their feet against the ground ; a ? self-adjust-
Lng trapeze,? in five series of three each, enabling
gymnasts to swing by the hands 130 feet from one
trapeze to the other; a ?compound pendulum
swing,? capable of holding about IOO persons, and
kept in motion by their own exertions.
Here, too, are a vast number of vaulting and
climbing poles, rotary ladders, stilts, spring-boards,
quoits, balls, bowls, and little boats and canoes on
ponds, propelled by novel and amusing methods.
In winter the ground is prepared for skaters on a
few inches of frozen water, and when lighted up at
night by hundreds of lights, the scene, with its
musical accessories, is one of wonderful brightness,
gaiety, colour, and incessant motion.
Here, also, is an athletic hall, with an instructor
always in attendance, and velocipedes, with the
largest training velocipede course in Scotland. The
charges of admission are very moderate, so as to
meet the wants of children as well as of adults.
A little eastward of this is a large and handsome
school-house, built and maintained by the congregation
of St. Mary?s Church. A great Board
School towers up close by. Here, too, was Scotland
Street Railway Station, and the northern entrance
of the longsince disused tunnel underground to
what is now called ~e Waverley Station at Princes
Street.
A little way northward of Canonmills, on the
north bank of the Water of Leith, near a new bridge
of three arches, which supersedes one of considerable
antiquity, that had but one high arch, is the
peculiar edifice known as Tanfield Hall. It is an
extensive suite of buildings, designed, it has been
said, to represent a Moorish fortress, but was erected
in 1825 as oil gasworks, and speedily turned to
other purposes. In 1835 it was the scene of a
great banquet, given by his admirers to Daniel
O?Connell; and in 1843 of the constituting of the
first General Assembly of the Free Church, when
the clergy first composing it quitted in a body the
Establishment,as described in our account of George](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p098.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. V Page 87")
... THE ROYAL GYMNASIUM. 87
to search for and seize them for his own use.
Hunter also prosecuted him for ...
Book 5 p. 87
(Score 0.46)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith
each trade, all deacons and treasurers, and constituting,
or deemed to be; a ...
Book 6 p. 210
(Score 0.45)
... and to his children in fee, and a dispute
in law occurred about the division of the property.
Buccleuch ...
Book 4 p. 347
(Score 0.44)
... 344 341, 111. 158; Foote's
attack on Whitefield I. 342
Whiteford, Sir John, I.'106,~82, 11.
35 ...
Book 6 p. 392
(Score 0.44)
![The Cowpate.] TAM 0? THE COWGATE. 259
derived from Dickson by the stars, according to
Nisbet in his ?Heraldry.? A John Dickison of
Winkston, who was provost of Peebles, was assassin260
I
OLD AND NEW EDtNEURGH. [The Cowgate.
Full of years and honours, Tam 0? the Cowgate
died in 1637. At Tynninghame, his family seat,
:here are two portraits of him preserved, and also
his state dress, in the crimson velvet breeches of
which there are no less than nine pockets. Among
many of his papers, which remain at Tynninghame
House, one contains a memorandum which throws
a curious light upon the way in which political
matters were then managed in Scotland. This
paper details the heads of a petition in his own
each way, and had a border of trees upon its east
and south sides. Latterly it bore the name of
Thomson?s Green, from the person to whom it
was leased by the Commissioners of Excise.
The Hammerman?s Close, Land, and Hall, adjoined
the site of this edifice on the westward.
The Land was in I 7 I I the abode of a man named
Anthony Parsons, among the last of those who
followed the ancient practice of vending quack
medicines on a public stage in the streets. In the
THE FRENCH AMBASSAUOR?S CHAPEL. (From a Drawing by W. Geikie.)
hand-writing to the Privy Council with a prayer to
?gar the Chancellor? do something else in his behalf
The Excise Office was removed about 1730 from
the Parliament Square to the houge so long occupied
by the Earl of Haddington, which afforded excellent
accommodation for so important a public
institution. The principal room on the second
floor, the windows of which opened to the Cowgate,
was one of great magnificence, having a stucco
ceiling divided into square compartments, each of
which contained an elegant device, and there was
also much fine paneling. At the back of the
house, extending to where the back of Brown
Square was built, and entered by a gate from the
Candlemaker Row, it measured nearly zoo feet
October of that year he advertised in the Scofs Postman-?
It being reported that Anthony Parsons
is gone from Edinburgh to mount public stages in
the country, this is to give notice that he hath left
off keeping stages, and still lives in the Hammerman?s
Land, near the head of the Cowgate, where
may be had the Orvicton, a famous antidote against
infectious distempers, and helps barrenness,? &c
Four years subsequently Parsons-an Englishman,
of course-announced his design of bidding adieu
to Edinburgh, and in that prospect offered his quack
medicines at reduced rates, and likewise, by auction,
?a fine cabinet organ.?
