![The Water of Leith.] EDINBURGH ACADEMY, 85
son Row. This useful and charitable institution
was established in 1810, but the present house
was founded on the 22nd of May, 1823, the stone
being laid by one of the senior pupils, in presence of
his voiceless companions, ? whose looks,? says the
Edinburgh Advertiser, cc bespoke the feelings of
their minds, and which would have been a sufficient
recompense to the contributors for the building,
had they been witnesses of the scene.?
Children whose parents or guardians reside
?
county, the Dean of Guild, and certain councillors.
The committee of management of this institution is
entirely composed of ladies.
When digging the foundations of this edifice, in
April, 1823, several rude earthen urns, containing
human bones, were found at various depths under
the surface. There were likewise discovered some
vaults or cavities, formed of unhewn stone, which
also contained human bones, but there were no
inscriptions, carving, or accessory object, to indi-
CANONMILLS LOCH AND HOUSE, 1830. C mm OII Oil ~.i~tiq&/. Kir;i)
in Edinburgh or Leith are admissible as day
scholars, and are taught the same branches of
instruction as the other children, but on the
payment of such fees as the directors may determine.
The annual public examination of these deaf
and dumb pupils takes place in summer, when
visitors are invited to question them, by means of
the manual alphabet, upon their knowledge of
Scripture history and religion, English composition,
geography, history, and arithmetic. There have
also been Government examinations in drawing.
A little way westward of this edifice stands the
Dean Bank Institution, for the religious, moral,
and industrial trainingof young girls, under the
directorship of the Lord Provost, the sheriff of the
cate the age to which these relics of pre-historic
Edinburgh belonged.
That great educational institution, the Edinburgh
Academy, in Henderson Row, some two hundred
and sixty yards north of St. Stephen?s Church, was
founded on the 30th June, 1823, in a park feued by
the directors from the governors of Heriot?s Hospital.
In the stone were deposited a copper plate,
with a long Latin inscription, and the names of the
directors, with three bottles, containing a list of the
contributors, maps of the city, and other objects.
It was designed by Mr. William Burn, and is
a somewhat low and plain-looking edifice, in
the Grecian style, with a pillared portico, and is
constructed with reference more to internal accom](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p096.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. V Page 85")
... Water of Leith.] EDINBURGH ACADEMY, 85
son Row. This useful and charitable institution
was established in ...
Book 5 p. 85
(Score 0.3)
... BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
KO. CVIII.
MR. JOHN WRIGHT,
LECTURER ON LAW.
MR. WRIGHT was the son of a poor cottar ...
Book 8 p. 374
(Score 0.3)
... BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
Church, sometime possessed by Mr. James Hill, grocer, where he realised a
considerable ...
Book 8 p. 503
(Score 0.3)
... 4 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
time on the Continent. He then returned to Edinburgh, where he afterwards
continued ...
Book 8 p. 575
(Score 0.3)
![202 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
.armorial he adopted was argent, a tree or, with two
ships under sail.
It was still time of truce when Henry, mortified
by the defeat of his five ships, exhorted his most
.able seamen ? to purge away this stain cast on the
English name,? and offered the then noble pension
of &I,OOO per annum to any man who could
accomplish Wood?s death or capture ; and the task
was taken in hand by Sir Stephen Bull (originally
a merchant of London), who, with three of Henry?s
largest ships manned by picked crews, and having
on board companies of crossbowmen, pikemen, and
many volunteers of valour and good birth, sailed
from the Thames in July, 1490, and entering the
Firth of Forth, came to anchor under the lee of
the Isle of May, there to await the return of Wood
from Sluys, and for whose approach he kept boats
scouting to seaward.
On the morning of the 18th of August the two
ships of Wood hove in sight, and were greeted with
exultant cheers by the crews of Bull, who set
some inlets of wine abroach, and gave the orders
to unmoor and clear away for battle.
Wood recognised the foe, and donninghis armour,
gave orders to clear away too ; and his brief ha-
Iangue, modernised, is thus given by Lindesay of
Pitscottie and others :-
? My lads, these are the foes who would convey
us in bonds to the foot of an English king, but by
your courage and the help of God they shall fail !
Repair every man to his station-charge home,
gunners-cross-bowmen to the tops-two-handed
swords to the fore-rooms-lime-pots and fire-balls in
the tops ! Be stout, men, and true for the honour
of Scotland and your own sakes. Hurrah!?
