Leith] THE SUGAR HOUSE COMPANY. 235
In addition to the imperatively required sanitary
reform which this sqheme will effect in a few years,
the new thoroughfare will be of great commercial
utility, and present an easy gradient from the shore
to Leith Walk.
The area scheduled contains about 3,500 inhabitants,
but when the works are completed
nearly double that number will be accommodated.
The sum to be borrowed from the Public Works
Loan Commissioners was fixed at ~GIOO,OOO,
payable in thirty years, about 1911 ; but in 1881
the Home Secretary intimated his intention of
recommending a loan of cf70,000, which, in the
meantime, was deemed suiticient.
The ancient street named Water Lane, with
all its adjacent alleys, is not included in this scheme
of removal and improvement. It runs tortuously,
at an angle, from the foot of the Kirkgate to
Bemard Street, and is about seven hundred yards
in length. This thoroughfare was anciently called
the Rotten ROW ; and in the map given by Robertson
in his ?? Antiquities,?? that name is borne by an
alley ne+r the foot of it, running parallel with
Chapel Lane.
In the inventory of ?( Pious Donations ? made to
the Brethren Predicators in Edinburgh, under date
14th May, 1473, is one by ?John Sudgine, of
30s. 4d. out of his tenement of Leith on the south
side of the water thereof, between Alan Nepar?s
land on the east, and Rotten Row on the west.?
Alan Napier?s land, ?on the east side of the
common vennel called the Ratounrow,? is referred
to in King James 111.?~ charter to the Black Friars,
under the same date. (?Burgh Charters,? No.
43.) It was so named from being built of houses
of mitim, or rough timber.
On Mary of Guise and Lorraine choosing Leith
as an occasional residence, she is stated by Maitland
to have erected a dwelling-house in the Rotten
Row, near the corner of the present Quality Street,
and that the royal arms of Scotland, which were
in front thereof, were, when it was taken down,
rebuilt into the wall of a mansion opposite, ?? and
the said Mary, for the convenience of holding
councils, erected a spacious and handsome edifice
for her privy council to meet in.?
This is supposed to refer to a stately house on
the Coal Hill (facing the river), and to be treated
of when we come to that quarter of Leith.
The beautifully sculptured stone which bears
the arms of Scotland impaled with those of Guise,
surmounted by an imperial crown and the boldlycut
legend,
MARIA. DE. LORRAINE.
REGINA. SCOTIA. 1560,
and surrounded by the richest scroll-work, still
exists in Leith. It was long preserved in the
north wall of the old Tolbooth; and on the
demolition of the latter, after undergoing various
adventures, has now ?been rebuilt,? says Dr,
Robertson, ?? into the original window of St. Mary,
which has been erected in Albany Street,NorthLeith.?
This is the last relic of that house in which
Mary, the queen-regent (prior to her death in the
castle), spent the last year of her sorrowful life,
embittered by the strife of hostile factions and the
din of civil war-?an ominous preparation for her
unfortunate daughter?s assumption of the sceptre
which was then wielded in her name.?
Another ancient house in the same street bore a
legend similar to one already given :-
?THEY ARE WELCOME HERE
QHA THE LORD DO FEIR, 1574.?
It was demolished in I 83 2.
In this street was the establishment of the old
Leith Sugar House Company. The circumstances
that Leith was acentral port for carrying on West
Indian trade, where vessels could then be fitted
out more easily than on the Clyde, and at a lower
rate than at London-besides the savings on freight
and charges-eneouraged the West Indian planter
?to make it a place for his consignments. Thus a
house for baking sugars was set up in Edinburgh
in 1751, and the manufacture was still carried on
in 1779 by the company that instituted it.
That of Leith was begun in 1757 by a company,
consisting chiefly of Edinburgh bankers ; but by
1762 their capital was totally lost, and for some
time the Sugar House remained unoccupied, till
some speculative Englishmen took a lease of it,
and revived the manufacture.
As these men were altogether without capital,
and had to fall back upon ruinous schemes to
support their false credit, they were soon involved
in complete failure, but were succeeded by the
Messrs. Parkers, who kept up the manufacture for
about five years.
?? The house,? says h o t , ?? was then purchased
by a set of merchants in Leith, who, as they began
with sufficient capital, as they have employed in
the work the best refiners of sugar that could be
procured in London, and as they pay attention
to the business, promise to conduct it with every
prospect of success.?
But be that as it may, in B e Advertiser for
1783, ?the whole houses and subjects belonging
to and employed by the Leith Sugar House Company,
together with the coppers, coolers, and
whole utensils used in the trade,? are announced
