Newhaven. ] HISTORICAL ASSOCIATIONS. 299
Newhaven was deemed a place of much more
importance in those days,than it has been in subsequent
times.
Thus, in 1554, the works then occupied the
attention of the Provost and Council repeatedly.
In February that year A500 was given for timber
to repair the harbour, to be taken with a portion
of the tax laid on the town for building forts upon
the Borders ; and in 1555 we read of timber again
for Newhaven, brought there by Robert Quintin,
but which was sold by the advice of Sir William
Macdowall, master of the works. (?Burgh Records??)
In the Burgh Account, under date 1554-5, we
find some references to the locality, thus t
?Item, the vj day of July, 1555, for cords to
bind and hang the four Inglismen at Leyth and
Newhaven, iijs.
? Item, geven to Gorge Tod, Adam Purves, and
ane servand, to mak ane gibbet at Newhaven, in
haist and evil wedder (weather), 4s.
? Item, for garroun and plansheour naillis, xxd.
? Item, for drink to them at Newhaven, vj4
?Item, to twa workmen to beir the wrychtis
lomis to the Newhevin and up again, and to beir
the work and set up the gibbet, xxd.?
In the same year extensive works seem to have
been in operation, as, by the Burgh Accounts,
they appear to have extended from August to
November, under Robert Quintin, master of the
works. The entries for masons? wages, timber
work, wrights? wages, ? on Saiterday at evin to thair
supperis,? are given in regular order. John Arduthy
in Leith seems to have contracted for the ? standarts
to the foir face of the Newhevin;? and for
the crane there, eighteen fathoms of ?Danskin tow?
(rope), were purchased fram Peter Turnett?s wife,
at tenpence the fathom.
John Ahannay and Geoge Bennet did the smithwork
at the crane, bulwarks, and worklooms. The
works at Newhaven, commenced in August, 1555,
under John Preston, as City Treasurer, were continued
till the middle of December eventually, under
Sir John Wilson, ?master of work at the Newhevin,?
when they were suspended during winter and resumed
in the spring of 1556 ; and ? drink silver,?
to all the various trades engaged, figures amply
among the items. (? Burgh Accounts.?)
In 1573 the Links of Newhaven were let by the
city, at an annual rent of thirty merks per annum
as grazing ground, thus showing that they must
then have been about the extent of those at Leith.
In 1595 they only produced six merks, and from
this rapid fall Maitland supposes that the sea had
made extensive encroachments on the ground ; and
as they are now nearly swept away, save a space
500 yards by 250, at the foot of the Whale Brae,
we may presume that his conjecture was a correct
one.
Kincaid states that at one period Newhaven had
Links both to the east and west of it. Even
the road that must have bordered the east Links
was swept away, and for years a perilous hole,
known as the ?? Man-trap,? remained in the placea
hole in which, till recently, many a limb was
fractured and many a life lost.
In one of the oldest houses in Newhaven, nearly
opposite the burial-ground, there is a large sculp
tured pediment of remarkable appearance. It is
surmounted by a thistle, with the motto Nemo me
impune Zacessit, on ,a scroll, and the date 1588, a
three-masted ship, with the Scottish ensign at each
truck, pierced for sixteen guns, and below the
motto, in Roman letters,
IN THE NUM OF GOD.
Below this again is a deeply-cut square panel,
decorated with a pair of globes, a quadrant, cross,
staff, and anchor; and beneath these part of the
motto ? Yirtzte sydera ? may, upon very close examination,
still be deciphered; but the history of
the stone, or of the house to which it belonged, is
unknown.
Some hollows near the p?ace were known as the
Fairy Holes, and they are mentioned in the indictment
of Eufame McCulzane for witchcraft, who is
stated to have attended a convention of witches
there in 1591, and also at others called the ?Brume
Hoillis,? where she and many other witches, with
the devil in company, put to sea in riddles.
In 1630 and 1631 we find from ?Dune?s Decisions,?
James Drummond, tacksman to the Lord
Holyroodhouse, of the Tiend Fishes of Newhaven,
(? pursuing spulzie ,? against the fishers there.
The year 1630 was the first year of the tack, and
the fishermen alleged that they had been in use to
pay a particular duty, that was condescended an,
? of all years preceding this year now acclaimed.?
The Lords found there was no necessity to grant
an inhibition, and reserved to themselves the modification
of the duty or quantity to be paid.
Newhaven gave the title of Viscount to an
English family who never had any connection with
the place, when in 1681 Charles 11. raised to the
peerage of Scotland Charles Cheyne, of Cogenho,
in Middlesex (dcscended from an ancient family in
Buckinghamshire), with the titles of ?? Lord Cheyne
and Viscount Newhaven, near Leith, in the county
of Midlothian,? by patent dated at Windsor. His
son, the second Viscount Newhaven, who was
appointed Lord Lieutenant of Bucks by Queen
300 OLD A,ND NEW EDINBURGH. [Newhaven.
Anne in 1712, lost the office on the accession of
the House of Hanover, and, dying without heirs, in
1728, the title became extinct.
We read of a ropework having been established
here about the period of the Revolution (very
likely on the site of the old one, formed by
Tames IV. for his dockyard), by James Deans,
Bailie of the Canongate, and one of his sons, who,
however, were compelled to discontinue it for want
of encouragement. In November, 1694, another
~
Prestonpans about the right to certain oyster beds,
which the former claimed as tacksmen of the
metropolis, and many conflicts in the Forth ensued
between them.? One of them is recorded in the
Gentleman?s Magazine, under date March 2 znd,
I 788, thus :-
? On Wednesday a sharp contest took place at
the back of the Black Rocks, near Leith Harbour,
between a boat?s crew belonging to Newhaven and
another belonging to Prestonpans, occasioned by
MAIN STREET, NEWHAVEN.
of his sons, Thomas Deans, ? expressed himself as
disposed to venture another stock in the same
work, at the same place or some other equally convenient,
provided he should have it endowed with
the privileges of a manufactory, though not to the
exclusion of others disposed to try the same business.
His wishes were complied with by the Privy
In the year 1710, ? Evan Macgregor, of Newhaven,?
entailed all his lands there, as appears from
Shaw, the date of tailzie being given as August,
1705.
In the latter years of the eighteenth century a
regular feud-and a very bitter one-existed between
the fishermen of Newhaven and those of
. Council.??
the latter?s dragging oysters on the ground laid
claim to by the former. After a severe conflict for
about half an hour with their oars, boat-hooks, etc.,
the Newhaven men brought in the Prestonpans
boat to Newhaven, after many being hurt on both
sides. This is the second boat taken from them this
season.?
In 1790 the quarrel took a judicial form, after
five fishermen of Prestonpans had been imprisoned
for dredging oysters near Newhaven, in
defiance of an interdict issued by the Judge-
Admiral.
?? For more than a year past,? it was stated, ?? a
case has been pending in the Court of Admiralty
between sundry fishermen in Newhaven, as tacks