The last of these English quacks was Dr. Green,
gauger, of Doncaster, who made his appearance inated
in the High Street of that town, on the
1st of July, 1572, and James Tweedie, burgess of
Peebles, and four other persons, were tried for the
crime and acquitted. This is supposed to be the
John Dickison who built the house, and had placed
upon it these remarkable devices as a bold proof of
his adherence to the ancient faith ? The hand.
some antique form of this house, the strange
armorial device of the original proprietor, the tradition
of the Catholic chapel, the singular figures
over ?the double dormer window, and Dickison?s
own tragic fate, in the midst of a frightful civil war,
when neither party gave quarter to the other, all
combine to throw a wild and extraordinary interest
over it, and make us greatly regret its removal.?
(? Ancient Arch. of Edin.?)
The peculiar pediment, as well as the sculptured
lintel of the front door, were removed to Coates?
House, and are. now built into different parts of the
northern Wing of that quaint and venerable ch2teau
in the New Town.
In the middle of the last century, and prior to
1829, a court of old buildings existed in the Cowgate,
on the ground now occupied by the southern
piers of George IV. Bridge, which were used as
the Excise Office, but, even in this form, were
somewhat degraded from their original character,
for there resided Thomas Hamilton of Priestfield,
Earl of Melrose in 1619, and first Earl of Haddington
in 1627, Secretary of State in 16~2, King?s
Advocate, and Lord President of the Court of
Session in 15 92.
He rented the house in question from Macgill of
Rankeillor, and from the popularity of his character
and the circumstance of his residence, he
was endowed by his royal master, King James,
whose chief favourite he was, with? the sobriquet of
Tarn d the Cowgate, under which title he is better
remembered than by his talents as a statesman or
his Earldom of Haddington.
He was famous for his penetration as a judge,
his industry as a collector of decisionsAswing
up a set of these from 1592 to i6q-and his
talent for creating a vast fortune. It is related of
him, in one of many anecdotes concerning him,
communicated by Sir Walter Scott to the industrious
author of the ?? Traditions of Edinburgh,?,
that, after a long day?s hard labour in the public
service, he was one evening seated with a friend
over a bottle of wine near a window of his house
in the Cowgate, for his ease attired in a robc de
chrnbre and slippers, when a sudden disturbance
was heard in the street. This turned out to be a
bicker, one of those street disturbances peculiar to
the boys of Edinburgh, till the formation of the
present police, and referred to in the Burgh Records
so far back as 1529, anent ?gret bikkyrringis
betwix bairns;? and again in 1535, when they
wefe to be repressed, under pain-of scourging and
banishment.
On this occasion the strife with sticks and stones
was between the youths of the High School and
those of the College, who, notwithstanding a bitter
resistance, were driving their antagonists before
them.
The old Earl, who in his yduth had been a High
School boy, and from his after education in Paris,
had no sympathy for the young collegians, rushed
into the street, rallied the fugitives, and took such
an active share in the combat that, finally, the High
School boys-gaining fresh courage upon discovering
that their leader was Tam 0? the Cowgate, the
great judge and statesman-turned the scale of
victory upon the enemy, despite superior age and
strength. The Earl, still clad in his robe and slippers,
assumed the command, exciting the lads to the
charge by word and action. Nor did the hubbub
cease till the students, unable by a flank movement
to escape up the Candlemaker Row, were driven
headlong through the Grassmarket, and out at the
West Port, the gate of which he locked, compelling
the vanquished to spend the night in the fields
beyond the walls. He then returned to finish his
flask?of wine. And a rare jest the whole episode
must have been for King James, when he heard of
it at St. James?s or Windsor.
When, in 1617, the latter revisited Scotland,. he
found his old friend very rich, and was informed
that it was a current belief that he had discovered
the Philosopher?s Stone. James was amused with
the idea of so valuable a talisman having fallen
into the hands of a Judge of the Cburt of Session,
and was not long in letting the latter know of the
story. The Earl immediately invited the king,
and all who were present, to dine with him, adding
that he would reveal to them the mystery of the
Philosopher?s Stone.
The next day saw his mansion in the Cowgate
thronged by the king and his Scottish and English
courtiers After dinner, James reminded him of
the Philosopheis Stone, and then the wily Earl
addressed all present in a short speech, concluding
with the information that his whole secret of success
and wealth, lay in two simple and familiar
maxims :-cc Never put off till tomorrow what can
be done today; nor ever trust to the hand of
another that which your own can execute.?
?
__](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p078.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. IV Page 258")
... Cowpate.] TAM 0? THE COWGATE. 259
derived from Dickson by the stars, according to
Nisbet in his ?Heraldry.? A ...
Book 4 p. 258
(Score 0.4)
... INDEX.
Christ?s Church at the Tron, I. 187
Christ?s Church. Castle Hill. I. 82
Chrystie family,?The, ...
Book 6 p. 373
(Score 0.37)
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