KING’S STABLES, CASTLE BARNS, AND CASTLE HILL. I43
The poet was extremely proud of his new mansion’, and appears to have been somewhat
surprised to fiud that its fantastic shape rather excited the mirth than the admiration of his
fellow-citizens. The wags of the town compared it to a goose pie ; and on his complaining
of this one day to Lord Elibank, his lordship replied, ‘‘ Indeed, Allan, when I see you in
it, I think they are not far wrong! ”
On ‘the death of Allan Ramsay, in 1757, he was succeeded in his house by his son, the
eminent portrait-painter, who added a new front and wing to it, and otherwise modified its
original grotesqueness; and since his time it was the residence of the Rev. Dr Baird,
late Principal of the University. Some curious discoveries, made in the immediate neighbourhood
of the house, in the lifetime of the poet, are thus recorded in the Scots Magazine
for 1754,-(‘ About the middle of June, some workmen employed in levelling the upper
part of Mr Ramsay’s garden, in the Castle Hill, fell upon a subterraneous chamber about
fourteen feet square, in which were found an image of white stone, with a crown upon its
head, supposed to be the Virgiu Mary ; two brass candlesticks ; about a dozen of ancient
Scottish and French coins, and some other trinkets, scattered among the rubbish. By
several remains of burnt matter, and two cannon balls, it is guessed that the building above
ground was destroyed by the Castle in some former confusion.” This, we would be inclined
to think, may have formed a portion of the ancient Church of St Andrew, of which so little
is known; though, from Dlaitland’s description, the site should perhaps be looked for
somewhat lower down the bank. It is thus alluded to by him,--“ At the southern side of
the Nordloch, near the foot of the Castle Hill, stood a church, the remains whereof I am
informed were standiiig within these few years, by Professor Sir Robert Stewart, who had
often seen them. This I take to have been the Chnrch of St Andrew, near the Castle of
Edinburgh, to the Trinity Altar, in which Alexander Curor, vicar of Livingston, by a
deed of gift of the 20th December 1488, gave a perpetual annuity of twenty merks Scottish
money.” In the panelling of the Reservoir, which stands immediately to the south
of Ramsay Garden, a hole is still shown, which is said to have been occasioned by a shot
in the memorable year 1745. The ball was preserved for many years in the house, and
ultimately presented to the late Professor Playfair.
An old stone land occupies the corner of Ramsay Lane, on the north side of the Castle
Hill. It presents a picturesque front to the main street, surmounted with a handsome
double dormer window. On its eastern side, down Pipe’s Close, there is a large and
neatly moulded window, exhibiting the remains of a stone mullion and transom, with which
it has been divided; and, in the interior of the same apartment, directly opposite to this,
there are the defaced remains of a large gothic niche, the only ornamental portions of which
now visible are two light and elegant buttresses at the sides, affording indication of its
original decorations.
Tradition, as reported to us by several different parties, assigns this house to the Laird
of Cockpen, the redoubted hero, as we presume, of Scottish song ; and one party further
a5rms, in confirmation of this, that Ramsay Lane had its present name before the days
of the poet, having derived it from this mansion of the Ramsays of Cockpen.’ Its
Maitland, p. 206.
* The Lairds of Cockpen were U branch of the Rameays of Dalhousie ; Douglas’s Peerage, vol. i. p. 404. Maitland in
his List of Streets, &e., mentions a Ramaay’a Cloae without indicating it on the map.
144 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
last recorded noble occupants are mentioned by Chambers as ((two ancient spinsters,
daughters of Lord GraF.” Over the main entrance of the next land, there is a defaced
inscription, with the date 1621. The house immediately below this is worthy of notice,
as a fine specimen of an old wooden fronted land, with the timbers of the gable elegantly
carved. During the early part of the last century, this formed the family mansion of
David, the third Earl of Leven, on whom the title devolved after being borne by two
successive Countesses in their own right. He was appointed Governor of Edinburgh Castle
by William and Mary, on its surrender by the Duke of Gordon in 1689 ; and shortly after
he headed his regiment, and distinguished himself at the battle of Killicrankie by running
away! To the east of this there formerly stood, at the head of Sempill’s Close, another
wooden fronted land, ornamented with a curious projecting porch at the entrance to the
close, and similar in general style to those taken down in 1845, of which we furnish an
engraving. It hung over the street, story above story, each projecting further the higher
it rose, as if in defiance of all laws of gravitation, nntil at length it furnished unquestionable
evidence of its great age by literally tumbling down about the ears of its poor inmates,
happily without any of them suffering very serious injury.
Immediately behind the site of this house stands a fine old mansion, at one time
belonging to the Sempill family, whose name the close still retains. It is a large and
substantial building, with a projecting turnpike stair, over the entrance to which is the
inscription, PRAISED BE THE LORD MY GOD, MY STRENGTH, AND MY
REDEEMER. ANN0 DOM. 1638, and a device like an anchor, entwined with the
letter S. Over another door, which gives entrance to the lower part of the same house,
there is the inscription, SEDES MANET OPTIMA CGLO, with the date and device
repeated. On the left of the first inscription there is a shield, bearing party per fesse, in
chief three crescents, a mullet in base. The earliest titles of the property are wanting, and
we have failed to discover to whom these arms belong. The house was purchased by
Hugh, twelfth Lord Sempill, in 1743, from Thomas Brown and Patrick Manderston, two
merchant burgesses, who severally possessed the upper and under portions of it. By him it
was converted into one large mansion, and apparently an additional story added to it, as
the outline of dormer windows may be traced, built into the west wall.
Lord Sempill, who had seen considerable military service, commanded the left wing of
the royal army at Culloden. He was succeeded by his son John, thirteenth Lord Sempill,
who, in 1755, sold the family mansion to Sir James Clerk of Pennycuik.
The ancient family of the Sempills is associated in various ways with Scottish song.
John, son of Robert, the third Lord, married Mary Livingston, one of ‘I the Queen’s
Maries.” Their son, Sir James, a man of eminent ability and great influence in his day,
was held in high estimation, and employed as ambassador to England in 1599 ; he was the
author of the clever satire, entitled “ The Packman’s Paternoster.” His aon followed in
his footsteps, and produced an “ Elegy on Habbie Simsou, the piper of Kilbarchan,” a
poem’ of great vigour and much local celebrity; while his grandson, Francis Sempill of
Beltrees, is the author both of the fine old song, “ She rose and let me in,” and of a curious
poem preserved in Watson’s collection, en titled ‘‘ Banishment of Poverty,” written about
Watson’8 Collection of Scots Poems, 1706, part i. p. 32.
