Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland

EDINBURGH
Street, on the car line, in Stockbridge, where The Queen's
Wake was finished. It was at the Harrow Inn, too,
that Dr John Brown first met 'Rab's' master, and the
gentle and genial author of the inimitably pathetic idyl
founded on the subsequent meeting lived himself for
many years at 23 Rutland Street, at the W end of
Princes Street. Sir James Simpson lived at 52 George
Street. Jeffrey was born at 7 Charles Street, near the
NE corner of George Square, took up house after his
marriage at 18 Buccleuch Place (3a floor), and was
tenant thereafter of 62 Queen Street, 92 George Street
(where he was followed by Lord Cockburn), and 24
Moray Place, where he died. It was at 18 Buccleuch
Place that the design of the Edinburgh Review first took
form, and another of the early pillars of that work,
Sydney Smith, lived first at 38 South Hanover Street,
and thereafter at 19 Queen Street and 46 George Street.
Brougham, the third great man of the group who
' cultivated literature on a little oatmeal, ' was born at
21 St Andrew Square, and Hume's late years were
passed in a house at the SW corner of the same square,
in the corner house entering from 21 South St David
Street.* Alison the historian lived in his father's house
at 44 Heriot Row; Campbell the poet — in his early days
when he 'instructed pupils in Greek and Latin,' and
before The Pleasures of Hope came over him — on the
second floor of the house on the N side of the archway
leading from Potterrow to Alison Square (close to Mar-
shall Street); Pollock wrote The Course of Time at 3
Davie Street, a street parallel to Nicolson Street, S of
West Richmond Street; Dr Chalmers died at Church-hill
House, No. 1 Church-hill (off Morningside Road), and
his great coadjutor, Hugh Miller, had his first Edin-
burgh house at 5 Sylvan Place, off the S side of the
Meadows, E of the Middle Walk; Darwin, when a
medical student in Edinburgh, lodged at 11 Lothian
Street, in which also De Quincey lived at one time at
No. 42 — the second floor left. Carlyle's first lodgings
in Edinburgh were at Simon's Square, off Gibb's Entry,
No. 104 Nicolson Street, and he lived afterwards at
Moray Place, now 3 Spey Street (off Pilrig Street), and
began his married life at 21 Comely Bank, near the SW
corner of the Inverleith Public Park.
Of the old mansion houses that once stood in and
around Edinburgh but few of importance now remain.
Grange House in Grange Loan — an E and W line of
roadway connecting Causewayside with Morningside Road
— was originally the Grange or granary of St Giles' Church
(whence the name of both house and district), but has
been of course much altered and added to at various
dates. The patrimony of the Dicks of Grange, into
whose hands it came in 1679, and afterwards of the Dick
Lauders, of whom the celebrated Sir Thomas Dick
Lauder (1784-1848) is the best known representative, it
was for a time the residence of Robertson the historian,
who here wrote his last work, the Disquisition as to the
knowledge the ancients had of India, and who died here
in 1793. Bruntsfield House, to the SE of Bruntsfield
Links (which also belonged to a family of Lauders, from
the fifteenth century to the beginning of the seven-
teenth), has portions dating from the fifteenth century,
and has been altered and added to at various times, but
' still preserves much of the character ot the semi-fortified
mansion with protecting outworks, which centuries ago
frowned over the Boroughmuir. ' It passed, in 1695,
into the possession of the family of Warrender, to whom
it now belongs, and in whom the blood of the Lauders
still flows, through the female line. To the N in
Whitehouse Road stood the old mansion of Whitehouse,
part of which is still included in the buildings of St
Margaret's convent, in which Robertson wrote his His-
tory of Charles V., Home his Douglas, and Blair his
* Traditionally this street takes its name from David Hume
himself in jest, as the great historian was by no means looked on
as a saint in his own day and generation ; but it is much more
likely to have got its title from the desire of associating the name
of St David with that of St Andrew. There may, of course, have
possibly been a desire to poke fun at Hume in selecting this par-
ticular street for that purpose.
