The Grange.! GRANGE HOUSE. 49
?The chapel of St. Roque,? says Wilson, ?? has
not escaped the notice of the Lord Lyon King?s
eulogist, among the varied features of the landscape
that fill up the magnificent picture as Marmion
rides under the escort of Sir David Lindesay
to the top of Blackford Hill, in his approach to
the Scottish camp, and looks down on the martial
array of the kingdom, covering the wooded Links
of the Burghmuir. James IV. is there represented
as occasionally wending his way to attend mass at
the neighbouring chapels of St. Katharine or St.
Roque j nor is it unlikely that the latter may have
been the scene of the monarch?s latest acts of devotion,
ere he led forth that gallant array to perish
around him on the field of Flodden.?
In the ?Burgh Records,? 15th December, 1530,
we find that James Barbour, master and governor
of ?the foul folk on the mure? (i.e., the peststricken),
had made away with the goods and
clothes of many that were lying in the chapel of
St. Roqui; and that all who had any claims to
make should bring them forward on a given day;
but if the clothes proved of small value, they were
to be burned or given to the poor.
In 1532 the provost and bailies, ?moved by
devotion, have, for the honour of God and his
Blissit Mother, Virgen Mane, and the holy confessour
Sanct Rok,? for prayers to be said for the
souls of those that lie in the said kirk and kirkyard,
granted to Sir John Young, the chaplain
thereof, three acres of the Burghmuir, with another
acre to build houses upon; for which he and
his successors were bound to keep the chapel
in repair, and its slates and ? glaswyndois ? watertight.
These acres are described in the ? Records ? as
lying between the land of James Makgill on the
west, and of William Henderson on the east,
Braid?s Burn on the south, and the common
passage of the Muir (ie., the Grange Loan) on the
north.
Early in the present century, by a new proprietor,
? the whole of this interesting and venerable
ruin was swept away as an unsightly encumbrance
to the estate of a retired trades.
man.?
Close by, a tombstone from its burying-ground
long remained at the corner of a thatched cottage
in the Loan. It bore the date 1600. Others
were to be found in the adjacent boundary
walls.
Now villas are springing up fast between the
Loan and Blackford Hill, which in altitude is 698
feet above the level of the sea, and of which Scott
says, in ?? Marmion?.:-
?Blackford ! on whose uncultured breast,
A truant boy, I sought the nest,
Or listed as I lay at rest ;
While rose on breezes thin
The murmur of the city crowd :
And, from his steeple, jingling loud,
Among the broom, and thorn, and whin,
St. Giles?s mingling din.?
The tiends and tithes of the Burghmuir belonged
of old to the abbey of Holyrood, but this
did not prevent the acquisition of its fertile acres
by private proprietors, or their transference to different
ecclesiastical foundations.
The great parish church of the city had at the
earliest period of its existence as chief clergyman
an official styled the Vicar of St. Giles?s, who possessed
an interest in a farmhouse called St. Giles?s
Grange, which has given the name of The Grange
to all the pleasant suburb around where once it
stood.
In 1679, William Dick of Grange succeeded
Janet McMath, his mother, relict of William Dick
of Grange, in the lands of St. Giles?s Grange, and
eighteen arable acres of the Sciennes.
Before the Grange House was enlarged by the
late Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, it presented, in the
early part of the present century, as shown by
Storer, the appearance of a plain little castellated
house, with only three chimneys and one circular
turret.
Of old it was the patrimony of the Dicks, from
whom it went to the Lauders; and in the Register
of Entails for 1757, we find Mrs. Isabel Dick of
Grange, and Sir Andrew Lauder of Fountainhall,
her husband, entailing the lands and estate
of Grange. They were cousins. He was the fifth
baronet of the old and honourable line of Lauder,
and she was the only child and heiress of William
Dick of Grange, whose arms, argent a fesse wavy,
azure, between three mullets gules, were thenceforward
quartered with the rampant griffin of the
Lauders. She died in the old Grange House in
1758; and there also died her mother, in 1764,
?Anne Seton, relict of William Dick of Grange:
and eldest daughter of Sir Alexander Seton of
Pitmedden, some time senator of the. College of
Justice.? (Edinburgh Advertiser, Vol. I.) Her
sister Jean died in the same house four years after.
