Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 5

MUSSELBUKGH
on the links. Every year the Royal Company of Archers,
the Queen's Bodyguard in Scotland, compete there for
a silver arrow, which was originally presented by the
burgh. The mnner each year receives a ' riddle of
claret' from the town ; and is bound to append a gold
or silver medal to the arrow before the next year's com-
petition. The custom was instituted before the close of
the 16th century ; and the arrow, which is carefully
preserved and is still annually shot for, has a series
of medals, in almost unbroken succession from 1603 to
the present time, attached to it.
Musselburgh proper consists mainly of the High
Street, running with varying breadth along the line of
the Edinburgh and Berwick road for a distance of
almost 660 yards. The houses on either side present a
fairly well-built and comfortable appearance, without
much pretension to handsomeness. The street in its
central parts expands to a considerable breadth, giving
a pleasant and spacious air to the town, which in its
principal parts is kept tolerably clean. The High Street
had formerly gates at its E and W ends. Two large
pillars still mark where the former was placed ; they
bear the burgh arms and the date 1770. The W gate
was at the old bridge, noticed below. A second street,
known as Mill HUl, runs for about 450 yards NE from
the end of the iron foot-bridge to the links, and derives
its name from an old mill belonging to the town.
Various lanes, alleys, and less important streets run
parallel and at angles with these two main thorough-
fares. Newbigging suburb stretches S at right angles
to the High Street, from a point opposite the Cross. 'The
suburb of Fisherrow, which lies between the E side of
the Esk and the sea, consists of several parallel streets,
and for all purposes it is regarded as part of Mussel-
burgh, from which it is only separated by the river. It
contains no buUdings of any importance ; and is, on the
whole, inferior in appearance to Musselburgh proper.
Mall Park, the suburb beside the station, which is at
the SW extremity of the town, was about 1878 laid out
for feuing, and several new tenements and works have
been erected there. The Mall, from which the suburb
derives its name, is a short but beautiful avenue, lead-
ing from the W end of the High Street to the station,
and overarched on both sides with fine trees. These trees
were preserved to the town in 1846-47 by the energy
of the Rev. Mr J. G. Beveridge, parish minister, who got
up a petition successfully praying the directors of the
railway, then building, so to modify the original plans as
to leave uninjured these great ornaments to the town.
The town-hall, on the N side of the wide central ex-
pansion in the High Street of Musselburgh, is a com-
paratively modern edifice, bearing the date 1762. It was
altered in 1875-76 at a cost of £1000, and contains a
public hall 48 feet long by 37 broad and 30 high, to
hold 600 ; and includes apartments for the council and
police business of the burgh. Adjacent to it is the tol-
booth, built in 1590 of materials taken from the ancient
Loretto chapel, noticed below. This is said to be one of
the earliest instances in Scotland of the use of ecclesi-
astical materials in the construction of a secular build-
ing ; and the action drew upon the burgesses of Mus-
selburgh, for about two centuries, an annual sentence
of excommunication at Rome. The tolbooth never had
any pretensions to architectural beauty, and it suffered
much from the weather ; but about 1840 it underwent
renovation and a certain amount of urnamentation. It
is surmounted by a small and curious steeple (more
ancient than the main body of the tolbooth itself), with
a clock. The original clock is said to have been pre-
sented to Musselburgh by the Dutch States, in order to
encourage commercial relations between the townspeople
and the Dutch. The present clock was presented to the
burgh by Mr Ritchie in 1883 ; and on its face it bears
this latter date along with that of 1496. In 1746 a
number of rebels were confined in the tolbooth ; and
even yet it is used for the detention of prisoners for
periods of not more than 30 days. In front of the tol-
booth stands the old cross, consisting of a heavy square
ijedestal, surmounted by a pillar, on the top of which
86
MUSSELBURGH
is a unicorn supporting a shield with the arms of the
burgh. The cross indicates the old position of the
Midraw, a row of houses standing in the middle of
part of the High Street, and long interfering mth its
width and beauty. At the W end of the High Street
is a monument erected in 1853 to the memory of
David Moir, M.D., long prominent in the town as a
public man and a physician, and well known to wider
circles as the ' Delta ' of Blackwood's Magaziiie. The
monument consists of a statue 8J feet high, by Handy-
side Ritchie, on a pedestal 20 feet high, the base of
which bears a suitable inscription. There are several
buildings of antiquarian and historic interest within the
limits of the burgh. On the margin of the links, im-
mediately beyond the ancient eastern gate of the to'wn,
stood a celebrated chapel and hermitage, dedicated to
Our Lady of Loretto. The chapel, founded most likely
in 1533 by Thomas Douehtie, a hermit, enjoyed a repu-
tation for sanctity and miraculous powers akin to those
ascribed to the famous Church of Loretto in Italy.
