Romantic Edinburgh
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' r VERITY k; :^^' ARBOR I Presented to the LIBRARY of the UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO by JOSEPH BUIST uddrt^^ ROMANTIC ^ ^ EDINBURGH Digitized by the Internet Arciiive in 2010 witin funding from University of Toronto http://www.archive.org/details/romanticedinburgOOgedd I I ROMANTIC EDINBURGH BY JOHN GEDDIE LONDON 5ANDS & COMPANY 12 BURLEIGH STREET, STRAND, W-.Q. 1900 PRINTED BT WILLIAM HODGE AND COMPANY GLASGOW AND EDINBURGH 0CT111994 ^^^ musm OF 10^ — INTRODUCTORY The end of the old century—or the beginning of the new seems a suitable time for the preparation of a Vade Mecum which the explorer of Edinburgh can conveniently take with him on his walks, or profitably peruse by the fireside. Such a book should be as mxich historical as descriptive. For Edinburgh is not less richly endowed with memories than with beauty ; and its present can be read only in the light of its past. At no time have the builder and improver—those scene-shifters in the drama of modern town life—been busier in sweeping romance, along with stone and lime, into the dust-bin ; and every year familiar features of the streets and closes are drafted from the list of the city's sights into that of the city's memories. The opening of the new North Bridge offers a natural starting-point for the survey and retrospect ; it promises—or threatens—to bring in its train changes almost as great as those that make the construction of the first bridge across the valley between Old and New Edinburg an era in the history of " mine own romantic town." For the illustrations of the volume thanks are due to Mr. John Patrick, Comiston Road, Edinburgh, from Avhose photographs they have been reproduced. "Mine own Komantic Town" CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I.—The Old and the New 1 II.—Nor' Loch and North Bridge 13 III.—The High Street and St. Giles - - - - 27 IV.—Old Hie-Gait Life 3S v.—From the Tron to the Castle Hill - - - - 50' VI. —The Lawnraarket and the Castle Hill - - - 64 VII.—The Castle 7& VIIL—The Netherbow Precincts 91 IX.—The Canongate 102 X.—Holyrood 117 XL—The Queen's Park 131 XTI.—Round the Flodden Wall—The Cowgate - - 140 XIIL—Round the Flodden Wall—The University - - 152 XIV.—Round the Flodden Wall—The Greyfriars and Grassmarket - 167 XV. —Newington and Grange ------ 184 XVI.—From Morningside to the West Kirk - - - 202 XVII. —The New Town—Princes Street - - - - 217 XVIII. —The Calton 234 XIX. —George Street and its Environs . - . 242 XX.—The West End 257 XXL—The Water of Leith 268 XXIL—Leith, Port and Burgh 282 XXIIL—Portobello 294 ILLUSTRATIONS Princes Street from Calton Hill .... Frontispiece PAGE Edinburgh High Street 3 The Old Town from the Hollow 10 West Princes Street Gardens - - - - - - - 18 Allan Ramsay's Shop ---...-- 21 A High Street Vista 30 St. Giles—Exterior 33 St. Giles—Interior - - - - 36 The Heart of Midlothian 39 The Mercat Croce 42 View from Castle looking South-east - - - - 66 The Esplanade - - 71 The Castle from the Grassmarket 77 Mons Meg - 87 John Knox's House 92 Knox's Study 100 White Horse Close, Canongate - 113 Holyrood Palace 118 Chapel Royal, Holyrood 121 Charles the First's Bed 125 Queen Mary's Bedroom - - - - - - - - 128 St. Anthony's Chapel - 133 Arthur Seat from Duddingston - - - - - - 135 Duddingston Loch 137 Arthur Seat from St. Leonard's 144 The Old University 154 Xll ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE The M'Evvan Hall 164 Old Greyfriars 169 Heriot's Hospital 176 The Bow-foot 181 Craigmillar Castle - . 191 Edinburgh from the Blackford Hill 199 Roslin Chapel 203 Swanston and the Pentlands ------- 204 Merchiston Castle 208 Princes Street, looking East 220 The Scott Monument - 231 George Street—East End - - 243 George Street—West End 246 Almond Water - - 261 The Forth Bridge 262 The Water of Leith from Dean Bridge ----- 275 Newhaven 281 Newhaven Fishwives 291 Portobello Sands - . 297 ROMANTIC EDINBURGH CHAPTER I THE OLD AND THE NEW On a plan of Edinburgh of the year 1765 there is traced, at the bottom of that Hollow of tlie Winds wliich divided what is now known as the New Town from the Old, the solitary pier of a bridge. It is the footprint of Old Edinburgh setting out for fresh woods and pastures new. The first step is half the journey. This one had been meditated for a century, and it was taken at last timidly and tentatively. The ground below was marshy and unstable ; not long had it been reclaimed from the waters of the Nor' Loch. The fields beyond were bare and wind- swept. Like David Hume, the good town was loth to begin its flitting—to come down from its high chambers which, if