The thread about Old Edinburgh as it never was; the elaborately crafted fake for nostalgic Victorian spectators

There’s a photo of “Old Edinburgh” that pops up now and again online that purports to show the City as it was back in 1886; usually from one of those context-less, “random old photos” social media accounts. But not all is quite what it appears to be with this image. It’s a fake! In fact it’s a very good fake.

But it’s not a fake in the sense that the image itself has been doctored – it is the whole scene that is an elaborately staged Capriccio: a recreated tableau of various parts of Old Edinburgh, in no particular order, as they may (or may not) have been over a period of some three centuries. A 200 feet by 65 feet section of the City was recreated, loosely modelling parts around the old Netherbow Port but including interlopers from other parts. It contained 21 painstakingly recreated buildings, all of which had been demolished in the living memory of the time. The whole lot was an industrial-scale fantasia which was assembled for the the International Exhibition of 1886, located in a vast, temporary show-hall on the West Meadows.

The reconstruction was the idea of the Exhibition organisers who appointed a Committee to oversee it and who held a design competition in 1885. There was an increasing awareness at this time of just how much of Old Edinburgh was rapidly and unsympathetically being swept away and replaced by – what was then – modern architecture. As a result there was a growing nostalgia for what had been lost in recent memory and also a recognition of what a lot of those buildings had represented in the context of Scottish statehood and national identity. It was hoped that this revival of a semi-forgotten national architecture might go hand in hand with a revival of the country as a whole, on its own, distinct lines. The convenor of the Committee – John Charles Dunlop – said “I trust one of the early results of this first great Scottish Exhibition will be a return to a style of building at once suited to the varied scenery and the changeful skies of Scotland, and to the character and history of the Scottish people“.

On 27th October 1885 the Old Edinburgh Committee picked its competition winner – Sydney Mitchell, a Scottish revival architect behind such vernacular style buildings as Well Court in the Water of Leith (Dean) Village, part of Patrick Geddes’ Ramsay Garden and the restoration of the old Mercat Cross to the city. Mitchell’s entry – entered under the nom de plume Tolbooth – featured twenty four “passed away” buildings and structures. The official handbook (which you can read at archive.org, here) commissioned by the Committee includes this helpful street plan of the buildings:

These were picked from locations scattered across the city as can be seen on the map below, and the handbook pointed out that they were not from any specific period of time, stretching from those built in the 15th to the early 18th century, but “they had with each other a long contemporaneous existence“:

The installation was in a section of the exhibition hall that was open to the air and was constructed from wood, plaster and paint – with “realistic but illusionary finishes” to mock up age and weathering under the expert eye of Mr Smythe, the scenery artist at the Theatre Royal. The workmen were encouraged to add to the authenticity by chipping paint, cracking chimney pots, splintering wood, etc., so that the effect was not a “pristine original, but of undisturbed ageing: the illusion that the buildings had survived undisturbed into the present“. An electric arc lamp was installed to simulate moonlight in the evening, and weak incandescent bulbs simulated candle light behind the windows. Actors in period costumer were employed to add to the visual spectacle of the recreation.

Briefly, the chosen subjects, their location, relevance and when they had been lost were:

• The Netherbow Port. The old eastern entrance, and principal gate, to the City. It stood on a spot near where St. Mary’s Street now intersects the High Street, and the latter becomes the Canongate. Built 1606, demolished 1764.

• Robert Gourlay’s House. An immense 16th century house that once stood on Old Bank Close which was swept away in 1834 for the construction of George IV Bridge. Gourlay enjoyed the patronage of King James VI.
• Cardinal Beaton’s House. A 16th century house on the corner of Blackfriar’s Wynd where it met the Cowgate, it had been the residence of the Archbishop of Glasgow, James Beaton and then his nephew, Cardinal David Beaton, a prominent figure in 16th century Scottish history. It had a prominent octagonal tower projecting from its first storey and was demolished in 1874.
• Twelve Apostles House and French Ambassador’s Chapel. A building demolished in 1829, named for the “apostles’ heads” that decorated its gable and reputed to have contained a chapel for the French Ambassador. Located on the Cowgate at the foot of Libberton’s Wynd and taken down in 1829 to allow construction of George IV Bridge. The gable, and other ornamental stones, were saved and incorporated in Easter Coates House where they remain to this day.

