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Old and New Edinburgh Vol. II

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High Street.] BISHOP KENNEDY. 241 counsellor of James 11. and James 111. The building indicated as having been his residence is a large stone tenement of great antiquity on the east side, having thereon a coat of arms and a mitre, which were removed a few years ago ; and our best antiquary asserts that ?? the whole appearance of the building is perfectly consistent with the supposition? that it had been Bishop Kennedy?s abode. ? The form and decorations of the doorways all prove an early date ; while the large ?A large and convenient house, entering by a close mostly paved with flagstones, on the north side of the street near the Nether Bow, consisting of eight rooms, painted last year, or papered, some with Chinese paper ; a marble chimney-piece from the ceiling in one, concaves and slabes (sic) two other of the rooms ; the drawing-room elegantly fitted up, painted, gilded, and carved in the newest style, with light closets to all the bed-rooms and other conveniences to the dining-room and parlour ; HOUSE IN HIGH STREET WITH MEMORIAL WINDOW, I? HEAVE AWA, LADS, I?M NO DEID YET !? and elegant mouldings of the windows, and the massive appearance of the whole building, indicate such magnificence as would well consort with the dignity of the primacy at that early period.? Bishop Kennedy, author of a history of his own times, now lost, died in 1466, and was interred at St. Andrews. . Baron Grant?s and Bailie Grant?s Closes were among the last alleys on this side, adjoining the Nether Bow Port. An advertisement in the Edinburgh Cvurani for 1761, in describing the house of Mr. Grant (who was a Baron of the Exchequer Court) as offered for sale, gives us a pretty accurate idea of what a mansion in the Old Town was in those days :- 31 wine cellar and large kitchen, a coal-fauld, fire-room for servants, and larder; a hen-house and cribbs, for feeding all sorts of fowls ; a house for a sedanchair; a rack to contain 10 gross of bottles, all built and slated; a garden extending down the greatest part of Leith Wynd, planted with flowering shrubs, and servitude for a separate entry to it, passing by the gate of Lord Edgefield?s house.? The garden referred to must have been bounded by the massive portion of the eastern wall of the city, which fell down about twenty years ago ; and the Lord Edgefield, whose neighbour the Baron had been, was Mr. Robert Pringle, who was raised to the Bench in 1754, and, dying ten years after, was succeeded by the well-known Lord Pitfour.
Volume 2 Page 241
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