CHAPTER V.
THE HIGH STREET.
WING to the peculiar site of the Scottish
capital, no extension of the Old Town
beyond its early limits has in any degree
detracted from the importance of its most
ancient thoroughfare, which extends under
different names from the Palace to the
Castle, and may be regarded as of antiquity
coeval with the earliest fortifications of the
citadel to which it leads. Alongside of this
roadway, on the summit of the sloping ridge,
the rude huts of the early Caledonians were
constructed, and the first parish church of St
Giles reared, so early, it is believed, as the
ninth century.’ Fynes Moryson, an English
traveller, who visited Edinburgh in the year
1598, thus describes it :-“ From the King’s Pallace at the east, the city still riseth higher
and higher towards the west, and consists especially of one broad and very faire street,-
which is the greatest part and sole ornament thereof,-the rest of the side streetes and
allies being of poore building, and inhabited with very poore people.” We may add, however,
to his concluding remark, the more accurate observation of the eccentric traveller,
Taylor, the water-poet, who visited the Scottish capital a few years later, and shows his
greater familiarity with its internal features by describing ‘‘ many by-lanes and closes on
each side of the way, wherein are gentlemen’s houses, much fairer than the buildings h the
High Street, for in the High Street the merchants and tradesmen do well, but the gentlemen’s
mansions, and goodIiest houses, are obscurely founded in the aforesaid lanes.”
The preceding chapter is chiefly devoted to some of the more ancient and peculiar
features of this street. Yet strictJy speaking, while every public thoroughfare is styled in
older writs and charters ‘‘ the King’s High Street,” the name was only exclusively applied
Amot, p. 268. * Itinerary, London, 1617. Bann. Mia. vol. ii. p. 393.
VIcmm~-Common Seal of the City of Edinburgh, from a charter dated AD. 1565. Vidc p. 73, for the
Counter Seal