Shouts followed, and stoups of wine went round.
His second in command was Sir David Falconer,
who was afterwards slain at Tantallon. The result
of the battle that ensued is well known. It was
continued for two days and a night, during which
the ships were all grappled together, and drifted
into the Firth of Tay, where the English were all
taken, and carried as prizes into the harbour of
Dundee. Wood presented Sir Stephen Bull and
his surviving officers to Jarnes IV., who dismissed
them unransomed, with their ships, ? because they
fought not for gain, but glory,? and Henry dissemkled
his rage by returning thanks.
For this victory Wood obtained the sea town as
well as the nether town of Largo, and soon afteI
his skilful eye recommended the Bay of Gourock ta
James as a capable harbour. In 1503 he led a
fleet against the insurgent chiefs of the Isles. Hi$
many brilliant services lie apart from the immediate
history of Leith. Suffice it to say that he was pre.
I
sent at the battle of Linlithgow in 1526, and
wrapped the dead body of Lennox in his own
scarlet mantle. Age was coming on him after this,
and he retired to his castle of Largo, where he
seems to have lived somewhat like old Commodore
Trunnion, for there is still shown the track of a
canal formed by his order, on which he was rowed
to mass daily in Largo church in a barge by his
old crew, who were all located around him, He is
supposed to have died abodt 1540, and was buried
in Largo church. One of his sons was a senator
of the College of Justice in 1562 ; and Sir Andrew
Wood, third of the House of Largo, was Comptroller
of Scotland in 1585.
Like himself, the Bartons, the shipmates and
friends of Sir -4ndrew, all attained high honour
and fame, though their origin was more distinguished
than his, and they were long remembered
among the fighting captains of Leith.
John Barton, a merchant of Leith in the time of
James III., had three sons : Sir Andrew, the hero
of the famous nautical ballad, who was slain in the
Downs in 151 I, but whose descendants still exist ;
Sir Robert of Overbarnton in 1508, Comptroller
of the Household to James V. in 1520; John, an
eminent naval commander under James 111. and
James IV., who died in t 5 13,and was buried at Kirkcudbright.
The Comptroller?s son Robert married
the heiress of Sir John Mowbray of Barnbougle, who
died in 151 y ; and his descendants became extinct
in the person of Sir Robert of Overbarnton, Barnbougle,
and Inverkeithing. Our authorities for these
and a few other memoranda concerning this old
Leith family are a ?Memoir of the Familyof Barton,
&c.,? by J. Stedman, Esq., of Bath (which is scarce,
only twelve copies having been printed), Tytler,
Pinkerton, and others.
For three generations the Bartons of Leith seem
to have had a kind of family war with the Portuguese,
and their quarrel began in the year 1476,
when John Barton, senior, on putting to sea froin
Sluys, in Flanders, in a king?s ship, the ]iZiai?nnn,
laden with a valuable cargo, was unexpectedly
attacked by two armed Portuguese caravels, commanded
respectively by Juan Velasquez and Juan
Pret. The JiZiana was taken ; many of her crew
were slain or captured, the rest were thrust into a
boat and cut adrift. Among the latter was old John
Barton, who proceeded to Lisbon to seek indemnity,
but in vain; and he is said by one account to
have been assassinated by Pret or Velasquez to put
an end to the affair. By another he is stated to have
been alive in 1507, and in command of a ship
called the Liun, which was seized at Campvere, in
Zealand-unless it can be that the John referred to](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p021.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. VI Page 202")
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
.armorial he adopted was argent, a tree or, with two
ships under sail.
It was ...
Book 6 p. 202
(Score 0.3)
... 1543, when the traitorous Scottish nobles of
what was named the English faction, leagued with
Henry VIII. ...
Book 5 p. 169
(Score 0.3)
![Bomington] THE LAIRDS OF PILRIG. 91
His History of the Church and State of Scotland,?
though coloured by High Church prejudices,
is deemed a useful narration and very candid record
of the most controverted part of our national
annals, while the State documents used in its compilation
have proved of the greatest value to every
subsequent writer on the same subject. Very
curious is the list of subscribers, as being, says
Chambers, a complete muster-roll of the whole
Jacobite nobility and gentry of the period, including
among others the famous Rob Roy, the outlaw !
