CHAPTER 111.
THE LA WNMARKET.
ANY citizens still ring can remember
when the wide thoroughfare immediately
below the Castle Hill used to be covered with
the stalls and bookhs of the ‘‘ lawn merchants,”
with their webs and cloths of every description,
giving that central locality all the appearance
of a fair. This also, however, with other old
customs, has passed away, and the name only
remaina to preserve the memory of former
usages, although such was the importance of
this locality in former times, that its occupants
had a club of their own, styled “The Lawnmarket
Club,” which was celebrated in its
day for the earliest possession of all important
news.
The old market-place was bounded on the
west by the Weigh-house, or 6c butter trone,”
as it is styled in some of the title-deeds of the
neighbouring buildings, and on the east by the
ancient Tolbooth, and formed in early times .
the only open space of any great extent, with
the single exception of the Grassmarket, that
existed within the town walls.
The Weigh-house7 of which we furnish an
engraving, was a clumsy and inelegant building,
already alluded to,’ occupying the centre of the street at the head of the West Bow. It
was rebuilt in the year 1660 on the site of a previous erection, which is shown in Cordon’s
map of 1646, adorned with a steeple at the east end, and appears, from contemporaneous
~ c o ~ ttos h,a ve been otherwise of an ornamental character. The only decorations on
Vide pp. 96-7.
~IaNETTB.-G~adatone’a Land.
. .
