258 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith
helmet, now preserved in the Antiquarian Museum
-and the entrance gate or archway on the north
side of Couper Street. It is elliptical, goes the
whole depth of the original rampart, and has had
a portcullis, but is only nine feet high from the
keystone to the ground, which must have risen
here ; and in the Advertiser for 1789 (No. 2,668),
it is recorded that, ? On Monday last, as a gentleman?s
coach was driving through an arch of the
citadel at Leith, the coachman, not perceiving the
lowness of the arch, was unfortunately killed.?
?( Many still living,? says Wilson, writing in 1847,
?can remember when this arch (with the house
now built above it) stood on the open beach, though
now a wide space intervenes between it and the
docks ; and the Mariners? Church, as well as a long
range of substantial houses in Commercial Street,
have been erected on the recovered land?
After the Restoration a partial demolition of the
citadel and sale of its materials began ; thus, it is
stated in the Records of Heriot?s Hospital, that
the ?Town Council, on 7th April, 1673, ?unanimously
understood that the Kirk of the citadel1 (of
Leith), and all that is therein, both timber, seats,
steeple, stone and glass work, be made use of and
used to the best avail for reparation of the hospital
chapel, and ordains the treasurer of the hospital
to see the samyn done with all conveniency.?
Maitland describes the citadel as having been of
pentagonal form, with five bastions, adding that it
cost the city ?no less a sum than LII,OOO,? thus
we must suppose that English money contributed
largely to its erection. On its being granted to the
Earl of Lauderdale by the king, the former sold it
to the city for &5,000, and the houses within were
sold or let to various persons, whose names occur
in various records from time to time.
A glass-house, for the manufacture of bottles, is
announced in the ?? Kingdom?s Intelligence,? under
date 1663, as having been ?? erected in the citadel
of Leith by English residents,? for the manufacture
of wine and beer glasses, and mutchkin and chopin
bottles. .
On this, a writer remarks that it will at once
strike the reader there is a curious conjunction here
of Scottish and English customs. Beer, under its
name, was previously unknown in Scotland, and
mutchkins and chopins never figured in any table
of English measures.
Among those who dwelt in the citadel, and had
houses there, we may note the gallant Duke of
Gordon, who defended the Castle of Edinburgh in
~688-9 against FVilliam of Orange, ?and died at
his residence in the citadel of Leith in 1716.?
A large and commodious dwelling-house there,
?lately belonging to and possest by the Lady
Bruce, with an agreeable prospect,? having thirteert
fire rooms, stables, and chaise-house, is announced
for sale in the Courant for October, 1761,
In the Advertiser for December, 1783, the house
of Sir William Erskine there is announced as to let ;
the drawingroom thirty-one feet by nineteen j (? a
small field for a cow may be had if wanted; the
walks round the house make almost a circuit round
the citadel, and, being situated cZose to the sea, command
a most pleasing view of the shipping in the
Forth.?
In the HeraZd and ChronicZe for 1800 ?the
lower half of the large house ? last possessed by
Lady Eleonora Dundas is advertised to let; but
even by the time Kincaid wrote his ?( Hktory,? such
aristocratic residents had given place to the keepers
of summer and bathing quarters, for which last the
beach and its vicinity gave every facility.
Mr. Campbell?s house (lately possessed by Major
Laurenson), having eight rooms, with stabling, is
announced as bathing quarters in the Advertiser
of 1802.
North Leith Sands, adjacent to the citadel,
existed till nearly the formation of the old docks.
In 1774, John Milne, shipmaster from Banff,
was found on them drowned ; and the Scots Magazine
for the same year records that on ?Sunday,
December 4, a considerable damage was done to
the shipping in Leith harbour by the tide, which
rose higher than it has ever been known for many
years. The stone pier was damaged, some houses
in the citadel suffered, and a great part of the
bank from that place to Newhaven was swept
away. The magistrates and Town Council af
Edinburgh, on the zIst, were pleased to order
twenty guineas to be given to the Master of the
Trinity House of Leith, to be distributed among
the sufferers.?
Wilson, quoting Campbell?s ?History of Leith,?
says : ?? Not only can citizens remember when the
spray of the sea billows was dashed by the east
wind against the last relic of the citadel, that
now stands so remote from the rising tide, but it
is only about sixty years since a ship was wrecked
upon the adjoining beach, and went to pieces,
while its bowsprit kept beating against the walls
of the citadel at every surge of the rolling waves,
that forced it higher on the strand.?
This anecdote is perhaps corroborated by the
following, which we find in the Edinburgh Herald
for December, 1800 :-(?On Friday last, as the
sloop ITmIeavour, of Thurso, Lye11 master, from
the Highlands, laden with kelp and other goods,
was taking the harbour of Leith, she struck the
