![Calton HiX] SHORT?S 0 ESERVATORY. ?05
?patriotic Earl of Morton gave a sun1 for the purpose;
leaving the management thereof to Colin
?Maclaurin, Professor of Mathematics, and others
of the Senatus Academicus. Maclaurin, with his
characteristic liberality, added to the earl?s gift by
the profits arising from a course of lectures on
experimental philosophy ; but his death, in 1746,
put a stop a second time to the execution of the
disposal for the purpose of building an observatory,
and to allow him to draw the whole emoluments
arising from the use of his apparatus for a certain
number of years ; ?but,? says Arnot, ?? on condition
that the students should, in the meantime,
have access to the observatory for a small gratuity,
and that the building,withall the instruments, should
. be vested in the Town Council for ever, as trustees
THE CALTON HILL, CALTON GAOL, BURYING-GROUND, AND MONUMENTS.
In 1776 there came to Edinburgh Mr. Short,
brother and executor to Mr. James Short, F.R.S.,
formerly an optician in Leith, and who brought with
him all his brother?s optical apparatus, particularly
a large reflecting telescope that magnified 1,200
times, ?and is,? says the Week0 Magazine for
that year, ? superior to any in Europe, but one in
possession of the King of Spain.? Mr. Short
intended to erect an observatory, which was to
be his own private property, and from which he
expected to draw considerable emoluments ; but
Dr. Alexander Monro, Professor of Anatomy, one
of Lord Morton?s trustees, showed that an observatory
unconnected with the Council and University
would conduce but little to the progress of science,
62
after a certain period. Mr. Short readily agreed,
and the Council were applied to for their concurrence
and patronage.?
It appears from their Register that in the
summer of 1776 the Council granted to Mr. Short,
his sons and grandsons, a life-rent lease of
half an acre on the Calton HilL A plan of the
intended building was made by James Craig,
architect, and the foundation-stone was laid by
Provost James Stodart, in presence of the Senatus,
25th July, I 776 ; and upon the suggestion of Adam,
the famous architect, in consequence of the high
and abrupt nature of the site, the whole edifice was
constructed to have the aspect of a fortification. 1 In the partial execution of this faulty design, thc](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p117.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. III Page 105")
... HiX] SHORT?S 0 ESERVATORY. ?05
?patriotic Earl of Morton gave a sun1 for the purpose;
leaving the ...
Book 3 p. 105
(Score 1.15)
... SKETCHES. 151
on the 28th March 1815, in the sixty-sixth year of his age. His estates ...
Book 9 p. 201
(Score 1.14)
![238 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
-to hir lovite suitore, Johne Chisholme, his airis and
. assignais, all and hailk hir lands callit the King?s
Werk in Leith, within the boundis specifit in the
infeftment maid to him thairupon, quhilkis than
-war alluterlie decayit, and sensyne are reparit and
re-edifit, he the said Johne Chisholnie, to the policy
.and great decoration of this realme, in that office,
place, and sight of all strangeris and utheris re-
- sortand to the Schore of Leith.?
In 1575 it had been converted into a hospital
- for the plague-stricken ; but when granted to Bernard
Lindsay in 1613, he was empowered to keep
four taverns in the buildings, together with the
tennis-court, for the then favourite pastime of
?catchpel. It continued to be used for that purpose
till the year 1649, when it was taken pos-
2 session of by the magistrates of Edinburgh, and
. converted into a weigh-house.
? In what part of the building Bemard Lindsay
commenced tavern-keeping we are unable to say,?
observes Campbell, in his ? History of Leith,? ? but
.are more than half disposed to believe it was that
old house which projects into Bernard Street, and
is situated nearly opposife the British Linen Com-
,pany?s Bank.? ?? The house alluded to,? adds
Robertson on this, ?has a carved stone in front,
representing a rainbow rising from the clouds, with
a date 165-, the last figure being obliterated, and
-can hatre no reference to Bernard Lindsay.?
