264 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH,
in an advertisement of the year 1798, as ‘‘ the Auld Cameronian Meeting-house.” Tradition
pointed out the upper flat of the same tenement as having been the’lodging of
‘.i Nicol Muschett of ill memorie,” while a student at college, though it appears, from the
evidence on his trial, that his
final residence was in Dickson’s
Close. This ancient tenement,
which was latterly regarded with
interest, as bearing the oldest
date on any p‘rivate building in
Edinburgh, excepting that already
described in Blyth’s Close,
has been recently entirely demolished,
and replaced by a plain
unpretending erection.‘ But we
have since discovered a stone in
the possession of James Gibson Craig, Esq., bearing the much earlier date of 1506, which
was removed from a house taken down some years since, near the foot of this same wynd,
on the opposite side. The stone appears to have formed the top of a dormer window,
being triangular in shape, and surmounted by an unusually large crescent. The date is
cut partly in Arabic and partly in Roman numerals, thus :-15VI. The site of this
ancient fabric is now a ruinous waste, rendering it impossible to recover any traces of its
proprietors, either in early or later times.
Immediately adjoining the former building, on the west side of the wynd, is the venerable
mansion of the Earls of Morton, an ancient timber-fionted land, already referred to in the
description of Brown’s Close, Castlehill,’ with its fine Gothic doorway, and sculptured tympanum,
containing a coronet supported by unicorns. Such portions of the stone front as
remain exposed, exhibit the feature, which occurs so frequently in buildings of an early
date, of moulded windows originally divided by stone mullions. The desolate and deserted
aspect of the vice-regal residence, comports with the degraded state of this once patrician
locality, now ‘‘ fallen on evil days and evil tongues.’’ It has long been entirely shut up,
defying as completely dl attempts at investigating its interior, as when Queen’s m n and
King’s men were fighting in the High Street, and Kirkaldy of Grange was bent on driving
the Regent and all his followers from the town. The evidence of this mansion having
been occupied by the Regent Morton is not complete, though it is undoubtedly of an earlier
date, and appears to have been possessed by. his immediate ancestors. The earliest title
which we have 6een is a disposition by Archibald Douglaa, younger of Whittinghame, one
of the senators of the College of Justice, in which it is described as “that tenement which
was some time the Earl of Mortoun’s.’’ From this it may be inferred to have been the
residence of his direct ancestor, John, second Earl of Morton, who sat in the Parliament
of James IV. in 1504,’ and whose grandson, William Douglas of Whittinghame was
created a senator of the College of Justice in 1575. He was a contemporary of his kins-
.
The ancient tenement at the head of Monteith’s Close bore the date 1562, with an inscription over the doorway
Ante, p. 138.
of a remarkably fine inner turnpike, but it waa demolished several years before the one in Blackfriars’ Wynd.
a Douglae’a Peerage, vol. ii. p. 269.