The bishop performed the marriage ceremony of
that ill-starred pair, Sir George Stewart of Grandtully
and Lady Jane Douglas, on the 4th of August, I 746.
In I 7 5 5 he published his well-known ? Catalogue
of Scottish Bishops,? a mine of valuable knowledge
to future writers.
The latter years of his useful and blameless life,
during which he was in frequent correspondence
with the gallant Marshal Keith, were all spent at
the secluded villa of Bonnyhaugh, which belonged
to himself. There he died on the 27th of January,
1757, in his seventy-sixth year, and was borne,
amid the tears of the Episcopai communion, to his
last home in the Canongate churchyard. There he
lies, a few feet from the western wall, where a plain
stone bearing his name was only erected recently.
In 1766 Alexander Le Grand was entailed in the
lands and estates of Bonnington.
In 1796 the bridge of Bonnington, which was of
timber, having been swept away by a flood, a
boat was substituted till 1798, when another wooden
bridge was erected at the expense of A30.
Here in Breadalbane Street, northward of some
steam mills and iron-works, stands the Bonnington
Sugar-refining Company?s premises, formed by a few
merchants of Edinburgh andLeith about 1865, where
they carry on an extensive and thriving business.
The property and manor house of Stewartfield
in this quarter, is westward of Bonnington, a square
edifice with one enormous chimney rising through a
pavilion-shaped roof. We have referred to the entail
of Alexander Le Grand, of Bonnington, in 1766.
The Scots Magazine for 1770 records an alliance
between the two proprietors here thus :-?At Edinburgh,
Richard Le Grand, Esq., of Bonnington
(son of the preceding?), to Miss May Stewart,
daughter of James Stewart of Stewartfield, Esq.?
On the north side of the Bonnington Road, and
not far from Bonnington House, stands that of
Pilrig, an old rough-cast and gable-ended mansion
among aged trees, that no doubt occupies the site
of a much older edifice, probably a fortalice.
In 1584 Henry Nisbett, burgess of Edinburgh,
became caution before the Lords of the Privy
Council, for Patrick Monypenny of Pilrig, John
Kincaid of Warriston, Clement Kincaid of the
Coates, Stephen Kincaid, John Matheson, and
James Crawford, feuars of a part of the Barony
of Broughton, that they shall pay to Adam Bishop
of Orkney, commendator of Holyrood House,
?what they ow-e him for his relief of the last
taxation of _f;zo,ooo, over and above the sum of
?15, already consigned in the hands of the col-
Lector of the said collection.?
In 1601 we find the same Laird of Pilrig engaged
in a brawl, ?forming a specimen of the
second class of outrages.? He (Patrick Monypenny)
stated to the Lords of Council that he had
a wish to let a part of his lands of Pilrig, called the
Round Haugh, to Harry Robertson and Andrew
Alis, for his own utility and profit. But on a certain
day, not satisfied, David UuA; a doughty indweller in
Leith, came to these per?sons, and uttering ferocious
menaces against them in the event of their occupying
these lands, effectually prevented them from
doing so.
Duff next, accompanied by two men named
Matheson, on the 2nd of March, 1601, attacked
the servants of the Laird of Pilrig, as they were
at labour on the lands in question, with similar
speeches, threatening them with death if they persisted
in working there; and in the night they,
or other persons instigated by them, had come
and broken their plough, and cast it into the
Water of Leith. ?John Matheson,? continues the
indictment, ?? after breaking the complenar?s plew,
came to John Porteous?s house, and bade him gang
now betwix the Flew stilts and see how she wald go
till the morning:? adding that he would have his
head broken if he ever divulged who had broken
the plough,
The furious Duff, not contentwith all this,trampled
and destroyed the tilled land. In this case the
accused were dismissed from the bar, but only, it
would appear, through hard swearing in their own
cause.
There died at Pilrig, according to the Scots
Magazine for 1767, Margaret, daughter of the late
Sir Johnstone Elphinstone of Logie, in the month of
January ; and in the subsequent June, Lady Elphinstone,
his widow. The Elphinstones of Logie were
baronets of 1701.
