L UCKENBOOTHS AND PARLIAMENT CLOSE. 201
and humour that led Burns to style him ‘‘ a birkie wee1 worth gowd,” and made him a
favourite among the large circle of eminent men who adorned the Scottish capital in the
eighteenth century. ITe died in 1815, only two years before the interesting old land,
which bore his name for nearly half a century, was levelled with the ground.
A carefully engraved view of Creech’s Land is attached to the edition of his “ Fugitive
Pieces,” published by his successor soon after his death, An outside stair at the north
corner, which formerly gave access, according to the usual style of the older houses, to
Allan Ramsay’s library, on the first floor, had been removed about €en years before, but
the top of the doorway appears in the view as a small window. The laigh shop, which
occupied the subterranean portion of this curious building, is worthy of mention here.
Although such a dungeon ae would barely sufEce for the cellarage of a modern tradesman,
it was for many years the button warehouse of Messrs T. & A. Hubheson, extensive and
wealthy traders, who, in the bad state of the copper coinage,-when even George 111.
hdfpennies would not pass current in Scotland,-produced a coinage of Edinburgh halfpennies
that were universally received. They were of excellent workmanship ; bearing
on one side the city arms, boldly struck, and on the other the figure of St Andrew. They
continued in common use until the Close of the last century, when a new copper coinage
was introduced from the Mint. Since then they have graddally disappeared, and are now
rarely to be met with except in the cabinets of the curious.
At the entrance to the narrow passage on the south side of this old land,-called the
Krames, from the range of little booths stuck against the walls and buttresses of St
Giles’s Church,-there formerly existed a flight of steps known by the name of “ Our
Lady Steps; from a statue of the Virgin that had once occupied a plain Gothic niche
in the north-east angle of the church. An old gentlewoman is mentioned in the ‘‘ Traditions of Edinburgh,” who died about 1802, at the age of ninety, and who remembered
having seen both the statue and steps in her early days. The existence of the statue at
so recent a period, we suspect, must be regarded as an error of memory. It is scarcely
conceivable that an image of the Virgin, occupying so prominent a position, could escape
the fury of the Reforming mobs of 1559.l The niche, however, remained, an interesting
memorial of other times, till it fell a sacrifice to the tasteless uniformity of modern
Jeaut8m-s in 1829.
The New Tolbooth, or Council House, has already been frequently alluded to, and its site
described in the course of the work.’ It was attached to the west wall of St Giles’s Church,
and at some early period there had existed a means of communication with it from the
upper floors, as appeared by an arch that remained built up in the party wall.s A
covered passage led through it into the Parliament Close, forming the only Bccess to the latter
from the west. From the period of the erection of this building in the reign of Queen
.
,
“The poore made havocke of all goods moveable in the Blacke and Gray friera, and left nothing but bare walls;
yea, not so muche as doore or window, so that the Lords had the lease to doe when they came. After their coming, all
monuments of idolatrie within the toun, and in places adjacent, were suppressed and removad.”-29th June 1559. Calderwood‘
s Hist. v01. i p. 475.
1 Ante, p. 72. The previous statement is scarcely correct; however, the old Council House stood immediately to the
north of the lobby of the Signet Library, but without occupying any part of its site ; the old building continued standing
until the other was built to some height. * Thk also appears from the notice of the meeting of Parliament, 17th January 1572, ante, p. 84.
2 c
