144 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [portobella
monly let to one of the Duddingston tenants for
zoo merks Scots, or LII 2s. z&d. sterling. Portobello
Hut, built in 1742, by an old Scottish seaman
who had served under Admiral Vernon, in 1739,
was so named by him in honour of our triumph at
that West Indian seaport, and hence the cognomen
of this watering-place ; but houses must have sprung
up around it by the year 1753, as in the Cowanf of
that year, ?( George Hamilton in Portobello ? offers
a reward of three pounds for the name of a libeller
who represented him as harbouring in his house
robbers, by whom, and by some smugglers, the
locality was then infested.
In the January of the following year the S o f s
Magazine records that Alexander Henderson,
~~
teen fishwives (are) to trot from Musselburgh to the
Canon(gate) Cross, for twelve pairs of lambs?
hanigals.?
The Figgate Bum was the boundary in this
quarter of a custom-house at Prestonpans j the
Tyne was the boundary in the other direction.
The Figgate lands, on which Portobello and
Brickfield are built, says the old statistical account,
consist together of about seventy acres, and continued
down to 1762 a mere waste, and were com-
Lord Milton, the proprietor, to Baron Muir, of the
Exchequer, for A1,500, and feuing then began at
t f 3 per acre; but the once solitary abode of the
old tar was long an object of interest, and stood
intact till 1851, at the south-west side of the High
Street, nearly opposite to Regent Street, and was
long used as a hostelry for humble foot-travellers,
on a road that led from the old Roman way, or
Fishwives? Causeway, across the Whins towards
Musselburgh. Parker Lawson, in his cc Gazetteer,?
says it was long known as the Shtpheyds? Ha?.
In 1765, Mr. William Jamieson, the feuar under
Baron Muir, discovered near the Figgate Bum a
valuable bed of clay, and on the banks of the
stream he erected first a brick and tile works, a d
master of a fishing-boat, on his way from Musselburgh
to Leith, was attacked by footpads at the
Figgate Whins, who robbed him of ten guineas
that were sewn in the waistband of his breeches,
12s. 6d. that he had in his pocket, cut him over
the head with a broadsword, stabbed him in the
breast, and left him for dead. His groans were
heard by two persons coming that way, who carried
him to Leith.?
About 1763 the Figgate Wins was sold by
THE eRAIGANTINNIE MARBLES.
