Leith. THE BURGESS CLOSE.
234 .OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith
But this ancient alley is the earliest thoroughhre
in the seaport of which we have an authentic
account, as towards the close of the fourteenth
century it was granted, in a charter already quoted,
by Logan of Restalng, the baronial over-lord of
Leith, before it attained the dignity of a burgh,
. to the burgesses of Edinburgh (hence its name) ;
and at the time of its formation the whole imports
and exports of the Leith shipping must have been
conveyed to and fro on pack-horses or in wheelbarrows,
as no larger means of conveyance could
pas? through the Burgess Close.
Its inconvenience appears to have been soon
felt, and the Baron of Restalrig was compelled,
under pressure, to grant his vassals a more commodious
access to the shore. ?The inscription
which now graces this venerable thoroughfare,?
says Wilson in 1847, ?though of a date much
later than its first construction, preserves a memorial
of its gift to the civic council of Edinburgh,
as we may reasonably ascribe the veneration of
some wealthy merchant of the capital inscribing
over the doorway of his mansion at Leith the very
appropriate motto of the city arms. To this, the
oldest quarter of the town, indeed, we must direct
those who go in search of the picturesque.?
The Humane Society of Leith, which was first
instituted in 1788 for the recovery of persons
apparently drowned or suffocated, had its rooms
first in the Burgess Close and Bernard Street.
Water?s Close, which adjoins, has several attractive
features in a picturesque sense, and repulsive ones
in its modern squalor. Tenements of stone and
timber, and of great antiquity, are mingled together
in singular disorder ; and one venerable tenement
of hewn ashlar exhibits a broad projecting turnpike,
with various corbellings, a half-circular turret,
crowstepped gables, and massive chimneys, with
? every variety of convenient aberration from the
perpendicular or horizontal which the taste or
whim of its constructor could devise, and is one
of the most singular edifices that the artist could
select as a subject for his pencil.?
Five low and square-headed doorways of great
breadth show that the whole of the lower storey
had been constructed as a warehouse.
This edifice, with its vaults, is advertised as for
sale in The Edinburgh Advertiser of 1789, and is
described as being in ?Willie Water?s Close, Leith.?
Its vaults are stated to be of stone, and ? the whole
length and breadth of the subject completely
catacombed.?
CHAPTER XXVI.
LEITH-ROTTEN ROW, BROAD WYND, BERNARD STREET, BALTIC STREET, AND
QUALITY STREET.
The Improvement Scheme-Water Lane, or Rotten Row-House of the Queen Regent-Old Sugar House Company-The Broad Wynd-The.
King?s Wark-Its History-The Tennis Court-Bernard Lindsay-Little London-Bernard Street-Old Glass House-How of John
Home-Home and MR. Siddons-Professor Jamieson.
MUCH of what we have been describing in Leith
will ere long be swept away, for after some years
of negotiation, the great ? Leith Improvement
Scheme? has been definitely arranged, and the
loan necessary to carry it out has been granted.
Early in 1877 the Provost drew attention to the
insanitary condition of certain portions of the burgh,
more especially the crowded and central area lying
between St. Giles?s Street and the Coal Hill. In the
area mentioned the death rate amounted to twentysix
per thousand., or five per cent above that of
any other part of Leith, while the infantile mortality
reached the alarming rate of fifty-six per
thousand.
It had been found that the power conferred on
the local authority of levying an improvement rate
under the Police Act, was quite inadequate for the
purpose of improving an area so extensive; thus
attention was drawh to- the Artisans? Dwelling
House Act, as a measure which might satisfy the
requirements of the seaport, and two schemes, one
of which included a large district, were condemned
by the ratepayers as expensive and unsuitable.
The Town Council then ordered the preparation
of a plan likely to secure the objects in view, at a
cost which would not prove oppressive to the
inhabitants, and this scheme was ultimatelyapproved
cf by the Home Secretary. Its main feature will
be the ultimate opening up of a street fifty feet
wide, from Great Junction Street to the Tolbooth
Wynd, by the way of Yardheads, St Giles?s and St.
Andrew?sStreets, andin the course ofits construdtion,
three-quarters of a mile in length, no fewer than
eighteen ancient closes will be removed, while the
streets that run parallel ? to Yardheads will be
widened and improved.