The tennis-court of the latter would seem to have
been frequently patronised by the great Marquis of
Montrose in his youth, as in his ?? Household Accounts,?
under date 1627, are the following entries
.(Mait. Club Edit.) :-
?? Item to the poor, my Lord taking coch . . qs.
Item, carrying the graith to Leth . . . . 8s.
Item, to some poor there . . . . . . 3s
Item, to my Lord Nepar?s cochman . .
Item, for balls in the Tinnes Court of Leth..
. . 6s. Sd.
16s.?
The first memorial of Bernard Lindsay is in
the Parish Records ? of South Leith, and is dated
17th July, 1589 :-? The quhilk days comperit
up Bemard Lindsay and Barbara Logan, and gave
their names to be proclamit and mareit, within
this date and Michaelmas.-JoHN LOGANE, Cautioper.?
Another record, 2nnd September, I 633, bears
that the Session ? allowis burial to Barbara Logane,
-.elict of Bernard Lindsaye, besyde her husbande in
the kirk-yeard, in contentation yairof, 100 merks to
be given to the poor.?
From Bernard Lindsay, the name of the present
Bernard Street is derived. Bernard?s Nook has
long been known. ?? In the ? Council Records? of
Edinburgh, 1647,? says Robertson, ?is the following
entry :-? To the purchase of the Kingis Werk,
in Leith, 4,500 lib. Scot.? A previous entry, 1627,
refers to dealing with the sons of Bernard Lindsay,
?for their house in Leith to be a custom-house. . . .?
We have no record that any buildings existed beyond
the bounds of the walls or the present
Bernard Street at this time, the earliest dates on
the seaward part of the Shore being 1674-1681.?
The old Weigh-house, or Tron of Leith, stood
within Bernard?s Nook, on the west side of the
street ; but local, though unsupported, tradition
asserts that the original signal-tower and lighthouse
of Leith stood in the Broad Wynd.
Wilson thus refers to the relic of the Wark
already mentioned :-?? A large stone panel, which
bore the date 1650-the year immediately succeeding
the appropriation of the King?s Wark to
civic purposes-appeared in the north gable of the
old weigh-house, which till recently occupied its
site, with the curious device of a rainbow carved
in bold relief springing at either end from a bank
of clouds.?
? So,? says Arnot, ?? this fabric, which was reared
for the sports and recreations of a Court, was
speedily to be the scene of the ignoble labours of
carmen and porters, engaged in the drudgery of
weighing hemp and of iron.?
Eastward of the King?s Wark, between Bernard?s
Street and chapel, lies the locality once so curiously
designated Little London, and which, according to
Kincaid, measured ninety feet from east to west,
by seventy-five broad over the walls. ? How it
acquired the name of Little London is now
unknown,? says Camphell, in his ? History ? ;
?but it was so-called in the year 1674, We do
not see, however,? he absurdly remarks, ?that it
could have obtained this appellation from any
other circumstauce than its having had some
real or supposed resemblance to the [English]
metropolis.?
As the views preserved of Little London show it
to have consisted of only four houses or so, and
these of two storeys high, connected by a dead
wall with one doorway, facing Bemard Street in
1800, Campbell?s theory is untenable. It is much
more probable that it derived its name from being
the quarters or cantonments of those 1,500 English
soldiers who, under Sir Williani Drury, Marshal of
Berwick, came from England in April, 1573, to
assist the Regent Morton?s Scottish Companies in
the reduction of Edinburgh Castle. These men
departed from Leith on the 16th of the following
June, and it has been supposed that a few of them
may have been induced to remain, and the locality
thus won the name of Little London, in the same](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p057.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. VI Page 238")
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
-to hir lovite suitore, Johne Chisholme, his airis and
. assignais, all and ...
Book 6 p. 238
(Score 1.14)
... BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
The DUO DANGOULEME, eldest son of Charles-X, was born in 1775,
He accompanied his ...
