Pottobello.] CHURCHES AND CHAPELS. I47
burgh, Portobello returns one member to the
House of Commons.
The Established parish church was built in
1810 as a chapel of ease, at the cost of only
A2,650, but was enlarged in 1815. The Relief
Chapel, belonging to a congregation formed in
1834, was built in 1825, and purchased in the
former-named year by the minister, the Rev. David
Crawford. St. John?s Catholic chapel (once Episcopal)
in Brighton Place, was originally in 1826 a
school is situated in the Niddry Road, about
half a mile from the centre of the town, and was
erected in 1875-6 at the cost of L7,ooo. It is a
handsome edifice in the collegiate style for the
accommodation of about 600 scholars.
In form Portobello is partially compact or continuous.
Its entire length is traversed by the High
.Street (or line of the old Musselburgh Road), is
called at its north-west end and for the remaining
part Abercorn Street; and what-were the town an
PLAN OF PORTOBELLO.
villa, purchased in 1834 by the Bishop of Edinburgh
for A600. The United Secession chapel is of
recent erection, and belongs to a congregation
formed in 1834. The Independent chapel was
built in 1835, and belongs to the congregation
which erected it. St. Mark?s Episcopal chapel is
private property, and used to be rented at A40
yearly by the congregation, which was established
in 1825. It was consecrated by Bishop Sandford
in 1828. Another church, with a fine spire, has
recently been erected in the High Street, for
a congregation of United Presbyterians. A Free
church stands at the east end of the main street.
It was erected in 1876-7, and is a handsome
Gothic edifice with a massive tower. A public
old one and a marketing community-would be
the Cross, is a point at which the main thoroughfare
is divided into two parts, and where Bathgate
goes off to the sea, and Brighton Place towards
Duddingston.
The suite of hot and cold salt-water baths was
erected in 1806 at the cost of A4,000, and overlooks
the beach, between the foot of Bath Street
and that of Regent Street.
Much enlargement of the town eastward of the
railway station, and even past Joppa, to comprise
a crescent, terraces, and lines of villas, was planned
in the spring of 1876, and a projection of the new
Marine Parade, which is 26 feet wide, was planned
300 yards eastward about the same time. At right
I48 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. rportobeiio.
angles from this Parade there was constructed in
1871 a very handsome promenade iron pier, 1,250
feet long, at a cost of L7,ooo ; and in the following
year a fine bowling-green was formed in Lee Crescent,
off Brighton Place, measuring 40 yards by
45 ; and a roller skating-rink was opened in Bath
Street in 1876, comprising a hall-rink, an out-door
rink, a gallery or orchestra, and retiring-room.
In Portobello are to be found quarters for all
classes of visitors and summer residents. ? Many
A house in Tower Street was the residence of
Hugh Miller-that self-taught and self-made Scottish
genius, author of ?? The Old Red Sandstone,?
and other geological works, with lighter productions,
such as ?? My Schools and Schoolmasters ; ??
and there, worn out by the ovenvork of a highly
sensitive brain, he shot himself with a revolver in
1856. The event caused great excitement in
Edinburgh, and his funeral was a vast and solemn
one. ?You should have been in Edinburgh toof
the private houses,? says a recent writer,
?? the mansions and villas, are the homes of capitalists
and annuitants, who have adopted Portobello
as their constant retreat, and who people it in sufficient
numbers to give its resident or unshifting
population a tone of selectness and elegance. In
winter the town is far from having the forsaken and
wan aspect which pervades a mere seabathing
station ; and in summer it has an animation and
gaiety superior to those of any other sea-bathing
station in Scotland.? In 1839 a valuable oysterbed
was discovered off the town.
The Town Hall, with the Council Chambers and
offices of the Commissioners of Police, is a handsome
building in the principal thoroughfare,
JOCK?S LODGE.
day,? wrote Sydney Dobell to a friend, ?and seen
the great army of the body that debouched inexhaustibly
through all its main streets-a waving
parti-coloured river, where a fallen child or a blind
beggar made an instant mob, as in a stream at
flood so much as a walking-stick set straight will
make an eddy. It was curious to walk up the
same streetson Monday, as I walked often past Hugh
Miller?s house, and to think what different causes
could produce the same ?pomp and circumstance?
of populous life. Never since the death of Chalmers
has Edinburgh been so unanimous in honour.
Even Christopher North?s funeral was sectarial and
cold in comparison. The shops were shut j the
common people drew back in thick masses on each
