230 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
Tolbooth had become decayed and ruinous, and
soon after the demolition af the Heart of Midlothian
its doom was pronounced. Sir Walter Scott,
Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, and other zealous antiquaries,
left nothing undone to induce the magistrates
of Edinburgh, under whose auspices the
work of demolition proceeded, to preserve the
picturesque street front, and re-build the remainder
on a proposed plan.
A deputation waited upon the provost for this
purpose, but ? were courteously dismissed with the
unanswerable argument that the expense of new
designs had been incurred; and so the singular
old house of justice of Queen Mary was replaced
by the commonplace erection that now occupies
its site.?
The old edifice was demolished in 1819, and
its unprepossessing successor was erected in 1822,
at the expense of the city of Edinburgh, in a
nondescript style, which the prints of the time
flattered themselves was Saxon; ?but though it
has several suites of well-lighted cells, and is said
to be a very complete jail,? wrote a statistical
author, ? it remained, at the date of the Commissioners?
Report on Municipal Corporations, and
possibly still remains, unlegalised. An objection
having been judiciously made to its security, the
Court of Session refused an application to legalise
it; and a misunderstanding having afterwards arisen
between the Corporation of Edinburgh and the
community of Leith, the place was neglected, and
not allowed the benefit of any further proceedings
in its favour. A lock-up house, consisting of cold,
damp, and unhealthy cells, such as endangered
life, was coolly permitted to do for the police
prisoners the honours and offices of the sinecure
Tolbooth.?
About 1730 there would seem to have been
established in the wynd an institution having in
it a Bath Stove, which, as a curious old handbill,
preserved in the Advocates? Library, and without
date, informs the public, ?is to be found in
Alexander Hayes? Close, over against the entry to
Babylon, betwixt the Tolbooth and the shore.?
The bill runs thus :-
?At Leith there is a Bath Stove, set up by
William Paul, after the fashion of Poland and Germany,
which is approven by all the doctors of physic
and apothecaries in Edinburgh and elsewhere-a
sovereign remedy in curing of all diseases, and
preventing sickness both of old and young. This
bath is able to give content to fourscore persons
a day.
?The diseases which are commonly cured by
the said bath are these :-The hydropsis, the gout,
deafness, and itch ; sore eyes, the cold unsensibleless
of the flesh, the trembling axes (sic), the Irish
tgue, cold defluxions ; inwardly, the melancholick
iisease, the collick, and all natural diseases that
ire curable ; probaturn est.
?This bath is to be used all times and seasons,
both summer and winter, and every person that
iomes to bathe must bring clean linen with them
for their own use, especially dean shirts. All the
days of the week for men, except Friday, which is
reserved for women and children.?
On the north side of the wynd, opposite the
new Tolbooth, opened the irregular alley named
the Paunch Market, which contained the Piazzas
and Bourse of Mary of Lorraine, and from whence
a narrow alley, called Queen Street, leads to the
shore.
A stately old building at the head of the latter,
but which was pulled down in the year 1849, is stated
to have been the residence of Mary of Lorraine
during some portion of her quarrels with the
Protestants; and the same mansion is said by
tradition to have been briefly occupied by Oliver
Cromwell.
Its window-frames were all formed of oak, richly
carved? and the panellings of the doors were of
the same wood, beautifully embellished. Its walls
were decorated with well-executed paintings, which
seemed of considerable antiquity, and were afterwards
in possession of Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe.
The mansion was elaborately decorated on the exterior
with sculptured dormer windows, and other
ornaments common to edifices of the period.
Wilson seems inclined to think that the modern
name of the street may have suggested the tradition
that it was the residence of the Queen Regent, as
it superseded the more homely one of the Paunch
Market; but adds, ?there is no evidence in its
favour sufficient to overturn the statement of Maitland,
who wrote at a period when there was less
temptation to invent traditions than now.?
The Rev. Parker Lawson, in his Gazetthr, says:
?About a score of old houses are pointed out as
the residence of the Queen Regent and Oliver
Cromwell, but in Queen Street, formerly the
Paunch\ Market, is an antique mansion of elegant
exterior, said to have been the actual dwelling of
the queen.?
Over a doorway in this street, says Wilson, there
is cut in very ancient and ornamental letters,
CREDENTI. NIHIL. LINGUW.
On the west side of this narrow thoroughfare
stood the early Episcopal Chapel of Leith. Referring
to the period of Culloden, Chalmers says :-
