the neighbouring .collegiate church, to a brewer?s
granary and spirit vault ! The ground floor had
been entirely re-paved with hewn stone ; but over
a large window on the first floor there was a sculptured
lintel, which is mentioned by Arnot as having
TAILORS? HALL, COWGATE.
interesting remains, so characteristic of the obsolete
faith and habits of a former age, afforded undoubted
evidence of the importance of this building in early
times, when it formed a part of the extensive
collegiate establishment of St. Mary-in-the-Fields
bore the following inscription, cut in beautiful and
very early characters :-
???itbe Baria, gratia pkna, lomfnus tecum.?
A most beautiful Gothic niche was in the front of
this Suilding. ? It is said to have stood originally
over the main gateway,? he continues, above the
carved lintel we have described, and without a
the wealthy citizens of the capital. To complete
the ecclesiastical feature of this ancient edifice, a
boldly-cut shield on the lower crowstep bore the
usual monogram of our Saviour, I.H.S., and the
window presented the common feature of broken
mullions and transoms with which they had been
originally divided.?
Cowgatel THE COLLEGE WYND. 253
that its occupants were worthy neighbours of the
aristocratic tenants of the Cowgate. The stucco
ornaments were all of the era of Charles I., and
most prominent among them was the crowned
heart of the house of Douglas.
From this it has been supposed to have been the
one of the doors of the stair possessed the oldfashioned
appendage of a tirling-pin. Many of the
buildings which remained till the total demolition
of the wynd bore the initials of their builders on
an ornamental shield, sculptured on the lowest
crowstep, with the date-1736.?
I 1
HIGH SCHOOL WYND. (Aflrr E w b d . )
town residence of one of the first Earls of Queensberry-
probably William, whose title was created
by Charles I. on his visit to Scotland in 1633.
?The projecting staircase of the adjoining tenement
to the south had a curious ogee-arched window,
evidently of early character, and fitted with
the antique oaken transom and folding shutters
below. A defaced inscription and date were decipherable
over the lintel of the outer doorway, and
When Scott was a little boy some of the houses
opposite his father?s windows would be barely forty
years old.
It is not improbable that the land or tenement
referred to so elaborately by Wilson was connected
in some way with that referred to in the Burgh
Records, under date August 30th, 1549, when the
Town Council consented to the feuing of a land
(in the wynd) pertaining to the chaplaincy of the