222 OLD ?AND NEW EDINBURGH. [West Port.
prehending the main street of the West Port (the
link between Fountainbridge and the Grassmarket),
the whole of Lauriston from the Corn-market and
foot of the Vennel to the Main Point, including
Portland Place on the west, and to Bruntsfield
Links on the east, including Home and Leven
Streets.
In IIGO John AbbotofKelso grantedtoLawrence,
the son of Edmund of Edinburgh, a toft situated
between the West Port and the Castle, on the left
of the entrance into the city. In this little burgh
there were of old eight incorporated trades, deriving
their rights from John Touris of Inverleitk
Many of the houses here were roofed with thatch
in the sixteenth century,
and the barriergate
by which the whole
of the district was cut
off from the city was
milt in 1513, as a port
in the ?,F?lodden wall.
Some gate may, however,
have existed previously,
as Balfour in
his ?Annales,? tells that
the head of Robert Graham,
oneof the assassins
of James I., in 1437,
?was sett ouer the West
Port of Edinburgh ;?
and in I 5 I 5 the head of
Peter Moffat, ?ane
greit swerer and thief,?
was spiked in the same
place, after the reins
of government were
that every man in the city ?be reddy boddin for
weir,? in his best armour at ?? the jow of the common
bell? for its defence if necessary. Nearly
similar orders were issued concerning the gates in
1547, and the warders were to be well armed
with jack, steel helmet, and halberd or Jedmood
axe, finding surety to be never absent from their
In 1538 Mary of Guise made her first entry by
the West Port on St. Margaret?s day, ? with greit
trivmphe,? attended by all the nobility (Diurnal of
OCC.). There James VI. was received by ? King
Solomon ? on his first state entry in 1579 ; and by
it Anne of Denmark entcred in 1590, when she was
posts. (Ibid.)
HIGHRIGGS HOUSE, 1854. (Afler P Drawing by Ihr Aidkor.)
assumed by John Duke of Albany. (? Diurnal of
Occurrents.?)
In the same year it was ordained by the magistrates
and council that only three of the city gates
were to be open daily, viz., ?the West Port, Nether
Bow, and the Kirk-of-Field-and na ma. -4nd
ilk port to haif twa porteris daylie quhill my
Lord Govemoure?s hame coming. [Albany was
then on the Borders, putting down Lord Home?s
rebellion.] And thir porteris suffer na maner of
person on hors nor fute, to enter within this toune
without the President or one of the bailies knaw
of their cuming and gif thame licence. And the
said personis to be convayit to thair lugings be one
of the said porteris, swa that gif ony inconvenient
happenis, that thair hoste niycht answer for thame as
efferis.? (Burgh Records.) It was also ordained
that a fourth part of the citizens should form a
watch every night till the return of Albany, and
received by a long Latin
oration, while the garrison
in the Castle
?gave her thence a
great volley of shot,
with their banners and
ancient displays upon
the walls ? (?( Marriage
of James VI.,? Bann.
Club). Here also in
1633, Charles I. at his
grand entrance was
received by the nymph
Edina, and again at the
Overbow by the Lady
Caledonia, both of
whom welcomed him
in copious verse from
the pen, it is said, of
the loyal cavalier and
poet, Drummond of
Hawthornden.
Fifteen years before this period the Common
Council had purchased the elevated ridge of ground
lying south of the West Port and Grassmarket,
denominated the Highriggs, on a part of which
Heriot?s Hospital was afterwards built, and the
most recent extension of the city wall then took
place for the purpose of enclosing it. A portion of
this wall still fomis the boundary of the hospital
grounds, terminating at the head of the Vennel, in
the only tower of the ancient fortifications now
remaining.
In 1648 the superiority of the Portsburgh was
bought by the city from Sir Adam Hepburn for
the sum of 27,500 merks Scots; and in 1661
the king?s stables were likewise purchased for
EI,OOO Scots, and the admission of James Baisland
to the freedom of Edinburgh.
In 1653 the West Port witnessed a curious
, scene, when Lieutenant-Colonel Cotterel, by order
West PGrt.1 THE LAWSONS. 22;
of Cromwell, expelled the General Assembly from
Edinburgh, literally drumming the members out at
that gate, under a guard of soldiers, after a severe
reprimand, and ordering that never more than three
of them should meet together.
