Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 5

PERTH
held every Tuesday and Friday during session, and at
least once in eacli vacation. The convener court, acting
as trustees for Stewart's Free School, consists of the
deacons of the various trade-guilds, viz. , the hammermen,
bakers, glovers, wrights, tailors, fleshers, shoemakers,
and weavers ; but the ancient rigidly maintained privi-
leges of these incorporations no longer exist. The
entire corporation revenue in 1883-84 was £6557.
The following table shows the sources and amount of
the revenues of the city of Perth at different dates ; the
incomewhich it derives from the harbour being excluded :
1S57-6S.
1867-68.
1877-78.
1882- 3.
Customs, .
£678
£590
£644
£771
Inches— Graring-, etc.,
39S
605
405
452
Feu-duties, .
1256
1544
1468
1457
Houses, etc..
762
290
301
303
Mills and Waterfalls, .
601
618
429
450
Arable Lands, .
376
321
374
Fishings, .
870
1266
1320
612
Seats in the Churches,
465
414
430
415
Cemeteries,
248
133
226
Shore-dues,
1S74
106
73
106
Miscellaneous, .
Total,
608
361
364
208
£7512
£6216
£5888
£6374
Perth returns one member to parliament (always a
Liberal since 1837), the parliamentary constituency
numbering 4126, and the municipal 5334, in 1884.
Valuation (1876) £90,148, (1884) £113,960, phts
£10,840 for railwavs. Pop. of royal burgh (1871)
22,274, (1881) 27,207 ; of parliamentary burgh (1831)
19,238, (1841) 20,407, (1851) 23,835, (1861) 25,250,
(1871) 25,585, (1881) 28,949, of whom 15,496 were
females, and 391 Gaelic-speaking. Houses (1881)
occupied 5515, vacant 136, building 28.
Antiquities. — With the exception of St John's Church
already described, there are no extant ancient buildings
of interest in Perth, though it has the memory of many
now vanished. Military walls, of sufficient strength to
resist vigorous sieges, surrounded the town from a very
early date till far into last century. Their builder and
the date of their origin is unknown, although Adamson,
in the Miises Threnodie, boldly ascribes them to Agricola.
They often underwent partial demolitions and changes,
but now have completely disappeared, with the excep-
tion of a small fragment still to be seen in an entry off
George Street. The walls seem at one time to have
been strengthened with forts, of which the Spey Tower
■was one. This, the last remnant of the fortifications,
stood near the site of the County Buildings, and contained
a strong prison, in which Cardinal Beaton imprisoned
certain Protestants whom he caused to be put to death.
From its walls also he witnessed their execution.
The tower was demolished in 1766. The Monk's Tower,
demolished in 1806, formedtheformersouth-easteru angle
of the old city- wall, and had a ceiling curiously decorated
v?ith allegorical and symbolical paintings at the com-
mand of the first Earl of Gowrie. A fosse or aqueduct,
supplied with water from the Almond, went round the
outside of the walls, but this has very largely been built
over or narrowed. The old castle of Perth stood without
the walls at the end of the Skinner-gate, and, before
the erection of the Blackfriars' monastery, was the usual
Perth residence of the Scottish kings. A very large and
strong citadel, built by Cromwell's army in 1652 on the
South Inch, was one of the four erected after the battle
of Dunbar to overawe Scotland. It was a solid and
stately work, 266 feet square, with earthen ramparts
and deep moat filled with water, and it had a bastion
at each corner, and an iron gate on the side next the
town ; a pier was built beside it. Many buildings, in-
cluding the hospital, the sehoolhouse, and parts of the
bridge, were demolished to supply the materials for this
work ; and the gravestones and walls were taken from
the Greyfriars' churchyard for the same purpose. Soon
after the Restoration the citadel was given by Charles II.
