254 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
of Fordell,” and although this is an obvious mistake for Sir Simon Preston’s residence
in the Black Turnpike, it is probable she had lodged there on some earlier and happier
occasion, when it was no very unwonted circumstance for her Majesty to become the guest
of the wealthier citizens of the capital. This old land, however, has also disappeared, and
is now replaced by a plain and unattractive modern erection.
We furnish a view of a very curious and beautiful Gothic
corbel, carved in the form of a grotesque head, with leaves
in its mouth, which was found on the east side of North
Gray’s Close, about twenty years since, in excavating for a tan
pit. It was discovered six feet below the ground j and in the
course of digging, the workmen came upon a large fragment
of wall, of very substantial masonry, running from east to
west, and completely below the foundations of the neighbouring
houses. We have examined a large collection of
title-deeds of the surrounding property in the hope of discovering
the existence of some religious house here in early
times, of which these are fragments, but the earliest, which
is dated 1572, describes nearly the whole close as then in a waste and ruinous state-a
condition to which it appears to be rapidly returning, after having, from the appearance
of the old buildings, afforded fitting residence for titled courtiers and wealthy burgesses.
These discoveries, however, furnish evidence of the great changes which have taken place
on Edinburgh in common with most other ancient cities. This portion of the town has
evidently been totally destroyed in the conflagration effected by the Earl of Hertford’s
army in 1544 ; and while the houses in the main street were speedily rebuilt, the ground
to the north lay for nearly thirty years an unoccupied waste, so that when the citizens at
length began to build upon it, they founded their new dwellings above the consolidated
ruins of the older capital. The carved stone was preserved in the nursery of Messrs
Eagle & Henderson, Leith Walk.
There was a fine old stone land at the head of Bailie Fife’s Close on the west side,
which bore, on a large lintel over one of the upper windows, the Trotter arms, in bold
relief; two stars in chief, and a crescent in base; with the initials I. T., I. M., and the
date 1612.’ Another ancient tenement remaius in gobd preservation, in Chalmers’s Close,
which possesses claims of special interest to the antiquary, as one of the very few n’ow left
in which the curious sculptured stone niches occur, that have been frequently referred to in
the course of this work. On the
first floor a small niche appears, at the right side of the doorway, immediately on entering,
and in the opposite wall there is another of large size, and a highly ornamental characterthough
now dilapidated, and greatly obscured with whitewash-through which a window
has been broken, looking into Barringer’s Close. Alongside of the latter niche a narrow
The house stands within the close, on the west side.
Diurnal of Occurrents, p,.115. ’ Another large shield occurs on a pannel above the ground floor, with the initials I. P., N. H., and the Pdey Arm8
(Yorkshire)-a cheveron between three mullets,-impaled with those of Hay. Over a neatly moulded doorway below
is the inscription in Roman characters, now greatly defaced :-BE . PASIENT . IN . THE. [LORD.] [This ancient
dwelling-house, which had stood for nearly 250 years, suddenly fell to the ground on midnight of Saturday, November
10,1861, burying in ita ruins thirty-five persons.]
