Old and New Edinburgh Vol. V

All Books Kay's Originals Vol. 1 Kay's Originals Vol. 2 Memorials of Edinburgh in the Olden Time Edinburgh Past and Present Old and New Edinburgh Vol. I Old and New Edinburgh Vol. II Old and New Edinburgh Vol. III Old and New Edinburgh Vol. IV Old and New Edinburgh Vol. V Old and New Edinburgh Vol. VI

Go to: « Kay's Originals Vol. 1 « Kay's Originals Vol. 2 « Memorials of Edinburgh in the Olden Time « Edinburgh Past and Present « Old and New Edinburgh Vol. I « Old and New Edinburgh Vol. II « Old and New Edinburgh Vol. III « Old and New Edinburgh Vol. IV Old and New Edinburgh Vol. V Plates Ch 1: The Kirk of St. Mary-In-The-Fields Ch 2: The University Ch 3: The District of the Burghmuir Ch 4: District of the Burghmuir (concluded) Ch 5: The District of Newington Ch 6: The Valley of the Water of Leith Ch 7: Valley of the Water of Leith (continued) Ch 8: Valley of the Water of Leith (concluded) Ch 9: Canonmills and Inverleith Ch 10: The Western New Town Ch 11: Corstorphine Ch 12: The Old Edinburgh Clubs Ch 13: The District of Restalrig Ch 14: Portobello Ch 15: Leith Walk Ch 16: Leith Walk (concluded) Ch 17: Leith - Historical Survey Ch 18: Leith - Historical Survey (continued) Ch 19: Leith - Historical Survey (continued) Ch 20: Leith - Historical Survey (continued) » Old and New Edinburgh Vol. VI

Burghmuir.] ST. ROQUES CHAPEL. 47 Greenhill, whereon stood an old gable-ended and gableted manor-house, on the site of which is now the great square modem mansion which bears its name. In a street here, called Greenhill Gardens, there stands a remarkable parterre, or open burialplace, wherein lie the remains of more than one proprietor of the estate. A tomb bears the initials J. L. and E. R., being those of ?John Livingstone and Elizabeth Rig, his spouse,? who acquired the lands of Greenhill in 1636 ; and the adjacent thoroughbre, named Chamberlain Road, is so called from an official of the city, named Fairholme, who is also buried there. A dispute-Temple and Halliday with Adam Cairns of Greenhill -is reported before the lords in 1706, concerning a tenement in the Lawnmarket, which would seem to have been ?spoiled and deteriorated? in the fire of 1701. (Fountainhall.) In 1741 Mr. Thomas Fairholme, merchant in Edinburgh, married Miss Warrender, daughter of Sir George Warrender of Bruntsfield, and his death at Greenhill is reported in the Scuts Magazine for 1771. There was a tenement called Fairholme Land in the High Street, immediately adjoinicg the Royal Exchange on the east, as appears from the Scuts Magazine of 1754, probab!y erected by Bailie Fairholme, a magistrate in the time of Charles 11. Kay gives us a portrait of George Fairholme of Greenhill (and of Green-know, Berwickshire), who, with his younger brother, William of Chapel, had long resided in Holland, where they became wealthy bankers, and where the former cultivated a natural taste for the fine arts, and in after life became celebrated as a judicious collector of pictures, and of etchings by Rembrandt, all of which became the property of his nephew, Adam Fairholme of Chapel, Berwickshire. He died in his seventieth year, in 1800, and was interred in the family burying-place at Greenhill. In a disposition of the lands of the latter estate by George Fairholme, in favour of Thomas Wright, dated 16th, and recorded 18th February, 1790, in the sheriffs? books at Edinburgh, the preservation of the old family tomb, which forms so singular a feature in a modern street, is thus provided for :- ? Reserving nevertheless to me the liberty and privilege of burying the dead of my own family, and such of my relations to whom I, during my own lifetime, shall communicate such privilege, in the burial-place built upon the said lands, and ?Teserving likewise access to me and my heirs to repair the said burial-place from time to time, as we shall think proper.? ? Greenhill became lztterly the property of the Stuart-Forbeses of Pitsligo, baronets. After passing the old mansion named East Morningside House, the White House Loan joins at right angles the ancient thoroughfare named the Grange Loan, which led of old from the Linton Road to St. Giles?s Grange, and latterly the Causewayside. On the south side of it a modern villa takes its name of St. Roque from an ancient chapel which stood there, and the ruins of which were extant within the memory of many of the last generation. The chapels of St. Roque and St. John, on the Burghmuir, were both dependencies of St. Cuthbert?s Church. The historian of the latter absurdly conceives it to have been named from a French ambassador, Lecroc, who was in Scotland in 1567. The date of its foundation is involved in obscurity; but entries occur in the Treasurer?s Accounts for 1507, when on St. Roque?s Day (15th August) James IV. made an offering of thirteen shillings. ? That this refers to the chapel on the Burghmuir is proved,? says Wilson, ? by the evidence of two charters signed by the king at Edinburgh on the same day.? Arnot gives a view of the chapel from the northeast, showing the remains of a large pointed window, that had once been filled in with Gothic tracery; and states that it is owing ?to the superstitious awe of the people that one stone of this chapel has been left upon another-a superstition which, had it been more constant in its operations, might have checked the tearing zeal of reformation. About thirty years ago the proprietor of the ground employed masons to pull down the walls of the chape! ; the scaffolding gave way ; the tradesmen were killed. The accident was looked upon as a judgment against those who were demolishing thk house of God. No entreaties nor bribes by the proprietor could prevail upon tradesmen to accomplish its demolition.? It was a belief of old that St. Roque?s intercession could protect all from pestilence, as he was distinguished for his piety and labours during a plague in Italy in 1348. Thus Sir David Lindesay says of- 1?- Superstitious pilgramages To monie divers imagis ; Sum to Sanct Roche with diligence, To saif them from the pestilence.? Thus it is, in accordance with the attributes ascribed in Church legends to St. Roque, that we find his chapel constantly resorted to by the victims of the plague encamped on the Burghmuir, during the prevalence of that scourge in the sixteenth century.

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I, WARRENDER HOUSE ; I, ST. MARGARETS CONVENT ; 3, RUINS OF ST. ROQUES CHAPEI, (ateer an Engvm,iw in A m f r ??Hixfmy?) ; 4, GRANGE HOUSE, 18zo (atter Starer); 5, DRAWING-ROOM IN GRANGE HOUSE, 3882.

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