Keith says the Musselburgh chapel was connected with
the nunnery of Sciennes in Edinburgh ; possibly it
only placed itself under its protection. The hermitage
attached to the chapel, inhabited by a solitary ascetic,
added to the sanctity of the place, to which large num-
bers of pilgrims resorted annually. James V. himself
performed a pilgrimage on foot to the chapel from Stir-
ling in August 1536, before departing to France to woo
a wife. The evils which too often sprang up with the
assembling of heterogeneous crowds at shrines and pU-
grim resorts, were not absent from Loretto ; and Sir
David Lyndsay of the Mount directed one of his biting
satires against the Loretto pilgrimages. The chapel is
sometimes called St AUareit or Lariet, by old writers,
e. g. by the Earl of Glencairn in a satirical letter against
Romish friars, purporting to come from ' the halie Her-
meit of Alareit,' and preserved by Enox in his History
of the Eeformation. In 1544 the chapel, along with much
of the town, was destroyed by an English army, imder
the Earl of Hertford. Though repaired after this event,
it was finally destro}'ed at the Reformation, its materials
being used, as we have seen, to build the tolbooth
of Musselburgh ; and it is now only represented by a
mound-covered cell, measuring 12 feet by 10. Thepresent
schoolhouse of Loretto, erected in last century, stands
near the site of the ancient chapel. There were two other
chapels in the town of Musselburgh, similar in character
to that of Loretto, but of much less note ; both have dis-
appeared. The house in which occurred, on 20 July
1332, the death of the great Randolph, Earl of Moray,
the friend and ally of Robert the Bruce, stood till 1809
at the E end of the S side of the High Street. The
inhabitants are said to have formed a guard round the
house during the earl's illness, and to have received for
their devotion some reward, in the form of town privi-
leges, from the Earl of Mar, the succeeding regent. It
is also said that the motto of the burgh, 'Honesty,' was
derived from Mar's openly expressed opinion that the
burghers were ' honest fellows ' in acting as they did on
this occasion. At the W end of the High Street stands
the house in which Dr Smollett was received by Com-
missioner Cardonell. In the Dam Brae, a back street,
there are still extant portions of the Musselburgh Kil-
winning Masonic Lodge built in 1612. In the vUla
of Eskside, near the Fisherrow end of the iron bridge,
dwelt for some time Professor Stuart ; and within
its garden is the study of his son Gilbert, a detached,
two-storied, circular building, in which several of the
works of the latter were written. Pinkie House, in
the SE outskirts of the town, is separately noticed.
The manse of Inveresk, standing near the parochial
church, which has been already noted in the article
Inveresk, was built in 1806, and is supposed to occupy
the site of the pre-Reformation parsonage. The former
manse, built in 1681, had many literary associations.
Within its walls were composed Williamson's sermons,
and great part of Home's tragedy of Douglas. During
the incumbency of Dr Carlyle, the manse was a favourite
resort of Robertson, Hume, Campbell, Logan, Mackenzie,