Marion Purdy, a miserable old creature, ? once
a milkwife and now a beggar,? in the West Port,
was apprehended in 1684 on a charge of witchcraft,
for ?laying frenzies and diseases on her
neighbours,? says Fountainhall ; but the King?s
Advocate failed to bring her to the stake, and she
was permitted to perish of cold and starvation in
prison about the Christmas of the same year.
Five years subsequently saw the right hand of
Chieslie, the assassin of Lockhart, placed above the
gate, probably on a spike ; and in the street close
by, on the 5th September, 1695, Patrick Falconar,
a soldier of Lord Lindsay?s regiment, was murdered
by George Cumming, a writer in Edinburgh,
who deliberately ran him through the body with
his sword, for which he was sentenced to be
hanged and have his estates forfeited. From the
trial, it appears that Cumming was much to blame,
and had previously provoked the unoffending soldier
by abusive language.
The tolls collected at the West Port barrier in
1690 amounted to A105 11s. Iid. sterling.
(Council Register.)
In the year of the Union the Quakers would
seem to have had a meeting-house somewhere in
the West Port, as would appear from a dispute
recorded by Fountainhall-? Poor Barbara Hodge ?
against Bartholoniew Gibson, the king?s farrier,
and William Millar, the hereditary gardener of
Holyrood.
On the south side of this ancient burgh, in an
opening of somewhat recent formation, leading to
Lauriston, the Jesuits have now a very large
church, dedicated to ?The Sacred Heart,? and
Capable of holding more than 1,000 hearers. It is
in the form of a great lecture hall rather than a
church, and was erected in 1860, by permission
of the Catholic Bishop Gillis, in such a form,
that if ever the order was suppressed in Scotland
the edifice might be used for educational
purposes. Herein is preserved a famous image
that once belonged to Holyrood, but was lately
discovered by E. Waterton, F.S.A., in a shop at
Peterborough.
Almost opposite to it, and at the northern corner
of the street, stood for ages the then mansion house
of the Lawsons of the Highriggs, which was demolished
in 1877, and was undoubtedly one of the
oldest, if not the very oldest, houses in the city.
When built in the fifteenth century it must have
(Crim. Trials.)
been quite isolated. It had crowstepped gables,
dormers on the roofs, and remarkably small
windows.
. It was the residence of an old baronial family,
long and intimately connected with the city.
?? Mr. Richard Lawson,? says Scott of Scotstarvet,
?Justice Clerk, conquest a good estate about Edinburgh,
near the Burrow Loch, and the barony of
Boighall, which his grandson, Sir William Lawson
of Boighall, dilapidated, and went to Holland to
the wars.? He was Justice Clerk in the time oi
James IV., from 1491 to 1505.
In 1482 his name first appears in the burgh
records as common clerk or recorder, when Sir
John Murray of Tulchad was Provost, a post which
the former obtained on the 2nd May, 1492. He
was a bailie of the city in the year 1501, and Provost
again in 1504. Whether he was the Richard
Lawson who, according to Pitscottie, heard the
infernal summons of Pluto at the Market Cross
before the army marched to Flodden we know not,
but among those who perished on that fatal field
with King James was Richard Lawson of the
Highriggs ; and it was his daughter whose beauty
led to the rivalry and fierce combat in Leith Loan
between Squire Meldrum of the Binns and Sir
Lewis Stirling, in 1516,
In 1555 we find John Lawson of the Highriggs
complaining to the magistrates that the water ot
the burgh loch had overflowed and (? drownit ane
greit pairt of his land,? and that he could get no
remedy therefor.
Lady Lawson?s Wynd, now almost entirely
demolished, takes its name from this family. The
City Improvement Trustees determined to form it
into a wide thoroughfare, running into Spittal Street.
In one of the last remaining houses there died, in
his 95th year, in June, 1879, a naval veteran named
M?Hardy, supposed to be the last survivor of the
actual crew of the Victory at Trafalgar. He was
on the main-deck when Nelson received his fatal
wound.
One of the oldest houses here was the abode of
John Lowrie, a substantial citizen, above whose
door was the legend-SoLr DEO. H.G. 1565, and a
shield charged with a pot of lilies, the emblems of
the Virgin Mary. ?John. Lowrie?s initials,? says
Wilson, ? are repeated in ornamental characters on
the eastern crowstep, separated by what appears
to be designed for a baker?s peel, and probably
indicating that its owner belonged to the ancient
fraternity of Baxters.?
The West Port has long been degraded by the
character of its inhabitants, usually Irish of the
lowest class, and by the association of its name with