These ladies were probably visitors, as the then
proprietor and occupant of the mansion was James
Balfour of Pilng, who was born in 1703, and became
a member of the Faculty of Advocates on
the 14th of November, 1730, Three years later
on the death of Mr. Bayne, Professor of Scottish
Law in the University of Edinburgh, he and Mr.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p102.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. V Page 91")
... THE LAIRDS OF PILRIG. 91
His History of the Church and State of Scotland,?
though coloured by High ...
Book 5 p. 91
(Score 0.3)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH [The West Bow.
by Victoria Terrace, replaced in one part by a
flight of stairs, in ...
Book 2 p. 310
(Score 0.3)
![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 0.3)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Moultray?s Hill.
-
dedicated to him,?) but by whom founded or when,
is quite unknown ...
Book 2 p. 366
(Score 0.3)
... SKETCHES. 305
formed to this practice in the forenoon, and returned to resume his seat in the ...
Book 8 p. 428
(Score 0.3)
... BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
remarkable for brilliancy and power ; and he was looked upon by all as one destined
to ...
Book 9 p. 518
(Score 0.3)
... BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
every man his own Harry Ewkine f" Mr. Erskine felt very much amazed, as
may be ...
Book 8 p. 185
(Score 0.3)
... B I0 GRAPH I C AL SIC ET C H E S.
house in Princes Street, where he became instrumental in raising the ...
Book 8 p. 175
(Score 0.3)
![west Port.] THE TILTING GROUND. 225
centuries,? and the access thereto from the Castle
must have been both inconvenient and circuitous.
It has been supposed that the earliest buildings
-on this site had been erected in the reign of James
IV., when the low ground to the westward was the
scene of those magnificent tournaments, which drew
to that princely monarch7s court the most brilliant
chivalry in Europe, and where those combats ensued
of which the king was seldom an idle spectator.
This tilting ground remained open and unen-
~
appointed for triell of suche matters.? Latterly
the place bore the name of Livingstone?s Yards.
We have mentioned the acquisition by the city
of the king?s stables at the Restoration. Lord
Fountainhall records, under date I rth March,
1685, a reduction pursued by the Duke of Queensberry,
as Governor of the Castle, against Thomas
Boreland and other possessors of these stables, as
part of the Castle precincts and property. Boreland
and others asserted that they held their property in
THE GRASSMARKET, FROM THE WEST PORT, 1825. (Afhh?wbmk.)
closed when Maitland wrote. and is described by I virtue of a feu granted in the reign of James V.,
him as a pleasant green space, 150 yards long, by
50 broad, adjoining the Chapel of Our Lady ; but
this ?pleasant green? is now intersected by the?
hideous Kingsbridge ; one portion is occupied by
the Royal Horse Bazaar and St. Cuthbert?s Free
Church, while the rest is made odious by tan-pits,
slaughter-houses, and other dwellings of various
descriptions.
Calderwood records that in the challenge to
mortal combat, in 1571, between Sir William
I Kirkaldy of Grange, and Alexander Stewart
younger of Garlies, they were to fight ?upon the
ground, the Baresse, be-west the West Port of
Edinburgh, the place accustomed and of old ,
I
77
but the judges decided that unless thedefenders
could prove a legal dissolution of the royal possession,
they must be held as the king?s stables, and
be accordingly annexed to the crown of Scotland
Thomas Boreland?s house, one which long figured
in every view of the Castle from the foot of Vennel
{see Vol. I., p. 80), has recently been pulled down.
It was a handsome and substantial edifice of three
storeys in height, including the dormer windows,
crow-stepped, and having three most picturesque
gables in front, with a finely moulded door, on the
lintel of which were inscribed a date and legend :-
T. B. v. B. 1675.
FEAR. GOD. HONOR . THE. KING.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p045.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. IV Page 225")
... Port.] THE TILTING GROUND. 225
centuries,? and the access thereto from the Castle
must have been both ...
Book 4 p. 225
(Score 0.3)
![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 0.3)
![High Street.] HOUSE OF THE ABBOTS OF MELROSE. 253
CHAPTER XXX.
THE HIGH STREET (caitfirzued).
Dickson?s and Cant?s Closes-The House of the ? Scottish Hogarth ? and the Knight of Tillybole-Rosehaugh?s, or Strichen?s, Close-House 01
the Abbots of Melrose-Sir Georye Yaclteuzie of Rosehaugh-Lady h n e Dick-Lord Strichen-The hlanncls of 1730-Pmvost Grieve-
John Dhu, Corporal of the City Guard-Lady Lovat?s Land-Walter Chnpman, Printer-Lady Lovat.