Book 9 p. 267
(Score 1.13)
... SKETCHES. 323
No. CXXXII.
TWO SHADOWS.
LORD KAMES, AND HUG0 ARNOT, ESQ.
THIS is a very excellent ...
Book 8 p. 454
(Score 1.12)
... bids Pitsligo. He bestowed charity daily upon
a number of pensioners, who were in the habit of
waiting ...
Book 1 p. 180
(Score 1.12)
... OLD ANI) NEW EDINBURGH. [North Bridge.
night. for his journey there and back, the channel
of the Gala, which, ...
Book 2 p. 356
(Score 1.11)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. 1st. Andrew Street,
rewarded by the freedom of the city, which was
conferred on him by ...
Book 3 p. 160
(Score 1.11)
![THE PRECEPTORY OF ST. ANTHONY. 215 Leith]
not making any deliberate assault ; but a pistol
shot was heard, and in a few minutes the Sieur de
la Roche lay dead, with a sword thrust in his body,
while Isaac had a finger nearly hewn OK
The guard now came on the scene, and Mowat
was found under an outer stair, with a bent sword
in his hand, bloody from point to hilt, his hand
wounded, and the sleeves of his coat stained with
blood. On seeing the dead body, he viewed it
without emotion, and merely remarked that he
wondered who had slain him.
The Master, Mowat, and James Sinclair the writer,
were all tried for the murder of Elias Poiret before
the Court of Justiciary, but the jury brought in a
verdict of not proven. The whole affair might
have been easily explained, but for heat of temper,
intemperance, and the ready resort to arms so usual
in those days. The three Frenchmen concerned in
it were Protestant refugees who were serving as
privates in the Scottish Life Guards. The Mastet
of Tarbet became Earl of Cromarty in 1714 and
survived the death of Poiret forty years. Two of
his sons, who were officers in the Scots-Dutch
Brigade, perished at sea, and his eldest, the third
and last Earl of Cromarty, was nearly brought to
Tower Hill in 1746 for his loyalty to the House of
Stuart.
No. 141 Kirkgate was long the place of business
of Mr. Alexander Watson, who is chiefly remarkable
as being the nephew and close correspondent
of a very remarkable man, who frequently resided
with him-Robert Watson, who was made Principal
of the Scots College at Paris by the Emperor
Napoleon I., an office which he held for six years.
It was to his nephew at Leith, after his escape to
Rome (having been tried at the Old Bailey as
President of a Corresponding Society), he confided
his discovery of a large mass of correspondence
known as ? The Stuart Papers,? which he
purchased (as stated in the Courunt for 1819.)
In one of his letters, dated London, 6th April,
1818, he states that they consist ofhalf a million of
pieces, and are valued at ~300,000. ?? The Pope,
however, took military possession of them, under
the protest that they were of too much importance
to belong to a private individual. I protested
against the arbitrary proceedings of his Holiness.
The Prince Regent sent two ships of war to Civita
Vecchia to bring them to London, and they are
now in Carlton House.?
To his nephew in the Kirkgate he subsequently
wrote that a Royal Commissiolr under the Great
Seal (including Sir James Mackintosh) was a p
pointed to examine these valuable papers ; and in
1824 he wrote that amongst other things of some
value which have fallen into my possession, are the
carriage and tent-bed of Bonaparte, taken at the
battle of Waterloo. Further events will decide
to what purposes I may apply it (the carriage),
though it is probable I shall keep it for my own
use.?
This singular person committed suicide in 1838,
by strangling himself in a London tavern, in the
ninety-second year of his age--?a case of suicide,?
it was said, ?unparalleled in the annals of sorrow.?
On the east side of the Kirkgate, to take the
edifices in succession there, there was founded by
Robert Logan of Restalrig, in 1435, a preceptory
for the canons of St. Anthony, the only establkhment
of the kind in Scotland.
