130 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Restalrig.
By interdict the directors were compelled to give
access to the well, which they grudgingly did by a
species of drain, till the entire edifice was removed
to where it now stands.
Near the site of the well is the ancient church of
Restalrig, which, curiously enough, at first sight has
all the air of an entirely modern edifice ; but on a
minute inspection old mouldings and carvings of
great antiquity make their appearance in conjunction
with the modern stonework of its restoration.
It is a simple quadrangular building, without aisles
or transept.
The choir, which is the only part of the building
that has escaped the rough hands
of the iconoclasts of the sixteenth
century, is a comparatively small,
though handsome, specimen of
Decorated English Gothic ; and
it remained an open ruin until
a fev years since, when it was
restored in a manner as a chapel
of ease for the neighbouring district.
But a church existed here long
before the present one, and it
was celebrated all over Scotland
for the tomb of St. Triduana,
who died at Restalrig, and whose
shrine was famous as the resort
of pilgrims, particularly those
who were affected by diseased
eyesight. Thus, to this day, she
is frequently painted as carrying
her own eyes on a salver or the
point of a sword. A noble virgin
of Achaia, she is said to have
come to Scotland, in the fourth
century, with St. Rule. Her name
inferred that the well afterwards called St. Margaret?s
was the well of St. Triduana.
Curiously enough, Lestalric, the ancient name of
Restalrig, is that by which it is known in the present
day; and still one of the roads leading to it from
Leith is named the Lochsterrock Road
The existence of a church andparish here, long
prior to the death of King Alexander 111. is proved
by various charters ; and in 1291, Adam of St.
Edmunds, prior of Lestalric, obtained a writ, addressed
to the sheriff of Edinburgh, to put him
in possession of his lands and rights. The same
ecclesiastic, under pressure, like many others at
SEAL OF THE COLLEGIATE cnmcn
OF RESTALRIG.
is unknown in the Roman Breviary; but a recent
writer says, ?? S t Triduana, with two companions,
devoted themselves to a recluse life at Roscoby, but
a Pictish chief, named Nectan, having been attracted
by her beauty, she fled into Athole to
escape him. As his emissaries followed her there,
and she discovered that it was her eyes which had
entranced him, she plucked them out, and, fixing
them on a thorn, sent them to her admirer. In
consequence of this practical method of satisfying
a lover, St. Triduana, who came to Restalrig to
live, became famous, and her shrine was for many
generations the resort of pilgrims whose eyesight
was defective, miraculous cures being effected by
the waters of the well.?
Sir David Lindsay writes of their going to ? St.
Trid well to mend their ene;? thus it has been
the time, swore fealty to Edward
I. of England in 1296.
Henry de Leith, rector of Restalrig,
appeared as a witness
against the Scottish Knights of
the Temple, at the trial in Holyrood
in 1309. The vicar, John
Pettit, is mentioned in the charter
of confirmation by James III.,
under his great seal of donations
to the Blackfriars of Edinburgh
in 1473..
A collegiate establishment of
considerable note, having a dean,
with nine prebends and two singing
boys, was constituted at Restalrig
by James III., and completed
by James V. j but it seems
not to have interfered with the
parsonage, which remained entire
till the Reformation.
The portion of the choir now
remaining does not date, it is
supposed, earlier than from the
fourteenth century, and is much
plainer, says Wilson, than might be expected in
a church enriched by the contributions of three
pious monarchs in succession, and resorted to by
so many devout pilgrims as to excite the special
indignation of one of the earliest assemblies of the
Kirk, apparently on account of its abounding with
statues and images.
By the Assembly of 1560 it was ordered to be
? raysit and utterly casten doun,? as a monument
of idolatry; and this order was to some extent
obeyed, and the ?? aisler stanis ? were taken by
Alexander Clark to erect a house with, but were
used by the Reformers to build a new Nether Bow
Port. The parishioners of Restalrig were ordered
in future to adopt as their parish church that of
St. Mary?s, in Leith, which continues to the present
day to be South Leith church.
