260 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
be considered its culminating point. It descended thereafter to Bellevue House in
Drummond Place, built by General Scott, the father-in-law of Mr Canning, which house
was demolished in 1846, in completing the tunnel of the Edinburgh and Leith Railway ;
and now, we believe, the exciseman no longer possesses a ‘ I local habitation ” within the
Scottish capital.
On the southern side of the High Street, below “the Tron,” some few remains of
antiquity have escaped the ruthless hand of destruction, though the general character of
the buildings partakes largely of modern tameness and insipidity. Previoua to the
commencement of the South Bridge in 1785, the east end of the Tron Church, which has
since been considerably curtailed, abutted on to a large and stately range of building of
polished ashlar, with an arched piazza, supported on stone pillars, extending along nearly
the whole front. A large archway in this building, immediately adjoining the church,
formed the entrance to Marlin’s Wynd, in front of which a row of six stones, forming
the shape of a coffin, indicated the grave of Marlin, a Frenchman, who, having first paved
the High Street in the sixteenth century, seems to have considered that useful work his
best public monument ; but the changes effected on this locality have long since oblite- ‘
rated the pavior’s simple memorial. The same destructive operations swept away the whole
of Niddry’s Wynd, an ancient alley, abounding with interesting fabrics of an early date,
and associated with some of the most eminent citizens of former times. Here was the
civic palace of Nicol Udward, Provost of Edinburgh in 1591, a large and very handsome
quadrangle building, of uniform architectural design and elegant proportions, in which
King James VI. and his Queen took up their residence for a time in 1591.‘ This
building appears, from the description of it, to have been one of the most magdcent
private edifices of the Old Town.’ In the same wynd, a little further down on the
opposite side, stood St Mary’s Chapel, an ancient religious foundation dedicated to the
Virgin Mary. It was founded and endowed by Elizabeth, Countess of Ross, in 1504,
the widow of John, Lord of the Isles, who was outlawed and forfeited by James III. for
treasonable correspondence with Edward IV. of England. She was the eldest daughter
of James, Lord Livingston, Great Chamberlain of Scotland, and appears to have held
considerable property by special charters in her own behalf. A modern edifice has been
substituted for the ancient chapel before the demolition of Niddry’a Wynd, which formed
the hall of the corporation of wrights and masons. It was acquired by them in 1618,
since which they have borne the name of the United Incorporations of May’s Chapel.
The modern erection appeared from it,s style to have been built early in the eighteenth
century, and its name is now transferred to their unpretending hall in Bell’s Wynd.
On entering Dickson’s Close, a little farther down the street, the first home the visitor
comes to on the left hand is a neat and very substantial stone edifice, evidently the work
of Robert Mylne, and built about the period of the Revolution. Of its first occupants
we can give no account, but one of its more recent inhabitants is calculated to give it a
peculiar interest. Here was the residence of David Allan, ‘‘ our Scottish Hogarth,” as
he was called, an artist of undoubted genius, whose fair fame has suffered by the tame
insipidity which inferior engravers have infused into his illustrations to Ramsay and
Burna. The satiric humour and drollery of his well-known ‘‘ rebuke scene ” in a country
...
l Bnte, p. 89. ’ For a detailed account of this very interesting old building, vide Minor Bntiquitieq p. 207,
THE HIGH STREET AND NETHER BOW. . 261
church, and the lively expression and spirit of the ‘‘ General Assembly,” and others of
his own etchings, amply justify the character he enjoyed among his contemporaries as a
truthful and humorous delineator of nature. He succeeded Runciman as master of the
Academy established by the Board of Trustees, the classes of which then met in the
College, while he received private pupils at his own house in Dickson’s Close.‘ A little
lower down the close on the same side, an old and curious stone tenement.bears on its
lower crowstep the Haliburton Arms, impaled with another coat, on one shield. It is a
singularly unique and time-worn edifice, evidently of considerable antiquity. A curious
double window projects on a corbeled base into the close, while the whole stone-work is
so much decayed as greatly to add to its picturesque character. In the earliest deed
which exists, bearing the date 1582, its first proprietor, Master James Halyburton--a
title then of some meaning-is spoken of in indefinite terms as umpb or deceased ; so
that it is a building probably of the early part of the sixteenth century. It afterwards
was the residence of Sir John Haliday of Tillybole. The moat interesting fact, however,
brought out by these early titles, occurs in defining the boundaries of the property,
wherein it is described as having “ the trans of the prebendaries of the kirk of Crightoun
on the east pairt and oyr partes ; ” so that a considerable part of Cant’s Close appeara
to have been occupied in early times by ecclesiastical buildings in connection with
the church of Crichton, erected into a collegiate foundation in 1449 by Sir Wm.
Crichton, Lord High Chancellor of Scotland.’ Directly opposite to the site of this
is another ecclesiastical edsce, the mansion of the Abbot of Melrose, which enters
from Strichen’s Close. It is a large and substantial stone building, enclosing a small
square or court in the centre, the original access to which seems to have disappeared.
The whole building has evidently undergone great alterations; and over one of the
doorways, a carved stone bears a large and very boldly cut shield, with two coats of
arms impaled, and the date 1600. There seems no reason to doubt,,however, that the
main portion of the Abbot’s residence still remains. The lower story is strongly vaulted,
and is evidently the work of an early date. The small quadrangle also is quite in
character with the period assumed for the building; and at its north-west angle in Cant’s
Close, where a curiously carved fleur-de-lis surmounts the gable, a grotesque gurgoil of
antique form serves as a gutter to the roof. Here, therefore, we may assign with little
hesitation the residence of Andrew Durie, nominated by James V. to the Abbey of Melrose
in the year 1526 ; and whose death, Knox assures us, was occasioned by the terror
into which he was put on the memorable uproar on St Giles’s day 1558. The close, which
is called the Abbot of Melrose’a in its earlier titles, assumes that of Rosehaugh Close at a
later period, from the Abbot’s lodging having become the residence of the celebrated Sir
George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh, King’s Advocate for Scotland after the Restoration.
During a great part of last century, this ancient mamion was occupied by Alexander
Fraaer of Strichen, who was connected by marriage with the descendants of Sir George
- 1
Caledonian M m l y , Nov. 15, 1788.-His terms were one guinea per month for three lessons in the week, a fee
that undoubtedly restricted hia private clawes at that period to the most wealthy and fashionable atudenta of art. The
date of the advertisement is the year of hia marriaga ’ “ X t appeara from old writinga and charters connected with the how, that the tenement fronting the street, by
which it waa bounded on the north, had been, before the Reformation, the lodging of the Provost of CriohtoxL’’-Tdtions,
voL i p. 92. The old building ia long aince destroyed.