Arnot, in his history, unthinkingly mentions ?? the
monastery of Knights Templars of St. Anthony?
at Leith. These canons, says Chalmers, ? seem to
have been an order of religious knights, not
Templars. The only document in which they are
called Templars is a charter of James VI. in 1614,
giving away their establishment and revenues; and
this mistake of an ignorant clerk is wildly repeated
by Arnot.?
Their church, burying-ground, and gardens were
in St. Anthony?s Wynd, an alley off the Kirkgate ;
and the first community was brought from St
Anthony of Vienne, the seat of the order in France
They were formed in honour of St. Anthony, the
patriarch of monks, who was born at Coma, a
village of Heraclea on the borders of Arcadia, in
A.D.?z~I, and whose sister was placed in the first
convent that is recorded in history. A hermit by
habit, he dwelt long in the ruins of an old castle
that overlooked the Nile; and after his death (said
to have been in 356) his body was deposited in the
church of La Motte St. Didier, at Vienne, when,
according to old traditions, those labouring under
the pest known as St. ,4nthony?s Fire-a species of
erysipelas-were miraculously cured by praying at
his shrine.
Gaston, a noble of Vienne, and his son Gironde,
filled with awe, we are told, by these wonderful
cures, devoted their lives and estates to found a
hospital for those who laboured under this disease,
and seven others joined them in their attendance
on the sick; and on these Hospitaller Brethren
Boniface VIII. bestowed the Benedictine Priory
of Vienne, giving them the rules of St. Austin, and
declaring the Abbot General of this new orderthe
Canons Regular of St, Anthony. The superiors
of the subordinate preceptones were called commanders,
says Alban Butler, ? and their houses are
called commandenes, as when they were Hospitallers?
.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p034.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. VI Page 215")
... PRECEPTORY OF ST. ANTHONY. 215 Leith]
not making any deliberate assault ; but a pistol
shot was heard, and in ...
Book 6 p. 215
(Score 1.11)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Second High School.
behind the class in which I was placed both in
years and ...
Book 4 p. 294
(Score 1.11)
![Chongrte.] A LEGEND BY SIR WALTER SCOT?I?. 5 -
when the Castle of Duiiglass was blown up by
gunpowder.
An old house at the head of the Canongate, on
the north side, somewhere in the vicinity of Coull?s
Close, but now removed, was always indicated as
being the scene of that wild story which Scott
relates in his notes to the fifth canto of ?? Rokeby,?
and in his language we prefer to give it here.
He tells us that ?( about the beginning of the
eighteenth century, when the large castles of the
Scottish nobles, and even the secluded hotels,
hke those of the French noblesse, which they
had each 40,000 merks Scots as a fortune, their
uncle, the Earl of Argyle, being cautioner for the
payment, ?for relief whereof he got the wadset of
Lochaber and Badenoch? Lady Jean, a third
daughter, was also married in the ensuing January,
with a fortune of 30,000 merks, to Thomas, Earl
of Haddington, who perished in the following year,
bearers insisted upon his being blindfolded. The
request was enforced by a cocked pistol, and
submitted to ; but in the course of the discussion
he conjectured, from the phrases employed by the
chairmen, and from some parts of their dress not
completely concealed by their cloaks, that they
were greatly above the menial station they had
assumed. After many turnings and windings the
chair was carried upstairs into a lodging, where his
eyes were uncovered, and he was introduced into
a bed-room, where he found a lady nen-ly delivered
of an infant, and he was commanded by his
possessed in Edinburgh, were sometimes the scenes.
of strange and mysterious transactions, a divine of
singular sanctity was called up at midnight to pray
with a person at the point of death. This was no
unusual summons ; but what followed was alarming-
He was put into a sedanchair, and after he had
been transported to a remote part of the town the
EAST END OF HIGH STREET, NETHER BOW, AND WEST END OF CANONGATE. (Frmn G d w ofRofhiemay?r Mu!.)
