Wright?s Houes.] WRYCHTISHOUSIS. 3.1
the genealogist of the Napier family conceives,
with great probability, that the property was held
by the tenure of payment to the king of a silver
penny yearly upon the CasfZe aiZZ of Edinburgh.
The edifice to which we refer was undoubtedly
one of the oldest, and by far the most picturesque,
baronial dwelling in the neighbourhood of the city ;
and blending as it did the grim old feudal tower
of the twelfth or thirteenth century with more ornate
additions of the Scoto-French style of later years,
it must have formed-even in the tasteless age
that witnessed its destruction-a pleasing and
striking feature from every part of the landscape
broken, and the whole of them dispersed. Among
those we have examined,? says Wilson, ?there is
one now built into the doorway of Gillespie?s School,
having a tree cut on it, bearing for fruit the stars
and crescents of the family arms, and the inscription,
DOMINUS EST ILLUMINATIO MEA ; another, placed
over the hospital wall, has this legend below a
boldly cut heraldic device, CONSTANTIA ET LABORE,
1339. On two others, now at Woodhouselee, are
the following: BEATUS VIR QUI SPERAT IN DEO,
1450, and PATRIE ET POSTERIS, 1513, The only
remains of this singular mansion that have escaped
, the general wreck,? he adds, ?? are the sculptured
THE AVENUE, BRUNTSFIELD LlNKS.
around it, especially when viewed from Bruntsfield
Links against a sunset sky.
One of the dates upon it was 1339, four years
after the battle of the Burghmuir, wherein the
Flemings were routed under Guy of Narnur.
Above a window was the date 1376, with the
legend, SICUT OLIVA FRUCTIFERA. Another bore,
IN DOMINO CONFIDO, 1400. Singular to say, the
arms over the principal door were those of Britain
after the union of the crowns. Emblems of the
Virtues were profusely carved on different parts of
the building, and in one was a rude representation
of our first parents, with the distich-
?Quhen Adam delved, and Eve span,
Quhair war a? the gentles than ? ?
There were also heads of Julius jhsar and
Octavius Secundus, in fine preservation. ? Many
of these sculptures were recklessly defaced and
101
pediments and heraldic carvings buiit into the
boundary-walls of the hospital, and a few others,
which were secured by the late Lord Woodhouselee,
and now adorn a ruin on Mr. Tytler?s estate at the
Pentlands.?
Arnot mentions, without proof, that this house
was built for the residence of a mistress of Jams
IV.; but probably he had never examined the dates
upon it.
It is impossible to discover the origin of the name
now ; though Maitland?s idea, that it was derived
from certain wnghfs, or carpenters, dwelling there
while cutting down the oaks on the Burghmuir
is far-fetched indeed. One of the heraldic sculptures
indicated an alliance betxeen a Laird of Wrychtishouse
and a daughter of the neighbouring Lord of
Merchiston, in the year 1513.
In 1581, William Napier of the former place
became caution in LI,OOO for the appearance and
34 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Wright?s H0u.w~
good behaviour of William Douglas of Hyvelie
(Reg : Privy Council Scot.). His son Robert, who
was a visitor at the house of William Turnbull of
Airdrie, then resident in Edinburgh, on the 4th
of September, 1608, ? by craft and violence,?
carried off a daughter of the latter in her eleventh
year, and kept her in some obscure place, where
her father could not discover her. Turnbull
brought this matter before the Privy Council, by
Nhom Robert Napier was denounced as a rebel
and outlaw. Of this old family nothing now
remains but a tomb on the north side of the
choir of St. Giles?s; it bears the Merchiston crest
and the Wrychtishouse shield, and has thus been
more than once pointed out as the last restingplace
of the inventor of the logarithms.
The Napiers of Wrychtishousis, says the biographer
of the philosopher, were a race quite dis
tinct from that of Merchiston, and were obviously
a branch of Kilmahew, whose estates lay in Lennox.
Their armorial bearings were, or on a bend azure,
between two mullets or spur rowels.
In its later years this old mansion was the residence
of Lieutenant-General Robertson of Lude,
who served throughout the whole American war,
and brought home with him, at its close, a negro,
who went by the name of Black Tom, who occupied
a room on the ground floor. Tom was again and
again heard to complain of being unable to rest
at night, as the figure of a lady, headless, and
with a child in her arms, rose out of the hearth,
and terrified him dreadfully ; but no one believed
Tom, and his story was put down to intoxication.
Be that as it may, ? when the old mansion was
pulled down to build Gillespie?s Hospital there was
found under the hearthstone of that apartment a
box containing the body of a female, from which
the head had been severed, and beside her lay the
remains of an infant, wrapped in a pillow-case
trimmed with lace. She appeared, poor lady, to
have been cut off in the blossom of her sins ; for
she was dressed, and her scissors were yet hanging
by a ribbon to her side, and her thimble was also
in the box, having, apparently, fallen from her
shrivelled fingers.??
If we are to judge from the following notice in
the Edinburgh HeraZd for 6th April 1799, the
mansion was once the residence of Lord Barganie
(whose peerage is extiiict), as we are told that by
Gillespie?s trustees, ?I Barganie House, at the
Wrights Houses, has been purchased, with upwards
of six acres of ground, where this hospital is to be
erected, The situation is very judiciously chosen;
it is elevated, dry, and healthy.?
In 1800 the demolition was achieved, but not
without a spirited remonstrance in the Edinburgh
Mopzinc for that year, and Gillespie?s Hospital,
a tasteless edifice, designed by Mr. Burn, a builder,
in that ridiculous castellated style called ?&Carpenter?s
Gothic,? took its place. The founder, James
Gillespie, was the eldest of two brothers, who occupied
a shop as tobacconists east of the Market
Cross, Here John, the younger, attended to the
business, while the former resided at Spylaw, near
Colinton, and superintended a mill which they had
erected there for grinding snuff; and there snuff
was ground years after for the Messrs. Kichardson,
105, West Bow. Neither of the brothers married,
,and though frugal and industrious, were far
from being miserly. They lived among their workmen
and domestics, in quite a homely and
patriarchal manner, ? Waste not, want not ? being
ever their favourite maxim, and money increased in
their hands quickly. Even in extreme age, we are
told that James Gillespie, with an old blanket
round him and a night-cap on, both covered with
snuff, regularly attended the mill, superintending
the operations of his man, Andrew Fraser, who
was a hale old man, living in the hospital, when
the first edition of I? Kay ? was published, in I 838.
James kept a carriage, however, for which the Hon.
Henry Erskine suggested as a motto :-
?Wha wad hae thocht it,
That noses had bocht it??
He survived his brother five years, and dying at
Spylaw on the 8th April, 1797, in his eightieth
year, was buried in Colinton churchyard. By his
will he bequeathed his estate, together with _f;I 2,000
sterling (exclusive of A2,700 for the erection and
endowment of a school), ? for the special intent and
purpose of founding and endowing an hospital, or
charitable institution, within the city ,of Edinburgh
or suburbs, for the aliment and maintenance of old
men and women.?
In 1801 the governors obtained a royal charter,
forming them into a body corporate as ?The
Governors of James Gillespie?s Hospital and Free
School.?.
The persons entitled to admittance were :-first,
Mr. Gillespie?s old servants ; second, all persons
of his surname over fifty-five years of age; third,
persons of the same age belonging to Edinburgh
and Leith, failing whom, from all other parts of
Midlothian. None were to be admitted who had
private resources, or were otherwise than ? decent,
godly, and well-behaved men and women.?
In the Council-room of the hospital-from
which the school was built apart-is an excellent
