I 16 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. p e w Town,
himself and his lady. This lintel was removed by
the late Sir Patrick Walker, who had succeeded to
the estate, and was rebuilt by him into the present
ancient house, which is destined long to survive as
the deanery of St. Mary?s cathedral. Into the
walls of the same house were built some fragments
of sculpture from a mansion in the Cowgate, traditionally
known as the residence of the French
embassy in Mary?s time. They are now in the
north wing.
On the eastern side of the mansion of Coates are
two ancient lintels, one dated 1600, with the initials
C. C. I. and K. H. The other bears the same
initials with the legend,
I PRAYS YE LORD FOR
ALL HIS BENEFErIS, 1601.
Coates lay westward of Bearford?s Parks and the
old Ferry Road. The form?er edifice, a picturesque
old mansion, with turrets, dormer windows, and
crowstepped gables, in the Scoto-French style, still
remains unchanged among its changed surroundings
as when it was built, probably about 1611, by
Sir John Byres of Coates, whose, town residence was
in Byres? Close, in the High Street, and over the
door of which he inscribed the usual pious legend,
? Blksif be God ia aC his g$%$? with the initials of
?
1 On the west a dormer gable bears the date 1615,
with the initials J. B. and M. B., and a stone built
above the western door bears in large letters the
word IEHOVA, with the city motto and the date
1614
According to the inscription on the tomb of
? the truly good and excellent citizen John Byres
of Cokes,? in the Greyfriars churchyard, as given
by Monteith, it would appear that he was two
years city bailie, two years a suburban bailie, six
THE MANYION OF EASTER COATLS.
years Dean of Guild, and that he died on the
24th of November, 1629, iri his sixtieth year.
Prior to the time of the Byres the property had
belonged to the Lindsays, as in the ratification
by Parliament to Lord Lindsay, in 1592, are mentioned
?the landis of Dene, but the mylnes and
mure thereof, and their pertenents lyand within
the Sherifdom of Edinburgh, the manes of Drym,
the lands of Drymhill, the landis of Coittis and
Coitakirs, &c? (Acta Parl., Jacobi VI.)
The mansion of Wester Coates, advertised in the
Edinburgh papers of 1783 as ? the House of Coates,
or White House, belonging to the heirs of the
deceased James Finlay of Walliford, and as lately
possessed by Lord Covington, situated on the
highway leading to Coltbridge,? was removed in
New Town.] JAMES CRAIG. I I7
1869 to make way for Grosvenor Street, in excavating
the foundation of which a number of ancient
bronze Caledonian swords were found-the relics
of some pre-historic strife. One was Specially remarkable
for having the hilt and pommel of bronze
cast in one piece with the blade-a form very rare,
there being only one other Scottish example known
-one from Tames, in Aberdeenshire, and now in
the British Museum.
The few houses enumerated alone occupied the
lonely site of the New Town when Gabriel?s Road,
of the poet Thomson, and who engraved thereon
the following appropriate lines from his uncle?s
poem :-
SI August, around, what public works I see !
Lo, stately streets ! 10, squares that court the breeze!
See long canals and
Each part with each, and with the circling main,
whole entwined
nvea join
The names given to the streets and squaresthe
formal array of parallelograms drawn by
Craig-were taken from the royal family chiefly,
latterly a mean, narrow alley, was a delightful
country path, ?? along which,? says Wilson, in I 847,
?some venerable citizens still remember to have
wended their way between green hedges that
skirted the pleasant meadows and cornfields of
Wood?s Farm, and which was in days of yore a
favourite trysting place for lovers, where they
breathed out their teIpder tale of passion beneath
the fragrant hawthorn.?
It ran in an oblique direction through the
ancient hamlet of Silvermills, and its course is yet
indicated by the irregular slant of the garden walls
that separate the little plots behind Duke Street
from the East Queen Street Gardens at the lower
end.
The plan of the proposed new city was prepared
by James Craig, an eminent architect, nephew
? and the tutelary saints of the island, The first
thoroughfare, now-a magnificent terrace, was called
St. Giles Street, after the. ancient patron of the
city ; but on the plan being shown to George 111.
for his approval, he exclaimed, ? Hey, hey !-what,
what!-St. Giles Street !-never do, never do!?
And so, to escape from a vulgar London association
of ideas, it was named Princes Street, after the
future George IV. and the Duke of York.
Craig survived to see his plans only partially
carried out, as he died in 1795, in his fifty-fifth year.
He was the son of Robert Craig, merchant, and
grandson of Robert Craig, who in the beginning of
that century had been a magistrate of Edinburgh.
His mother was Mary, youngest daughter of James
Thomson, minister of Ednam, and sister of the
author of ?The Seasons.?