48, Blackfriars Wynd : 49, l?odrig?s Wynd ; 50, Gay?s Wynd ; 51, St. Mary?s Wynd : 58, Leith Wynd ; 8, Suburbs of the Canongate : g, High
Street : 14, The Nether How ; h, The Nether-bow Port; 18, The Flesh Stocks in the Goongate.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p017.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. III Page 5")
... A LEGEND BY SIR WALTER SCOT?I?. 5 -
when the Castle of Duiiglass was blown up by
gunpowder.
An old ...
Book 3 p. 5
(Score 1.09)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. . [Queen Street,
always washed and carefully put away by her own
delicate hands, and ...
Book 3 p. 156
(Score 1.09)
... OLD.? AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The City Crosa.
by the Figgate-burn ere he marched to storm
Dunbar.?
There lie ...
Book 1 p. 150
(Score 1.08)
... AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street. 250
Sleat, and so named probably from the vast resort
and slaughter of seals ...
Book 2 p. 250
(Score 1.08)
![High Street.] ST. MARY?S CHA4PEL. 247
made out by Latinising his name into Nz?choZaus
Ea?wfirtus. It occupied the western side of Lockhart?s
Court, and was accessible only by a deep
archway.
In an Act passed in 158r, ?<Anent the Cuinzie,?
Alexander Clark of Balbirnie, Provost of Edinburgh,
and Nicol Edward, whose houses were both
in this wynd, are mentioned with others. The
latter appears in 1585 in the Parliament as Commissary
for Edinburgh, together with Michael Gilbert;
and in 1587 he appears again in an Act of
Parliament in favour of the Flemish craftsmen,
whom James VI. was desirous of encouraging ; but,
!est they should produce inferior work at Scottish
prices, his Majesty, with the advice of Council,
hes appointit, constitute, and ordainit, ane honest
and discreit man, Nicolas Uduart, burgess of Edinburgh,
to be visitor and overseer of the said craftsmen?s
hail warks, steiks, and pieces . . . the said
Nicolas sal have sic dueties as is contenit within
the buke, as is commonly usit to be payit therfore
in Flanderis, Holland, or Ingland ; I? in virtue
of all of which Nicholas was freed froin all watching,
warding, and all charges and impositions.
In that court dwelt, in 17534761, George Lockhart
of Carnwath One of the thirteen roonis in his
house contained a mantelpiece of singular magnificence,
that reached the lofty ceiling; but the
house had a peculiar accessory, in the shape of (? a
profound dungeon, which was only accessible by a
secret trapdoor, opening through the floor of a
small closet, the most remote of a suite of rooms
extending along the south and west sides of the
court. Perhaps at a time when to be rich was
neither so common nor so safe as now, Provost
Edward might conceal his hoards in this massy
more.?
The north side of Lockhart?s Court was long
occupied by the family of Bruce of Kinnaird, the
celebrated traveller.
In Niddry?s Wynd, a little below Provost Edward?s
house on the opposite side, stood St.
Mary?s Chapel, dedicated to God and the Blessed
Virgin Mary, according to Arnot, in 1505. Its
foundress was Elizabeth, daughter of James, Lord
Livingstone, Great Chamberlain of Scotland, and
Countess of Ross-then widow of John Earl of
Ross and Lord of the Isles, who, undeterred by
the miserable fate of his father, drew on him, by
his treasonable practices, the just vengeance of
James III., and died in 1498.
Colville of Easter U?emyss, and afterwards
Richardson of Smeaton, became proprietors and
patrons of this religious foundation ; and about
the year 1600, James Chaliners, a macer before the
Court of Session, acquired a right to the chapel,
and in 1618 the Corporations of Wrights and
Masons, known by the name of the United Incorporations
of Mary?s Chapel, purchased this subject,
?where they still possess, and where they hold
meetings,? says Arnot, writing in 1779.