DICKSON?S CLOSE, numbered as 118, below the
modern Niddry Street, gave access to a handsome
and substantial edifice, supposed to be the work of
that excellent artificer Robert Mylne, who built the
modern portion of Holyrood and s3 rnacy houses
of an improved character in the city about the time
of the Revolution. Its earlier occupants are unknown,
but herein dwelt David Allan, known as
the ? Scottish Hogarth,? a historical painter of
undoubted genius, who, on the death of hlexander
Runciman, in 1786, was appointed director and
master of the academy established by the board of
trustees for manufacturers in Scotland.
While resident in Dickson?s Close he published,
in 1788, an edition of the ?Gentle Shepherd,? with
characteristic etchings, and, some time after, a collection
of the most humorous old Scottish songs with
similar drawings ; these, with his illustrations of
? The Cottar?s Saturday Night ? and the satire,
humour, and spirit of his other etchings in aquatinta,
won him a high reputation as a successful
delineator of character and nature. His drawing
classes met in the old college, but he received
private pupils at his house in Dickson?s Close after
his marriage, on the 15th November, 1788. His
terms were, as advertised in the Nucz~ry, one
guinea per month for three lessons in the week,
which in those simple days would restrict his pupils
to the wealthy and fashionable class of sqciety.
He died at Edinburgh on the 6th of August, 1796.
Lower down the close, on the same side, a
quaint old tenement, doomed to destruction by the
Improvements Act, 1867, showed on the coved bedcorbel
of its crowstepped gable the arms of Haliburton,
impaled with another coat armorial, with
the peculiar feature of a double window corbelled
out ; and in a deed extant, dated 1582, its first proprietor
is named Master James Haliburton. Afterwards
it was the residence of Sir John Haliday, of
Tillybole, and formed a part of Cant?s Close.
Its appearance in 1868 has been preserved to us
by R. Chambers, in a brief description in his
?? Traditions . ? According to this authority: it was
two storeys in height, the second storey being
reached by an outside stair, within a small courtyard,
which had originally been shut by a gate.
The stone pillars of the gateway were decorated
with balls at the top, after the fashion of entrances
to the grounds of a country mansion. It was a
picturesque building in the style of the sixteenth
century in Scotland. As it resembled a neat oldfashioned
country house, it was odd to find it
jammed up amid the tall edifices of this confined
alley. Ascending the stair, the interior consisted
of three or four apartments, with elaborately-carved
stucco ceilings. The principal room had a double
window on the west to Dickson?s Close.
In 1735 this mansion was the abode of Robert
Geddes, Gird of Scotstoun in Peeblesshire, who sold
it to George Wight, a burgess of Edinburgh, after
which it became deteriorated, and its stuccoed
apartments, froin the attics to the ground floor,
became each the dwelling of a separate family, and
a scene of squalor and wretchedness.
A considerable portion of the edifices in Cant?s
Close mere once ecclesiastical, and belonged to
the prebendaries of the collegiate church, founded
at Ciichton in 1449, by Sir William Crichton of
that ilk, Lord High Chancellor of Scotland.
In Kosehaugh?s Close, now called Strichen?s, the
next alley on the east, was the town-house of the
princely mitred abbots of Melrose. In Catholic
times the great dignitaries of the church had all
their houses in Edinburgh ; the Archbishop of St.
dndrews resided at the foot of Blackfriars Wynd ;
the Bishop of Dunkeld in the Cowgate ; the Abbot
of Dunfermline at the Netherbow ; the Abbot of
Cambuskenneth in the Lawnmarket ; and the Abbot
of Melrose in the close we have named, and his
?ludging? had a garden which extend?ed down to
the Cowgate, and up the opposite slope on the
west side of the Pleasance, within the city wall.
The house of the abbot, a large and massive
building enclosing a small square or court in the
centre of it, was entered from Strichen?s Close.
