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HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE NOTES. 73
‘ suits of ancient and rusted armour, interchanged with massive stone scutcheons
bearing (crescents), double tressures Aowered and countedowered,
wheat-sheaves, coronets, and so forth,’ to all of which the love-sick page was
utterly indifferent. .
In a charter granted by the Provost and Magistrates of Edinburgh to
Ebenezer M‘CulIoch, one of the Managers of the ‘British Linen Manufactory,’
in the year 1748, the ground now partly occupied by Whiteford House is
described as ‘All and Whole that area and ruins which formerly belonged
to the Earls of firinton, and now to us.’ From the record of the relative proceedings
by the Town Council, it appears that the dimensions of the ‘ area ’
were as follows : ‘from east to west, fronting to the high street of the Canongate,
seventy-two feet four inches ; from east to west, fronting to the road leading
by the north side of the Canongate, sixty-two feet ; and from south to
north, two hundred and fourteen feet.’ The ‘ruins’ appear to have long since
been levelled to the ground ; but during some very recent excavations a few
WHITGPOXD HOUSE.
yards to the south of Whiteford House, several underground arches were
brought to light, which in all probability formed a portion of the ancient
edifice of the Setons. ShortIy after M‘Culloch’s purchase, the property was
sold to Andrew Fletcher of Salton, Lord Justice-clerk; and after passing
through the hands of various owners, it was acquired, in 1769, by John
Coutts, merchant in Edinburgh, ancestor of the accomplished and philanthropic
Baroness Burdett-Coutts. The year following, a portion of the area was sold
to John Grant, a Baron of Exchequer, who appears to have previously purchased
the remainder, as he obtained authority from t h e a e a n of Guild
Court, in the summer of 1766, to build the present Whiteford House. It
was inhabited for many years, till his death in 1833, by Sir William Macleod
Bannatyne, raised to the Bench as Lord Bannatyne in 1799, whose conversa-
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