In the CaZedonian Mercury for 1736 we read
that on St. Andrew?s Day the masters and wardens
of forty masonic lodges met in St. Mary?s Chapel,
and unanimously elected as their grand-master
William Sinclair of Roslin, the representative of
an ancient though reduced family, connected for
several generations with Scottish freemasonry.
For this ancient chapel a modern edifice was
substituted, long before the demolition of Niddry?s
Wynd; but the masonic lodge of Mary?s Chapel
still exists, and we believe holds its meetings
there.
Religious services were last conducted in the
new edifice when Viscountess Glenorchy hired it.
She was zealous in the cause of religion, and conceived
a plan of having a place of worship in
which ministers of every orthodox denomination
might preach; and for this purpose she had St.
Mary?s Chapel opened on Wednesday, the 7th
March, 1770, by the Rev. Mr. Middleton, the
minister of a small Episcopal chapel at Dalkeith ;
but she failed to secure the ministrations of any
clergyman of the Established Church, though in
1779 the Rev. William Logan, of South Leith, a
poet of some eminence in his time, gave his course
of lectures on the philosophy of history in the
chapel, prior to offering himself as a candidate for
the chair of civil history in the University.
On the east side of Niddry?s Wynd, nearly opp0-
site to Lockhart?s Court, was a handsome house,
which early in the eighteenth century was inhabited
by the Hon. James Erskine, a senator, better
known by his legal and territorial appellation of
Lord Grange, brother of John Earl of Mar, who
led? the great rising in 1715 on behalf of the
Stuarts. He was born in 1679, and was called to
the Scottish bar in 1705. He took no share in
the Jacobite enterprise which led to the forfeiture
of his brother, and the loss, ultimately of
the last remains of the once great inheritance in
the north from which the ancient family took its
name.
He affected to be a zealous Presbyterian and
adherent of the House of Hanover, and as such he
figures prominently in the ?? Diary? of the indus .
trious \ffodrow, supplying that writer with many
shreds of the Court gossip, which he loved so
dearly ; but Lord Grange is chiefly remembered for
the romantic story of his wife, which has long filled](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p067.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. II Page 247")
... Street.] ST. MARY?S CHA4PEL. 247
made out by Latinising his name into Nz?choZaus
Ea?wfirtus. It occupied the ...
Book 2 p. 247
(Score 1.07)
... here and there were sedgy pools and lonely displayed; stout and true Covenanters borne forth
tarns, where the ...
Book 1 p. 8
(Score 1.06)
... xiii
accordingly described in succeeding chaptkrs; the walls of which evidently suffered no very
great ...
Book 10 p. xv
(Score 1.04)
... HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE ISLAND. 29T
~~~~~ ~ ~~
land harbour, was repulsed in an attempt upon
St. ...
Book 6 p. 291
(Score 1.03)
... 2 2 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Convivialii
CHAPTER XII.
THE OLD EDINBURGH CLUBS.
Of Old Clubs, and some Notabilii ...
Book 5 p. 122
(Score 1.03)
![THE AULD KIRK STYLE. I53 The Luckenbootha.]
turesque and heavily-eaved buildings, stood in the
thoroughfare of the High Street, parallel to St.
Giles's church, from which they were separated
by a close and gloomy lane for foot passengers
alone, and the appellation was shared by the
opposite portion of the main street itself. This
singular obstruction, for such it was, existed from
among whom we may well include the well-known
firm of Messrs. M'Laren and Sons.
It was pierced in the middle by a passage called
the Auld Kirk Style, which led to the old north
door of St. Giles's, and there it was that in 1526
the Lairds of Lochinvar and Drumlanrig slew Sir
Thomas MacLellan of Bombie (ancestor of the
'
CREECH'S LAND. (Frmn an Ewaving ix Air "Fugitive Pircer.")