they were confined and hard of access, looked abroad over wide prospects of land and sea—and go forth from the narrow closes, clarty but cosy, to pitch its tent on those cold slopes fronting the north. For a couple of years after it had laid down, with all due pomp and ceremony, the stepping-stone in the valley, it rested there, balancing and hesitating. Not until 1772 was the work complete, and the way open and passable " between the High Street and the fields to the north." — 2 ROMANTIC EDINBURGH As yet the New Town was not. Plans had been drawn, and a few sanguine and adventurous spirits had begun to build. But the population north of the Rubicon consisted chiefly of the dwellers in the " Beggars' Bow " of St. Ninian's and the Calton—folk at odds with fortune, whose more reputable emj^loyments were smuggling, and poaching on the privileges of the Incorporated Crafts within the city bounds ; and the villagers of Moultrie Hill and Broughton. The Nor' Loch still slumbered under the shadow of the Castle Rock, although it had mucli shrunk from its former proportions and become a swamp, offensive to the' nostrils of a more fastidious generation. Until the gap Avas formed for the North Bridge, through the line of the old Cap-and- Feather and Hart's Closes and the Green Market, the great Avail of lofty houses that, on tlie left hand and on the right, hemmed in High Street and the Canongate remaiiied almost intact. From the Castle Hill to the Netherbow, and from the Netherbow to Holyrood, stretched this noble thoroughfare—the wonder and admiration of all comers pierced only by innumerable closes, and by a few naiTOw wynds. The close and unbroken ranks of those tall old tenements must have deepened exceedingly the impi'ession they gave of height and strength and stateliness. The visitor might well fancy that he had wandered within the walls of some huge fortification—some rock-cut Eastern city, from which egress was possible only to those who held the clue to its labyrinth of straitened passages. Fortified and defended the Old Town was on all hands aaainst access and influences from without. Towards the sun, it is true, it had spread a little beyond its walls and ports in a maze of squalid and straggling streets ; although in this direction also it was hemmed in by the Burgh EDINBURGH HIGH STREET U(D m*^ w A bo u a 4 ROMANTIC EDINBURGH Loch and the Burgh ^luir, and the roads leading south and west were ill-made and unsafe. On the north side no egress could be found for wheeled carriages until the low latitudes of Leith "Wynd were reached, and only in favourable weather could the sedan chair make the parlous descent into the valle}" by the short cut of the steep and malodorous Halkerston's Wynd. For the traveller London-wards the nearest route lay through the adjoining burgh of Canongate, and forth into the outer world by the Water Gate, Abbey Hill, and Restalrig, beyond which he must brave the terrors of highwaymen and footpads in passing throiigh the Figgate Whins, on the site now occupied by Edinburgh's sea-bathing suburb of Portobello. Returning, he must pass barrier after barrier, ending with the Netherbow, where, as at other ports and exits of the city, stood on guard the toll- keeper and the town watch. Under these conditions grew up the strangely marked features of the social life and customs, as well as of the arcliitecture, of the Edinburgh of last centuiy. But, by the time when George the Third became King and the Jacobite risings were beginning to fade into a tradition, the old capital was already irking itself of being so isolated and self-contained. It was tired of being chained, like Pi-ometheus, to its rock. Down to the days of the early Jameses, its houses are believed to have been straw-thatched and comparatively low. The nature of the site and the exigencies of defence required that it should Ijuild ever higher and closer on its confined and narrow space. Like the structure of some coral reef, the high "lands" rose, storey after storey, till they overtopped the pinnacles of St. Giles. The citizens, in Dunbar's phrase, were "hampered in a honevcaim " of their own making. To the needs and THE BREACH IN THE WALLS 5 conditions that had reared the grey old city on the ridge succeeded the problems of modern life. Sanitation, or as it was concretely called in those days, " the disposal of the town's fulzie," grew a crying question. The craving for more air and light and space became irresistible. It mani- fested itself, in the decade before the founding of the North Bridge, and during the years when that structure was in progress, in a somewhat indiscriminate removal of ancient " landmarks which were felt to be obstructive.