High Street.] THE ROYAL MINT. 267
Fortune?s tavern, removed from Skinner?s Close to
a house at the north-west corner of Nicolson
Square, and latterly at No. 2, St. Andrew Square
(now the London Hotel), where he died, in his
eightieth year, in ISOZ.
In his lordship?s time the office of Commissioner
to the Church, which he held from 1783 to 1801, was
attended with more ?pomp and circumstance?
Treasurer, under date February, 1562-3 :-
? Item, allowit to the carpenter, be payment maid
to Johne Achesoun, Maister Congreave, to Maister
William M?Dowgale, Maister of Werk, for expensis
maide be him vpon the bigging of the Cwnge-house,
within the castell of Edinburgh, and beting of the
qvnge-hous within the Palice of Halierud-house,
fra the xi. day of Februar, 1559, zens, to the
Comniissioner proceeded on foot, escorted by his
guard of honour.
South Gray?s, or the Mint Close, was one of the
stateliest alleys in the old city, and herein stood the
Cunzie flous, as the Scottish Mint was named
(after its removal from near Holyrood in Queen
Mary?s time) till the Union in 1707, and until lately
its sombre and massive tower of finely polished
ashlar projecting into the narrow thoroughfare of
Cowgate, for three hundred and four years formed
one of the leading features of the latter, and to the
last the old edifice retained many traces of the important
operations that once went on within its
walls.
The first Mint House had been originally erected
in the outer court of the palace of Holyrood, somewhere
near the Horse Wynd, fromwhence, for greater
safety, it was removed to the castle, in which a new
Mint House had been built in 1559, as shown by
edifices of the period,? says Wilson, describing
the edifice prior to its removal. ?The whole
building was probably intended, when completed,
to form a quadrangle, surrounded on every side by
the same substantial walls, well suited for defence
against any ordinary assault, while its halls were
lighted from the enclosed court. The small windows
in this part of the building remain in their
original state, being divided by an oaken transom,
and the under part closed by a pair of folding
shutters. The massive ashlar walls are relieved
by ornamental stringcourses, and surmounted by
crowsteps of the earliest form and elegant proportions.
. . . . The internal marks of former
magnificence are more interesting than their external
ones, notwithstanding the humble uses to
which the buildings have latterly been applied ;
in particular some portions of a very fine oak
ceiling still remain, wrought in Gothic panelling,
