64 EDJNBUKGH PAST AND PRESENT.
~
Armadale’s retirement from the Bench, he was made a Baronet, and he sold
his house to Mr. Selkrig, a well-known accountant, who shortly afterwards
died in it. It was then purchased by Mr. Archibald Constable,’ the great
publisher, who resided in it till his death in 1827.
No. I and No. z remained, until they were about to be demolished, in
the respective families of their first proprietors ; but No. z was the only one
of the four houses which continued to the last in the possession of, and
inhabited by, the family of the original proprietors. In it, on the z 1st December
181 I, Archibald Campbell Tait, the future Archbishop of Canterbury,
was born. He was the seventh son of Craufurd Tait and Susan Campbell.
From this house he went for a year to the High School, and for the subsequent
three years he went daily to the ‘Edinburgh Academy.’ He was
accompanied every morning by Thomas Constable, his immediate neighbour
and dear friend through life, and by his cousin from No. I, Ramsay Campbell,
who in after life became Rector of Aston in Yorkshire, and died a few years
ago in his cousin’s arms at the Archiepiscopal country residence of Addington.
In those days there was no George IV. Bridge, and the first part of the
nearly two miles walk, or rather run, was (as a short cut) through dirty lanes or
‘ closes,’ till the Mound was reached. Whenever in after life the Archbishop
came to Edinburgh, his home was in No. 2 Park Place, and his elder surviving
brothers continued to live in it till they were persuaded to migrate, and
forward the views of the University. The Leaving Park Place ’ has become
almost a matter of history from the touching lines of a modem Scotch poet
and distinguished Judge, Lord Neaves.
‘Ross House,’ among its other changes, was for above thirty years
a Lying-in Hospital, under the special care of Dr. James Hamilton, of
European celebrity, and within its walls-for good or for evil-many
thousands of the human race came into existence. The situation of Park
Piacc may perhaps be best known in future by the Univcsiiy Music Hair,
which about twelve years ago the proprietors of that private street allowed to
- be erected in the park immediately to the east of them, and over which they
had a servitude.
The &e of the convent of St. Catherine of Sienna, a little to the south
of the East Meadows, is marked by a suitable inscription on an iron tablet
placed there by Mr. George Seton, ddvocate, an accomplished scholar and
antiquary, who has preserved some of the stones of the ancient edifice in the -
1 Before coming to Park Place, Mr. Constable resided at the beautiful and interesting mansion
of Craigcrook.