to the town, and almost immediately was used as a
quarry; in 1666 it was sold for 4702 marks, but under
PERTH
conditions which made the wreck of it again public
property, when it was finally removed piece-meal. Dur-
ing some years before the building of the barracks a
remnant of it was used as a cavalry stable for 200 horses,
a riding school, etc. ; but now the trenches have been
fiUed up, and all traces of its existence have disappeared
from the spot, across which the Edinburgh road now
passes. The old Parliament House, which has left its
name in Parliament Close off High Street, lingered as a
humble tenement, inhabited by the poor, yet with a
few tarnished relics of its former grandeur, till 1818,
when it was taken down to make room for the Free-
masons' Hall. A stone in the causeway of the High
Street marks the site of the former pillory ; and between
Skinner-gate and Kirkgate, in the same street, others
define the site of the market cross. In 1668 Robert
Mylne of Balfargie, the King's master-mason in Scot-
land, built, for £200, a new cross (in room of
that demolished by Cromwell), which was 12 feet
high, had a flight of steps within, and terminated in a
terrace, and was emblazoned with both the royal and
the city arms. In 1765 this fine structure was decreed
by the town council to be a mere worthless obstruction
to the thoroughfare, and it was accordingly sold by
auction for £5 to a mason, who immediately removed it.
Earl Gowrie's palace, scene of the Gowrie conspiracy in
1600, stood on the site now occupied by the County
Buildings ; was surrounded by a garden ; and in the
prosperous days of the city was known as the Whitehall
of Perth. Built in 1520 by the Countess of Huntly,
and afterwards purchased by Lord Ruthven, it passed,
after the murder of the Earl of Gowrie, into the posses-
sion of the city, which presented it in 1746 to the Duke
of Cumberland. For some time it had been possessed
by the Earl of KinnouU, who received in it Charles IL
in 1663. The Duke of Cumberland sold it to Govern-
ment, by whom it vras used for many years as artillery
barracks ; and finally resold to the city in 1805, when
it was demolished, and its materials sold for about £600,
to make room for the present County Buildings. The
last fragment disappeared in 1865. Lord Chancellor
Hay, the Earl of Errol, the Earl of Athole, the Bishop
of Dunkeld, Lord Crichton of Sanquhar, Lord John
Murray, and other nobles had mansions in the city, but
all have now disappeared. In Curfew Row there is an
old tenement, formerly the Glovers' Hall, and now
pointed out as the house of Simon Glover, father of the
' Fair Maid ; ' while the Skinners' or Glovers' yard in
front (now covered with buildings) was the supposed
scene of the conflict between Hal o' the Wynd and
Bonthron. Old Perth abounded in ecclesiastical build-
ings and establishments. The Blackfriars' or Dominican
Monastery, on the N side of the town, was founded in
1231 by Alexander II. It was a frequent residence of
the kings, on which account it is sometimes spoken of
as a palace ; and it had a church attached to it, in which
some parliaments were held. From the Gilten Arbour
in its garden Robert III. witnessed the combat of the
clans, already alluded to. In 1437 the monastery was
the scene of the murder of James I. The Carthusian
Monastery or Charter-house, the only house of the order
in Scotland, stood on the present site of James VI.'s
hospital, and was founded in 1429 by James I. or his
Queen for thirteen monks and their servants. Its church
contained the tombs of James I., his Queen, and of
Margaret, mother of James V. The sumptuous build-
ing was a great ornament to the city, but was completely
destroyed by the mob in 1559. The same fate befell the
Greyfriars' or Franciscan Monastery, founded in 1460, in
the SE of the town, by Lord Oliphant. The White-
friars' Monastery, known as the ' Prior and Convent of
the Carmelite Friars of Tulilum, near Perth,' dated from
the reign of Alexander III. St Leonard's Ntmnery
stood a little S of the town, and was founded in the 13th
century. Along with the other nunnery of St Mary
Magdalene, it was suppressed on the erection of the
Carthusian Monaster}', to which the revenues of both
were assigned. Our Lady's Chapel, or the Chapel of St
Mary, already an old building (1210), was destroyed
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