480
EDINBURGH
Lectures. To the W of this, in the Merchiston district,
is Merchiston Castle, which has belonged to the family
of Napier (now Lords Napier and Ettrick) since 1438.
The lofty square tower, which forms a prominent part
in the present pile of buildings, seems to have existed
before that time, and to have been styled the King's
House. Built evidently for defence, one of the walls
being over ten feet thick, it had its strength severely
tried in the course of the civil war in 1572, when its pos-
session as the key to the southern approach to Edinburgh
seems to have made it an object of desire to both King's
and Queen's parties, and when it was in consequence, in
the most impartial way, battered first by the one] side
and then by the other. Many members of the Napier
family have risen to eminence, hut the most famous of
them all was John Napier, the inventor of logarithms
(1550-1617). The castle is now occupied as a private
boarding-school. Craig House, W of Plewlands, is an
interesting building of the middle of the sixteenth cen-
tury. Over the doorway is the date 1565, and the initials
L.S.C.P., of which the first two are those of Lawrence
Symsone, the then proprietor of the estate, and the last
two are probably those of his wife, whose name is, how-
ever, unknown. The mansion, which is said to be
haunted by a ' Green Ladye, ' whose story, if ever she
had one, has become lost in the mists of time, was long
the residence of John Hill Burton (1809-81) the his-
torian, whose library used to spread over half the rooms
in the house, and even into some of the passages. The
house is now used as a convalescent home in connection
with the Royal Lunatic Asylum, within the grounds of
part of which it stands. East Coates House, within the
grounds of St Mary's Cathedral, to the N, is now the
deanery of the diocese of Edinburgh. It was built by
Sir Patrick Byres of Coates in the beginning of the
seventeenth century. The lintel over the door of his
town house in Byres Close in the High Street was re-
moved by one of his successors in the lands of Coates,
and built into the present mansion. The N wing con-
tains also some of the ornamental portions taken from
an old building in the Cowgate, known as the French
Ambassador's House. Prestonfield and Peffer Mill, to
the S of Arthur Seat, are separately noticed. Scott is
said to have had the latter in his eye when he described
the country residence of the Laird of Dumbiedykes.
Of modern houses of any size, the only noteworthy
examples are the mansions of St Leonards and Salisbury
Green, both side by side to the SW of the Queen's Park,
and belonging respectively to the heirs of the late Mr
Thomas Nelson and the late Mr William Nelson, the
partners of the well-known publishing firm of Thomas
Nelson & Sons. Both are excellent examples of the
Scottish baronial style, and the former, designed by Mr
John Lessels, has a very bold and imposing appearance,
and now that the wood has begun to grow up around it,
the bare aspect of the grounds that at first somewhat
injured the general effect has been removed.
History. — There can be little doubt that the Castle
rock early became, in the eyes of the ancient inhabitants
of the district, a most desirable place on which to build
their dwellings, since, from its precipitous and inacces-
sible character, it could easily be defended against the
assaults of enemies. The oldest names seem to be those
given to it by the Britons, MynydAgned (painted mount),
and Dineiddyn; and by the Gael, Dimedin; and it may
possibly be associated with the locality of the eleventh
of the great Arthurian battles, which took place on the
hill called Agned; but whether it was fortified by the
Ottadeni or Gadeni, or whether, according to legend, it
was a place of refuge and safety for the daughters of the
Pictish kings, and hence got its name of the Castle of
Maidens, must remain matters of conjecture. With
regard to the latter, Buchanan is probably right when
he says that it came from romances after the manner
of the French, and is no older than the thirteenth cen-
tury. The oldest form of the present name known is
Edwinesburgh, which appears in 1128 in the foundation
charter of Holyrood, and this it has got from Edwin,
Aeduin, or Eadwine, who in 617 regained his paternal