Old and New Edinburgh Vol. VI

All Books Kay's Originals Vol. 1 Kay's Originals Vol. 2 Memorials of Edinburgh in the Olden Time Edinburgh Past and Present Old and New Edinburgh Vol. I Old and New Edinburgh Vol. II Old and New Edinburgh Vol. III Old and New Edinburgh Vol. IV Old and New Edinburgh Vol. V Old and New Edinburgh Vol. VI

Go to: « Kay's Originals Vol. 1 « Kay's Originals Vol. 2 « Memorials of Edinburgh in the Olden Time « Edinburgh Past and Present « Old and New Edinburgh Vol. I « Old and New Edinburgh Vol. II « Old and New Edinburgh Vol. III « Old and New Edinburgh Vol. IV « Old and New Edinburgh Vol. V Old and New Edinburgh Vol. VI Plates Ch 20: Leith - Historical Survey (continued) Ch 21: Leith - Historical Survey (continued) Ch 22: Leith - Historical Survey (concluded) Ch 23: Leith - The Kirkgate Ch 24: Leith - The Kirkgate (concluded) Ch 25: Leith - Tolbooth Wynd and Adjoining Streets Ch 26: Leith - Rotten Row, Broad Wynd, Bernard Street, Baltic Street, and Quality Street Ch 27: Leith - Constitution Street, The Shore, Coal Hill, and Sheriff Brae Ch 28: North Leith Ch 29: Leith - The Links Ch 30: Leith - The Sands Ch 31: Leith - The Harbour Ch 32: Memorabilia of the Shipping of Leith and its Maritime Affairs Ch 33: Leith - The Docks Ch 34: Inchkeith Ch 35: Newhaven Ch 36: Wardie, Trinity, and Granton Ch 37: The Environs of Edinburgh Ch 38: The Environs of Edinburgh (continued) Ch 39: The Environs of Edinburgh (continued) Ch 40: The Environs of Edinburgh (continued) Ch 41: The Environs of Edinburgh (continued) Ch 42: The Environs of Edinburgh (continued) Ch 43: The Environs of Edinburgh (concluded) General Index Contents List of Illustrations

  Enlarge     Pictures

338 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Inch. CHAPTER XL. THE ENVIRONS OF EDINBURGH (continued). The Inch Honse-The Winrams-Ednonstone and the Edmonstones of that Ilk-WitcheesW @Itnet-The StenhoustMoredun-The Stewarts of Goodtree-The Ruckstane-Burdiehouse-Its Limekilns and Fossils A LITTLE way eastward of Nether Liberton stands ~ to Sir Alexander Gilmour of Craigmillar, according the quaint old Inch House, built in the year 1617, to the Valuation Roll for that year. during the reign of James VI., upon land which, in the preceding century, belonged to the monks of Holyrood-a mansion long the residence of the Little-Gilmours of Craigmillar, and of old the patrimony of the Winrams of The Inch and Liberton, a family, according to the ArchmZogia .%QfiC@, descended from the Winrams of Wiston, in Clydesdale. In 1644 George Winram of Liberton was a baron of Parliament. In the following year he accused the Commissioner for Aberdeen, Patrick Leslie, ? as one unworthy to sit in Parliament, being a malignant, who drunk Montrose?s health ?-a statement remitted to a committee of the House. (Balfour?s ? Annales.?) In 1649 he was made a Lord of Session, by the title of Lord Liberton, and was one of the commissioners sent to the young king in Holland, after seeing whom, he, with the others, landed at Stonehaven, and was with the Parliament at Perth in the August of the same year. In October he sailed from Leith to Gsit the king again at Brussels on public business, obtaining a passage in a States man-of-war, in company with Thomas Eunningham, Conservator of Scottish Privileges at Campvere. In November he was again with the king at Jersey, with letters from the Committee of Estates, and landed at Leith from a Dutch war-ship, in February, 1650, charged with letters from Charles 11. to the Parliament and General Assembly, prior to the king?s coronation in Scotland. He.served in the Regiment of the College of Justice, and being mortally wounded at the battle of Dunbar,died eight days after the defeat in that town. His son, colonel in the Scottish army, was Lieutenant-Governor of Edinburgh Castle, under the Duke of Gordon, during the protracted siege thereof in 1688-9, and the latter was urged by Dundee to repair to the Highlands, and leave the defence of the fortress to Winram, who was deemed a loyal and gallant officer. After the capitulation, in violation of its terms, he was made a prisoner in the fortress for some time, and after that we hear no more of him in history. In 1726 The Inch and Nether Liberton belonged In the middle of the eighteenth century the house was the residence of Patrick Grant, Lord Elchies, a senator of the College of Justice. Born in 1690, he was called to the bar in 1711, became a judge of the Court of Session in 1732, andof the Court of Justiciary three years subsequently. He was an able lawyer and upright judge, and collected various decisions, which were published in two quarto volumes, and edited by W. M. Morrison, advocate. He died at the Inch House on 27th June, 1754, in the sixty-fourth year of his age, leaving behind him, as the papers of the time say, the character of an honest man, a sincere friend, an able lawyer, universally regretted by all those whose esteem, whem alive, he would have wished to gain.? Edmonstone House, which is the seat of Sir John Don Wauchope, Bart., lies about a mile south of Niddne, on high and commanding ground overlooking the hollow where Little France and Kingston Grange lie, and is an elegant mansion, surrounded by fine plantations. It was named Edmonstown, from Edmond, a Saxon follower of Margaret, the Queen of Malcolm Canmore, said to be a younger son of Count Egmont of Flanders, and froni whom the Edmonstones of Duntreath and Ednum (chief branch of the family, but lately extinct) and all others of the name are descended. A charter of the office of coroner for Edinburgh was given to John of Edmonstone by King David II.,pro toto tempore vita SUE, dated at Aberdeen in the thirty-third year of his reign. The same, or another having the same name, received from the same king a grant of the thanage of Boyen, in Banffshire. Sir John de Edmonstone, knight, was one of three ambassadors sent by Robert 11. to Charles V. of France in 1374, to solicit his interposition with the Pope and Sacred College to procure a favourable decree in the suit prosecuted at the instance of Margaret Logie, Queen Consort of Scodand. He married Isabel, daughter of Robert II., relict of James, Earl of Douglas, who fell at Otterbourne in 1388, and left two sons, one of whom was Knight of Culloden and first of the House of Duntreath.

  Enlarge