94 . OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Inverleith.
the long hill on the south side of the West Port,
from Cowfeeder Row to the Bristo Port, the eastei
and wester crofts of Bristo, nearly down to the lsnds
of the abbey of Holyrood.
Of the old fortalice of this extinct race, and ol
their predecessors-which stood on the highesi
ground of Invorleith, a little way west of where
we find the modern house now embosomed among
luxuriant timber-not a vestige remains. Even
its ancient dovecot-in defiance of the old Scottish
superstition respecting the destruction of a dovecot
-has been removed. ?The beautiful and sequestered
footpath bordered (once ?) by hawthorn
hedges, known by the name of Gabriel?s Road,?
says a local writer, ?is said to have been constructed
for the convenience of the ancient lairds
of Inverleith to enable them to attend worship in
St. Giles?s.?
No relics remain of the ancient dwelling, unless
we except the archery butts, 600 feet apart,
standing nearly due south of Inverleith Mains, the
old home farm of the mansion, and the two very
quaint and ancient lions surmounting the pillars of
the gate at the north end of St. Bernard?s Row,
and which local tradition avers came from the
Castle of Edinburgh.
Of the different families who have possessed this
estate, and inhabited first the baronial tower, and
latterly the manor-house there, but a few disjointed
notices can alone be gleaned.
?The lands upon which I live at Inverleith,?
says the late eminent antiquary, Cosmo Innes, in
his ?Scottish Legal Antiquities,? ? which I can
trace back by charters into the possession of the
baker of William the Lion, paid, in the time of
King Robert I., a hundred shillings of stediizgs.
(The coinage of the Easterlings.) Some fields beside
me are still called the Baxteis (i.e., Baker?s)
Lands.?
And this is after a lapse of seven hundred
years.
Among the charters of Robert I. is one to
William Fairly of the lands of Inverleith, in the
county of Edinburgh. Among those of David 11.
is another charter of the same lands to William
Ramsay ; and another, by Robert II., of the same
to David Ramsay.
The date of the latter charter is given in the
?Douglas Peerage? as the 2nd of July, 1381, and
the recipient as the second son of the gallant and
patriotic Sir William Ramsay of Dalhousie, who
drew the English into an ambuscade at the battle
of Nisbetmuir in 1355, and caused their total
rout.
In time to come Inverleith passed to the Touris.
In 1425 John of Touris (or Towers) appears a?
a bailie of Edinburgh, with Adam de Bonkill and
John Fawside.
In 1487 William Touris of Innerleith (doubtless
his son) granted an annuity of fourteen merks for
the support of a chaplain to officiate at St. Anne?s
altar, in St. Cuthbert?s Church. George Touris was
a bailie of the city in 1488-92, and in the fatal year
of Flodden, 1513, 19th August, he is designated
?President? of the city, the provost of which-
Sir Alexander Lauder-was killed in the battle ;
and Francis Touris (either a son or brother) was
a bailie in the following year.
? In the ?? Burgh Records,? under date 1521, when
the Lairds of Restalrig and Craigmillar offered at
a Town Council meeting to be in readiness tw
resist the king?s rebels, in obedience to his royal
letters, for the safety of his person, castle, and
town; hereupon, ? Schir Alexander Touris of-
Innerleith protestit sik lik.?
In 1605, Sir George Touris of Garmilton,
knight, succeeded his father John of Inverleith in
the dominical lands thereof, the mill and craig ofi
that name, the muir and fortalice of Wardie, and
Bell?s land, alias the ? Lady?s land of Inverleith.?
Sir John Touris of Inverleith mamed Lady
Jean Wemyss, a daughter of the first Lord Wemyss
of Elcho, afterwards Earl, who died in 1649. In
1648 this Sir John had succeeded his father, Sir
Alexander Touris, knight in the lands of Inverleith,
Wardie, Tolcroce, Highriggs, &c.
The epoch of the Commonwealth, in 1652, saw
John Rocheid, heir to his father James, a merchant
and burgess of Edinburgh, in ?? the Craig of Inverleith,?
(? Retours.?) This would imply Craigleith,
as from the ?Retours ? in 1665, Inverleith, in
the parish of St. Cuthbert?s, went from James Halyburton,
proprietor thereof, to Alexander, his father.
And in ?? Dirleton?s Decisions,? under date 1678,
Halyburton, ? late of Inverleith,? is referred to as
a prisoner for debt at Edinburgh. So from them
the estate had passed to the Rocheids.
Sir James Rocheid of Inverleith, petitioned the
Privy Council in 1682, for permission to ?? enclose
and impark some ground,? under an Act of 1661 ;
and in 16yz he entailed the estate. In 1704 he was
made a baronet.
In the ?Scottish Nation,? we are told that
Rocheid of Inverleith, a name originating in a
personal peculiarity, had as a crest a man?s head
rough and hairy, the same borne by the Rocheids
of Craigleith. The title became extinct in the
person of Sir Jarnes, the second baronet, whose.
daughter and co-heiress, Mary, married Sir Francis
Kinloch, Bart., and her third son, on succeeding.