?? The whole building has evidently undergone
great alterations,?? says the description of it written
in 1847; ?a carved stone bears a large and very
boldlycut shield, with two coats of arms impaled,
and the date 1600. There seems no reason to
doubt, however, that the main portion of the
abbot?s residence still remains. The lower storey is
strongly vaulted, and is evidently the work of an
early date. The smalrquadrangle also is quite in
character with the period assumed for the building;
and at its north-west angle is Cant?s Close,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p073.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. II Page 253")
... Street.] HOUSE OF THE ABBOTS OF MELROSE. 253
CHAPTER XXX.
THE HIGH STREET (caitfirzued).
Dickson?s and ...
Book 2 p. 253
(Score 0.3)
... SKETCHES. 221
During the brief period of Mr. Rylance’s sojourn in Edinburgh, Mr. Constable
found ...
Book 8 p. 312
(Score 0.3)
... BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
No. CCIII.
MR. JOHN CAMPBELL,
PRECENTOR.
MR. CAMPBELLo fficiated for upwards of ...
Book 9 p. 123
(Score 0.3)
![Fanester?s Wynd.] THE ?MIRROR? CLUB. rzr
i ?The Diurnal of Occurrents? records, that in
1566, John Sinclair, Bishop of Brechin, Dean of
Restalrig, and Lord President of the College of
Justice, died in Forrester?s Wynd, in the house of
James Mossman, probably the same man who was a
goldsmith in Edinburgh at that time, and whose
father, also Jarnes Mossrnan, enclosed with the
present four arches the crown of Scotland, by
order of James V., when Henry VIII. closed
the crown of England. In consequence of the
houses being set on fire by the *Castle guns under
Kirkaldy, in 1572, it was ordered that all the
thatched houses between Beith?s J7ynd and St.
Giles?s should be unroofed, and that all stacks of
heather should be carried away from the streets
Fleshmarket Close ; but oftener, perhaps, in Lucky
Dunbar?s, a house situated in an alley that led
between Liberton?s Wynd and that of Forrester?s
Wynd. This Club commenced its publication of
the Mirror in January, 1729, and terminated it in
May, 1780. It was a folio sheet, published weekly
at three-halfpence. The *Lounger, to which Lord
Craig contributed largely, was commenced, by the
staff of the Mirror, on the 6th ot February, 1785,
and continued weekly till the 6th of January, 1787.
paid to their morals, behaviour, and every branch
of education.?
In this quarter Turk?s Close, Carthrae?s, Forrester?s,
and Beith?s Wynds, all stood on the slope
between Liberton?s Wynd and St. Giles?s Church ;
but every stone of these had been swept away many
years before the great breach made by the new
bridge was projected. Forrester?s Wynd occurs so
often in local annals that it must have been a place
of some consideration.
JOHN DOWIE?S TAVERN. (Fs~m fk Engraving in How?$ YearBwk.?)
Among the members of this literary Club were Mr.
Alexander Abercrombie, afterwards Lord Abercrombie
; Lord Bannatyne ; Mr. George Home,
Clerk of Session ; Gordon of Newhall ; and a Mr.
George Ogilvie ; among their correspondents were
Lord Hailes, Mr. Baron Hurne, Dr. Beattie, and
many other eminent literary men of the time ; but
of the IOI papers of the Lounger, fifty-seven are
the production of Henry Mackenzie, including his
general review of Burns?s poems, already referred to.
In Liberton?s Wynd, we find from the Ediduygh
Advertiser of 1783, that the Misses Preston,
daughters of the late minister of Narkinch, had a
boarding school for young ladies, whose parents
?may depend that the greatest attention will be
18](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p133.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. I Page 121")
... Wynd.] THE ?MIRROR? CLUB. rzr
i ?The Diurnal of Occurrents? records, that in
1566, John Sinclair, ...
Book 1 p. 121
(Score 0.3)
... I 0 GR AP €1 I C AL SKETCH E S. 357
who plumed themselves on more respectable connections, but was ...
Book 8 p. 499
(Score 0.3)
... BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
No less remarkable for his wit and convivial powers, than for his more solid
qualities, ...
Book 8 p. 39
(Score 0.3)
... AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Buccleuch Place. 346
way, and from thence along the Gibbet Street
northward, to where it ...
Book 4 p. 346
(Score 0.3)
... SKETCHES. ,411
ALEXANDER PIERIE, Eiq., who appears on the left, was originally, we
believe, from ...
Book 9 p. 549
(Score 0.3)
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