' the reign of James 111. till 1817, and the name is
supposed to have been conferred on the shops
in that situation as being close buuths, to distinguish
them from the open ones, which then lined the great
street on both sides, Zacken signifying close, thus
implying a certain superiority to the ancient traders
in these booths ; and it was considered remarkable
that amid all the changes of the old town there
is still in this locality an unusual proportion of
mercers, clothiers? and drapers, of very old standing,
a0
Lords Kirkcudbright), with whom they mere at
feud-an act for which neither of them was ever
questioned or punished.
Prior to the year 18 I I there remained unchanged
in the Luckenbooths two lofty houses of great
strength and antiquity, one of which contained
the town residence of Sir John Byres, Bart., of
Coates, an estate now covered by the west end of
new Edinburgh. He was a gentleman who made
a great figure in the city during the reign of](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p165.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. I Page 153")
... AULD KIRK STYLE. I53 The Luckenbootha.]
turesque and heavily-eaved buildings, stood in the
thoroughfare of ...
Book 1 p. 153
(Score 1.03)
... ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE. I09
them in the middle of the West Bow, and offered
to write the bond which they ...
Book 5 p. 109
(Score 1.02)
... DWELLINGS OF THE PEOPLE.
BY H. G. REID,
Author of ' Pasf and Preseitt,' ' L$e of fhc ...
Book 11 p. 128
(Score 1.02)
![C a n d l d a Raw.] GEORGE BROWN. 269 ?
school ; but Lord Hailes, after removing from
Todrig?s Wynd, occupied a house in ?The So-
. ciety,? before locating himself in New Street.
Brown Square, now nearly swept away, was a
small oblong place, about zoo feet east and west,
by 150 north and south. During the long delay
which took place between the first project of having
a New Town, and building a bridge that was to
lead to it, a rival town began to spring up in
another quarter, which required neither a bridge
nor an Act of Parliament, nor even the unanimity
of several interested proprietors to mature it, and
it soon became important enough to counteract for
some years the extension by the ridge of the Lang
In this quarter a fashionable boading-school
for young ladies was established in the middle of
$he last century by Mrs. Janet Murray, widow of
Archibald Campbell, collector of the customs at
Prestonpans. She died in the Society in 1770,
and the establishment was then conducted by her
friends under the name of ? Mrs. Murray?s Boarding
School?
To those who remember it in its latter days the
locality seems a strange one for a young ladies?
On the ground acquired so cheaply he proceeded
at once to erect, in 1763-4, houses that were
deemed fine mansions, and found favour with the
upper classes, before a stone of the New Town
was laid. Repenting of their mistake, the magistrates
offered Mr. Brown Az,ooo for the grouid;
but he, perceiving the success of his scheme, demanded
Lzo,ooo, so the city relinquished the
idea The square was quickly finished on nearly
three sides, including the Society, znd one old
mansion having an octagon turnpike stair, dated
17 18, at the north-east corner next Crombie?s Close,
and became filled with inhabitants of a good class
while George Square rose collaterally with it.
~
Dykes. This might have been prevented had the
magistrates contrived to acquire a piece of ground
south of the Old Town, which was offered to them
for only ~ I , P O O , but which was purchased by a
builder and architect namedGeorge Brown, abrother
of Brown of Lindsaylands and Elliston. He was
the projector and builder of George Square, and
Jso built the large house of Bellevue (for General
Scott of Balcomie), which stood so long in Dmmmond
Place.
THE CUNZIE HOUSE, CANDLEMAKER ROW,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p089.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. IV Page 269")
... a n d l d a Raw.] GEORGE BROWN. 269 ?
school ; but Lord Hailes, after removing from
Todrig?s Wynd, occupied a ...
Book 4 p. 269
(Score 1.01)
... ~~~ ~
LEITH. 97
punishment.' It is with the greatest astonishment that we read of such doings
of the ...
Book 11 p. 150
(Score 1.01)
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