ECCLESIASTICAL ANTIQUITIES. 413
tradition of its dedication to St Anthony; but the silver stream, celebrated in the plaintive
old song, “ 0 waly, waly up yon bank,” still wells clearly forth at the foot of the rock,
ming the little bason of St Anthony’s Well, and rippling pleasantly through the long
grass into the lower valley.’
The Chapel and Hermitage of St Anthony, though deserted and roofless for centuries,
appear to have remained nearly entire, with the exception of the upper portion of the tower,
till about the middle of the last century. Arnot, writing about the year 1779, remarks:-
“ The cell of the Hermitage yet remains. It is sixteen feet long, twelve broad, and eight
high. The rock rises within two feet of the stone arch, which forms its roof; and at the
foot of the rock flows a pure stream, celebrated in an old Scottish ballad.” All that now
remains of the cell is a small recess, with a stone ledge constructed partly in the natural
rock, which appears to have been the cupboard for storing the simple refreshments of the
hermit of St Anthony. The Chapel is described by the same writer as having been 8
beautiful Gothic building, well suited to the rugged sublimity of the rock. “It was fortythree
feet long, eighteen feet broad, and eighteen high. At its west end there was a tower
of nineteen feet square, and it is supposed, before its fall, about forty feet high. The
doors, windows, and roof, were Gothic; but it has been greatly dilapidated within the
author’s remembrance.”’ The tower is represented in the view of 1544 as finished with
a plain gabled roof; and the building otherwise corresponds to this description. The
wanton destruction of this picturesque and intefesting ruin proceeded within our own
recollection ; but its further decay has at length been retarded for a time by some slight
repairs, which were unfortunately delayed till a mere fragment of the ancient hermitage
remained. The plain corbels and a small fragment of the groined roof still stand ; and
an elegant sculptured stoup for holy water, which formerly projected from the north wall,
was preserved among the collection of antiquities of the late firm of Messrs Eagle and
Henderson. It is described by Maitland as occupying a small arched niche, and
opposite to it was another of larger dimensions, which was strongly fortified for keeping
the Pix with the consecrated bread;’ but no vestige of the latter now remains, or of m y
portion of the south wall in which it stood.
Towards the close of the fourteenth century, St Mary’s Church at Leith appears to
have been erected; but notwithstanding its large size-what remains being only a small
portion of the original edifice-no evidence remains to show by whom it was founded.
The earliest notice we have found of it is in 1490, when a contribution of an annual rent
is made ‘‘by Peter Falconer, in Leith, to a chaplain in St Piter’s Alter, situat in the
Virgin Mary Kirk in Leith.”3 Similar grants are conferred on the chaplains of St
Bartholomew’s and St Barbarie’s Altars, the latest of which is dated 8th July 1499-
the same year in which the Record of the Benefactors of the neighbouring preceptory is
brought to a close.’
Maitland and Chalmers,6 as well as all succeeding writers, agree in assigning the
destruction of the choir and transepts of St Mary’s Church to the English invaders under
1 Arnot, p. 256. Inventar of Pioua Donations, YS. Ad. Lib.
4 One charter of a later date is recorded in the Inventar of Pious Donations, by “ Jo. Logane of Kestalrig, mortifyf
Maitland, p. 497. Cdedonia, vol. ii. p. 786.
Maitland, p. 152.
ing in St Anthooy’a Chapel in Leith, hi tenement, lying on the south side of the Bridge,” dated 10th Feb. 1505,
