KING'S STABLES, CASTLE BARNS, AND CASTLE mu. I53
of the school recently rebuilt in Ramsay Lane, that still bears his name. Since then it
shared the fate of most of the patrician dwellings of the Old Town; its largest apartments
were subdivided by h s y partitions into numerous little rooms, and the old mansion
furnished latterly a squalid and straitened abode for a host of families of the very humblest
ranks of life.
The external appearance of this interesting range of buildings is more easily described
with the pencil than the pen. The accompanying engraving exhibits the front. t,o the
Castle Hill, and also shows a curious feature that attracted considerable notice, at the
entrance to Todd'R Close, where, owing to the construction of the overhanging timber
fronts, the whole weight of the buildings on each side seemed to be borne by a single
slender stone pillar, of neat proportions, though exhibiting abundant evidence of age and
long exposure to violence.
The buildings already described in Blyth'R Close stood upon the west side, where a
portion of them still remains. They retained, in the relics of their ancient decorations,
evidence which appears to confirm the tradition of their having at one period been the
residence of the Queen Regent, Mary of Guise ; but it is to that on the east side alone that
anything of an ecclesiastical character can, with propriety, be assigned.
About halfway down the close, and directly opposite the main entrance on the west side,
a pkojecting turnpike-stair gave access to a vestibule on the first floor, which formed only a
small portion of what had originally been a large and magnificent apartment. This we
conceive to have been what Maitland describes as " the chapel or private oratory of Mary of
Lorraine."' Immediately on entering from the stair, a large doorway appeared on the
left hand, which had apparently given access to a gallery leading acrose to the Palace on
the opposite side of the close. Beyond this there was a niche placed, as usual, at the side
of a large and handsome fireplace, with clustered Gothic pillars, of the same form as those
already described in other parts of the building. The mouldings of this niche corresponded
in character with those on the opposite side of the close, but the eculptured top had been
removed. In the east wall, however, and almost directly opposite the fireplace, there was
a large and highly ornamental niche,' of which we furnish a view. In the centre there
was the figure of an angel holding a shield, and the whole character of the tracery and other
ornaments waa in the richest style of decorated Gothic.( It, in all probability, served as a
credence table, or other appendage to the altar of the chapel.
This apartment was occupied as a schoolroom, about the middle of last century, by a
teacher of note, named Mr John Johnstone. When he first resided in it, there wm a
curious urn in the niche, and a small square stone behind the same, of so singular an
appearance, that, to satisfy his curiosity, he forced it from the wall, when he found in the
recess an iron casket, about seven inches long, four broad, and three deep, having a lid like
that of a caravan-trunk, and secured by two claspR falling over the key-holes, and comhave
the same place and precedency within the town precincts that was due tu the Nayoxa of London or Dublin, and
that no other Provost should be called Lord Provost but he ; "4 privilege that seems to have been lost sight of by the
civic dignitaries of the good town. ' Maitland, p. 206. ' This and various other examples serve to show that the principlea of pure Gothic architecture were followed to a
much later date in Scotland than in England. The foundation stone of Caiue College, Cambridge, for example, a good
specimen of the hybrid style of debased Qothic, was laid in 1565.
Now in the collection of C. K. Sharpe, Eeq.
U
I54 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
mnnicathg with some curious and intricate machinery within.”’ This interesting relic
was obtained from a relative of the discoverer by Robert-Chambers, Esq., the author of the
‘‘ Traditions of Edinburgh,” by whom it was
presented to Sir Walter Scott. It was empty
at the time of its discovery, but is supposed to
have been used for holding the smaller and
more valuable furnishings of the altar. It is
now in the collection at Abbotsford, and
has all the appearance of great antiquity.
Portions of another curious relic, found near
the same spot, and presented by the late
E. A. Drummond Hay, Esq., to the Society
of Antiquaries, are thus described in the
list of donations for 1829 :-‘‘ An infantine
head and hand, in wax, being all thatremained
of a little figure of the child Jesus,
discovered in May 1828, in a niche carefully
walled up in the chapel of the house
formerly occupied by Mary of Lorraine, in
Blyth’s Close, Castle Hill.”
Considerable fragments of very fine carvin-g
in oak remained in the chapel till within these few years. One specimen in particular,
now in the possession of C. K. Sharpe, Esq., presents a richly carved and exceedingly
beautiful design of grapes and vine leaves, surmounted by finial6 ; and other portions of
the same decorations have recently been adopted by the Duke of Sutherland, as models
for the carved work introduced by him in the interior fittings of Dunrobin Castle. The
windows of the chapel were very tall and narrow, and singularly irregular in their
height; their jams were splayed externally on the one side, as is not uncommon in the
narrow closes of the Old Town, to catch every ray of light, and exhibited the remains
of stone mullions with which they had been originally divided.
In the east wall of this building, which still stands, there is a curious staircase built in
the thickness of the wall, which afforded access from the chapel to an apartment below,
where there was a draw-well of fine clear water, with a raised parapet of stone surrounding
it. Immediately to the north of this, on the same floor, another room existed with interesting
remains-of former grandeur; the fireplace was in the same rich style of Gothic design
already described, and at the left side there was a handsome Gothic niche, with a plain one
immediately adjoining it. The entrance to this portion of the Palace was locked and
cemented with the rust of years ; the door leading to the inner staircase was also built up,
and it had remained in this deserted and desolate state during the memory of the oldest of
the neighbouring inhabitants ; excepting that ‘‘ ane sturdy beggar ” lived for some time,
rent free, in one of the smaller rooms, hia only mode of ingress or egress to which was by
Traditions, vol i. p. 85. * The genuineness of this relic. has been oalled in question, from its reaemblance to the fragments of a large doll, but
those who have viaited the Continent will readily acknowledge the groundlessnesa of such an objection. ’
