KING’S STABLES, CASTLE BARNS, AND CASTLE HILL. 141
brother, united with it the title of Earl of Stair; a combination of titles in one person,
that afforded the wits of last century a favourite source of jest in the supposed recontres of
the two noble Earls.
The mansion appears to have passed into this nobleman’s possession very shortly after
its erection, as among the titles there is a declaration by William Earl of Dumfries, of
the date 20th March 1747, “that the back laigh door ol passage on the west side of
the house, which enters to the garden and property belonging to Mr Charles Hamilton
Gordon, advocate, is ane entry of mere tolerance given to me at the pleasure of the
owner,” &c.
The Earl was succeeded in it by his widow, who, exactly within year and day of his
death, married the Honourable Alexander Gordon, son of the second Earl of Aberdeen, On
his appointment as a Lord of Sesaion in 1784, he assumed the title of Lord Rockville,
from his estate in East Lothian. He was the last titled occupant that inhabited this
once patrician dwelling of the Old Town ; and the narrow alley that gives access to the court
behind, accordingly retaina the name of Rockville Close. Within this close, towards the
west, there is a plain substantial land now exposed to view by the Castle Road, originally
possessed by Elizabeth, Countess Dowager of Hyndford, and sold by her in the year 1740,
to Henry, the last Lord Holyroodhouse, who died at his house in the Canongate in 1755.l
Various ancient closes, and very picturesque front lands that formed the continuation of
the southern side of the Castle Hill, have been swept away to give place to the new
western approach and the Assembly Hall. One of these, ROSS’SC ourt, contained ‘‘ The
great Marquis of hgyle’s House in the Castlehill,” described by Creech, in his “ Fugitive
Pieces,” as inhabited, at that degenerate period, by a hosier, at a rental of S12 per annum.
Another of them, ‘Kennedy’s Close, though in its latter days a mean and dirty alley,
possessed some interesting remains of earlier times. It probably derived its name from a
recent occupant, a son of Sir Andrew Kennedy of Clowburn, Baronet ; but both Gom the
antique character, and the remains of faded grandeur in some of its buildings, it had doubtless
afforded residences for some of the old nobles of the Court of Holyrood. The front land
was said to have been the town mansion of the Earls of Cassillis, whose family name is
Kennedy. It was adorned, at the entrance to the close, with a handsome stone architrave,
supported on two elegant spiral fluted pillars, and the rest of the building presented a
picturesque wooden front to the street. Within the close there was another curious old
wooden fronted land, which tradition reported a0 having been at one period a nonjurant
Episcopal chapel. An inspection of this building during its demolition, served to show
that, although the main fabric was substantial and elegant stone work, the wooden front
was an integral part of the original design. It was found that the main beams of the ~ O U S ~ ,
of fine old oak, were continued forward through the stone wall, so as to support the wood
work beyond, and this was further confirmed by the existence of a large fireplace on the
outside of the stone wall; an arrangement which may still be seen in a similarly constructed
land at the head of Lady Stair’s Close, and probably in others. Within this house there
was one of the beautifully sculptured gothic niches, already alluded to, of which we furnish
a view, in the state in which it existed when the house was taken down. This we presume
*
Douglk’s Peerage.