Dr. William Robertson, the historian and preacher,
resided in the old Grange House in the later years
of his life, and there his death occurred, on the I I th
June, I 7 93-
It was after the succession of Sir Thomas Dick
Lauder, a well-known Zittirateur in Edinburgh society,
who, early in life, was an officer of the Cameron
Highlanders, that the Grange House was enlarge<,
103
and made the ornate edifice we find it now, with
?oriel windows and clustering turrets. He was
author of ?The Wolf of Badenoch,? ?The History of
the Morayshire Floods,? a ?Journal of the Queen?s
Visit to Scotland in 1842,? &c He was the lineal
.representative of the Lauders of Lauder Tower and
the Bass, and of the Dicks of Braid and Grange,
and died in 1848.
Near the Grange House is the spacious and
ornamental cemetery of the same name, bordered
on the east by a narrow path, once lined by dense
hedge-rows, which led from the Grange House to the
Meadows, and was long known as the Lovers? Loan.
This celebrated burying-ground contains the ashes of
Drs. Chalmers,Lee,and Guthne; Sir Andrew Agnew
of Lochnaw, Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, Sir Hope
? Grant of Kilgraston, the well-known Indian general
and cavalry officer ; Hugh Miller, Scotland?s most
eminent geologist ; the second Lord Dunfermline,
and a host of other distinguished Scotsmen.
CHAPTER V.
THE DISTRICT OF NEWINGTON.
The Causewayside-Summerhall-Clerk Street Chapel and other Churches-Literary Institute-Mayfield Loan-Old Houses-Free Church-
The Powbum-Female Blind Asylum-Chapel of St. John the Baptist-Dominican Convent at the Sciennes-Sciennes Hill House-Scott
and Burns meet-New Trades Maiden Hospital-Hospital for Incurables-Prestonfield House-The Hamiltons and Dick-Cunninghams-
Cemetery at Echo Bank-The Lands of Camemn-Craigmillar-Dexription of the Castle-James V., Queen Mary, and Darnley, resident
there-Queen Mary?s Tree-The Prestons and Gilmours-Peffer Mill House.
In the Grange Road is the Chalmers Memorial
Free Church, built in 1866, after designs by
Patrick Wilson at a cost of .&6,000. It is a
cruciform edifice, in the geometric Gothic style.
In Kilgraston goad is the Robertson Memorial
Established Church, built in 187 I, after designs
by Robert Morham, at a cost of more than L6,ooo.
It is also a handsome cruciform edifice in the
Gothic style, with a spire 156 feet high.
In every direction around these spots spread
miles of handsome villas in every style of architecture,
with plate glass oriels, and ornate railings,
surrounded by clustering trees, extensive gardens ,
and lawns, beautiful shrubberies - in summer,
rich with fruit and lovely flowers-the long lines
of road intersected by tramway rails and crowded
by omnibuses.
Such is now the Burghmuir of James 111.-the
Drumsheugh Forest of David I. and of remoter , times.
WHEN the population of Edinburgh,? says Sir
Walter Scott, ?appeared first disposed to burst
from the walls within which it had been so long
confined, it seemed natural to suppose that the
tide would have extended to the south side of
Edinbugh, and that the New Town would have
occupied the extensive plain on the south side
of the College.? The natural advantage pointed
out so early by Sir Walter has been eventually embraced,
and the results are the populous suburban
districts we have been describing, covered with
streets and villas, and Newington, which now extends
from the Sciennes and Preston Street nearly
to the hill crowned by the ancient castle of Craigmillar.
In the Valuation Roll for 1814 the district is
described as the ?Lands of Newington, part of the
Old and New Burrowmuir.?
The year 1800 saw the whole locality open and
arable fields, save where stood the old houses of - Mayfield at the Mayfield Loan, a few cottages at
Echo Bank, and others at the Powbum. In those
days the London mails proceeded from the town
by the East Cross Causeway; but as time went
on, Newington House was erected, then a villa
or two : among the latter, one still extant neqr the
corner of West Preston Street, was the residence
of William Blackwood the publisher, and founder
of the firm and magazine.
In the Causewayside, which leads direct from
the Sciennes to the Powburn, were many old and
massive mansions (the residences of wealthy citizens),
that stood back from the roadway, within ?
double gates and avenues of trees. Some of these
edifices yet remain, but they are of no note, and are
now the abodes of the poor.
Broadstairs House, in the Causewayside, a
massive, picturesque building, demolished to make
room for Mr. T. C. Jack?s printing and publishing
establishment, was built by the doctor of James IV.
or V., and remained in possession of the family till
the end of last century- One half of the edifice
was known as Broadstairs House, and the other
half as Wormwood Hall. Mr. Jack bought the
