The Lawnmarket

That section of High Street termed the Lawnmarket is said to derive its name from the fact that the lawn or cloth sellers of the city had their booths in it.

The opening opposite the Assembly Hall is all that remains of the old West Bow, in old days one of the principal approaches to the city. At the head of it stand Free St. Columba Church (formerly free St. John1s), famous for the ministry of Dr. Guthrie. It is now used as the Free Church Assembly Hall. The shop at the head of the Bow occupies the place of the little shop, with an open wooden gallery in front of the ground floor, where the founder of the publishing house of Nelson began business as a bookseller.

Immediately opposite is Milne’s Court, erected in 1690 by the king’s Master Mason for Scotland, Robert Mylne, who enjoyed the distinction of being the seventh (and last) of his race who in succession had held that honour. One of the line erected the more modern parts of the Palace of Holyroodhouse and another was responsible for old Blackfriars Bridge, London. Just beyond Milne’s Court is James’s Court, which has been greatly altered by the extension of the Church offices, but we can still note the house in the eastern corner where David Hume lived. When he left it to go to the New Town the flat was purchased by Boswell, the biographer of Johnson, and here” Bozzy” had the honour to receive the Ursa Major of eighteenth-century literature in August, 1773.

Adjoining the lower end of the James’s Court is a tall house. Called Gladstone’s Land. Its front, of polished ashlar, with an arcade (brought to light when the house was restored) distinguishes it from the others. The original owner was Sir Robert Bannatyne, but in 1631 it was acquired by Thomas Gledstane, of the same family as William Ewart Gladstone, the great statesman. It is now the property of the Scottish National Trust and the home of the Saltire Society.

Lady Stair’s Close takes its name from Elizabeth, Countess Dowager of Stairs, in her day a leader of fashion. While she was Viscountess Primrose she was the victim of the remarkable incident (1714) recorded in Scott’s story of My Aunt Margaret’s Mirror. The house was originally built by Sir William Gray of Pittendrum, who married the daughter and heiress of Sir John Smith of Groathill, whence it came about that the Queen Mary Jewels in the possession of this family (and afterwards of the Clerks of Penicuik and the property of the nation) were long kept in this dwelling. The house was purchased and restored by the Earl of Rosebery, himself a Primrose, and in 1907 was presented to the Town Council for use as a Museum containing many antiquities worthy of notice, as are the collections of prints and autographs in the Burns, Scott, Edinburgh, and William Miller (the engraver) rooms.

Over the Lawnmarket entrance to Lady Stair’s Close is a tablet stating: “In a house on the east side of this close Robert Burns lived during his first visit to Edinburgh, 1786."

Crossing the street, and retracing our steps a little, we come to Riddle’s Close, of which only half remains. In it is another of the houses which David Hume occupied. Here his History of England was begun and his Essays were written. In the inner part of the close is Bailie Macmorran’s House.

This civic father lives in history because he was shot by one of the High School boys. The boys had become very turbulent, and when in September, 1595, a week’s holiday was refused, they barricaded the doors and declined to admit their masters. They had pistols, swords, and a plentiful supply of provision. The Town Council, the patrons of the institution, sent Bailie Macmorran’s house, being one of the finest in the city, was greatly used for banquets.

Lower down the street from Riddle’s Close we come to Fisher’s Close, in which stood the town mansion of the Buccleuch family, while in Brodie’s Close lived Deacon William Brodie, who was a member of the Incorporated Trades.

Brodie had a good business as a cabinet-maker left him by his father, and had increased by his own popularity. But in an evil hour he gave way to gambling and dissipated habits, and finally became the secret leader and director of a gang of housebreakers. He robbed many places of business in Edinburgh, but after long escaping detection was arrested and hanged in 1788. the turnpike stair on the right conducts us to the house (with fine ceilings of 1645 and 1646); the door with its massive lock- both still in the position at the entrance to his flat-is said to have been made by the Deacon’s own hands. The story is the foundation of the play by R. L. Stevenson and W.E. Henley.

Melbourne Place, at the junction of the Lawnmarket and George IV Bridge, comprises the site of the town mansion and chapel belonging to the Abbots of Cambuskenneth. After the Reformation the stones were used in the erection of a residence for Robert Gourlay, one of the officials at Holyrood. Here, too, stood until 1806 the Bank of Scotland.

At the head of the High Street, on the left-hand side between Bank Street and St. Giles Street, stands the new Sheriff Court building (completed 1937), accommodation for which was obtained by the clearing away of all the older buildings occupying this island site.

Opposite, on the right, is a quadrangular space bounded by the Midlothian Country Buildings, the Signet Library, and St. Giles Cathedral. In the space stands a Statue to Francis Walter, fifth Duke of Buccleuch (1806-84), the founder of Granton. The statue, by Boehm, has bas-reliefs illustrating incidents in Border warfare associated with the “bauld Buccleuch.”

A few steps farther in the direction of the Cathedral a Heart will be seen outlined on the causeway in partly coloured stones. This marks the spot where stood the portal of the Old Tolbooth, in which the opening incidents of Scott’s great novel, The Heart of Midlothian, took place. The superstitious still sometimes express their feeling for this prison by spitting on the “heart.” The Tolbooth - whose site as a whole is likewise indicated by special paving - blocks (some of them bearing dates denoting important reconstructions of the building) – was finally demolished in 1817, the entrance gate being presented to Sir Walter Scott and by him taken to Abbotsford. Along with it have disappeared its scarcely less famous neighbours, the Luckenbooths (“locked booths”), squeezed in between the Cathedral and the northern side of High Street, which at one time housed Allan Ramsay’s wigmaker’s shop and library; and sixteenth-century times and later, to Privy Council, College of Justice, Parliament, and Municipality.