325 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Bristo Sheet.
g died; but Scotland was not then, nor for long
after, susjected to the incessant immigration of the
Irish poor, The government of this house was
vested in ninety-six persons, who met quarterly,
and fifteen managers, who met weekly. There
were also a treasurer, chaplain, surgeon, and other
officials.
This unsightly edifice survived the Darien House
for some years, but was eventually removed to
make way for the handsome street in a line with
George IV. Bridge, containing the Edinburgh Rifle
Volunteer Hall, and the hall of the Odd Fellows.
At the acute angle between Forrest Road and
Bristo Street is the New North Free Church,
erected in 1846. It presents Gothic fronts to both
thoroughfares, and, has a massive projecting front
basement, adorned with a small Gothic arcade.
In 1764 we first hear of something like a trade
strike, when a great number of journeyman masons
met in July in Bristo Park (on the open side of
the street, near Lord ROSS?S house), where they
formed a combination ?not to work in the ensuing
week unless their wages were augmented. This,
it seems, they communicated to their masters on
Saturday night, but had no satisfactory answer.
Yestcrday morning they came to work, but finding
no hopes of an augmentation, they all, with one
consent, went oft The same evening the mastermasons
of the city, Canongate, Leith, and suburbs,
met in order to concert what measures may be
proper to be taken in this affair.? (Edin. Adnert.,
They resolved not to increase the wages of the
men, and to take legal advice ?to prevent undue
combinations, which are attended with many bad
effects.? The sequel we have no means of knowing.
The same print quoted records a strike among the
sweeps, or tronmen, in the same park, and elsewhere
adds that ? an old soldier has lately come to town
who sweeps chimneys after the English manner,
which has so disgusted the society cif chimneysweepers
that they refuse to sweep any unless this
man is obliged to leave the town, upon which a
number of them have been put in prison to-day.
They need not be afraid of this old soldier taking
the bread from them, as few chimneys in this place
will admit of a man going through.them.? (Edin.
Adverf., Vol. 111.)
In the Bristo Port, or that portion of the street
so called, stood long the Old George Inn, from
whence the coaches, about 1788, were wont to set
forth for Carlisle and London, three weekly-fare
to the former, AI IOS., to the latter, A3 10s. 6dand
from whence, till nearly the railway era, the
waggons were despatched every lawful day to
Vol. 11.)
London and all parts of England ; ?? also every day
to Greenock, Glasgow, and the west of Scotland.?
Southward of where .this inn stood is now St.
Mary?s Roman Catholic school, formerly a church,
built in 1839. It is a pinnacled Gothic edifice, and
was originally dedicated to St Patrick, but was
superseded in 1856, when the great church in the
Cowgate was secured by the Bishop of Edinburgh.
Lothian Street opens eastward from this point
In a gloomy mZ-de-sac on its northern side is a
circular edifice, named Brighton Chapel, built in
1835, and seated for 1,257 persons. Originally, it
was occupied by a relief congregation. The continuation
of the thoroughfare eastward leads to
College Street, in which we find a large United
Presbyterian church.
In a court off the east side of Bristo Street, a few
yards south from the east end.of Teviot Row, is
another church belonging to the same community,
which superseded the oldest dissenting Presbyterian
church in Edinburgh. In a recently-published
history of this edifice, we are told that early in the
century, ?when the old church was pulled down,
within the heavy canopy of the pulpit ? (the sounding-
board) ?( were found three or four skeletons of
horses? heads, and underneath the pulpit platform
about twenty more. It was conjectured that they
had been placed there from some notion that the
acoustics of the place would be improved.?
The church was built in 1802, at a cost of
&,o84, and was enlarged afterwards, at a further
cost of A1,515, and interiorly renovated in 1872
for A~,300. It is a neat and very spacious edifice,
and was long famous for the ministry of the Rev.
Dr. James Peddie, who was ordained as a pastor of
that congregation on the 3rd April, 1783. On his
election, a large body of the sitters withdrew, and
formed themselves into the Associate Congregation
of Rose Street, of which the Rev. Dr. Hall
subsequently became minister ; but the Bristo
Street congregation rapidly recruited its numbers
under the pastoral labours of Dr. Peddie, and from
that time has been in a most flourishing condition.
In 1778, when six years of age, Sir Walter Scott
attended the school of Mr. Johu Luckmore, in
Hamilton?s Entry, off Bristo Street, a worthy preceptor,
who was much esteemed by his father, the
old Writer to the Signet, with whom he was for
many years a weekly guest. The school-house,
though considerably dilapidated, still exists, and
is occupied as a blacksmith?s shop. It is a small
cottage-like building with a red-tiled roof, situated
on the right-hand side of the court called Hamilton?s
Entry, No. 36, Bristo Street. As to the identity of
the edifice there can be no doubt, as it was