• House in Dickson’s Close. A 16th century house exemplifying the old style of a stone ground floor, with projecting timber and render upper stories and reputed to have been built by Robert Mylne, the Seventh Royal Master Mason.
• Paul’s Wark. A 17th century workhouse built by the City at the foot of Leith Wynd, where it met the Calton, part of which later became a reformatory. It was demolished around 1844 to make way for the North British Railway.
• Symson the Printer’s House. This early 16th century house, at the foot of Horse Wynd, was the oldest house in the Cowgate at the time of its demolition in 1871 to make way for Chambers Street. It took its name from its late 17th century occupant – Andro Symson – an Episcopal clergyman who had turned to poetry and printing.
• Bowhead House. The archetype of the above style in the city, a sprawling building on the top corner of the West Bow whose tiers got ever wider and more precarious as they rose higher. It had been demolished in 1878.

• Major Weir’s House. An early 17th century house that was located off of the West Bow, demolished when Victoria Street was constructed between 1829-34. The resident after whom it was named was the notorious Major Thomas Weir a soldier and “warlock” who was executed in 1670 for bestiality, incest and adultery.
• Earl of Hyndford’s House – also known as the Earl of Selkirk’s House. A large and most impressive house in the Old Town which was demolished in the 1870s. It was accessed off of Hyndford’s Close and had passed into the hands of Dr Daniel Rutherford, credited with the discovery of Nitrogen and grandfather of Sir Walter Scott. This house had been a favourite haunt of the young Walter when he was at the High School.
• Laus Deo House. A late 16th-century house on the Castle Hill at the head of Blyth’s Close, decorated with the legend “LAUS DEO” (Praise be to God) in large letters on its façade. This had been a focus of antiquarian interest in the first half of the 19th century when a stunning original ceiling was discovered hidden above a later one. There was a theory that this may have once formed part of the residence or “Palace” of the Regent of Scotland, Mary of Guise.
• The CunȜie House. A purported one-time location of the old Royal Mint of Scotland in the 16th century at the head of the Cowgate, where it met Candlemaker Row, with a distinctive “timber-arched porch, outside stairs and ancient ballusters“. Demolished around 1870.
• Mary of Guise’ Oratory. A private chapel situated on the Castle Hill on the east of Blyth’s Close, built some time after 1544 in connection with the residence (or “palace”) of the Regent of Scotland, Mary. It was demolished in 1845 when the New College of the Free Church of Scotland was being built.
• The Royal Porch. An ornamental gateway to the Palace of Holyroodhouse, built around 1490 by Abbot Bellenden. It was demolished in 1753 by the hereditary keeper of the Palace, the Duke of Hamilton.
• Assembly Rooms. Long before they were on George Street, Edinburgh’s Assembly Rooms were on the Bow, the steep route up from the Grassmarket to the Lawnmarket. This was a “tall, picturesque building” that was demolished in 1836 when the street was remodelled as Victoria Street.
• The Black Turnpike. A few doors up from the Tron Kirk, it was demolished in 1788 (along with parts of that Church) to form Hunter Square as part of the South Bridge development. A very large building for its time (15th century), it was a “sumptuous residence” for high status nobles. Access to its upper floors was by a prominent turnpike stairwell on its façade, hence its name.

• House Fornent the Mint Close. An old house on the Cowgate fornent (Scots – opposite) the Mint Close, the last site of the Royal Mint of Scotland, it was one of the last surviving examples of a timber-fronted building of a burgher, with a small piazza on its ground floor and an open gallery above it. This particular house was also opposite that of Cardinal Beaton (above) and cleared in 1874 at the same time to allow the Cowgate to be widened.
• Parliament Stairs and Parliament Hall Gable. The “back stairs” led from the Cowgate up to the Parliament Close through the city’s Meal Market. At the head of the stairs was the south gable of the Parliament Hall of Scotland. The stairs were removed after the Great Fire of Edinburgh of 1824, and the gable of the Parliament Hall disappeared from view when the Outer House of the Court of Session was extended out from it.
• Tolbooth. One of the best known of Old Edinburgh’s buildings, this ugly, multi-storey building adjacent to St. Giles cathedral performed a variety of civic functions from guard house to prison to council chambers, court room and even a meeting space for the Parliament of Scotland. It had stood on this spot in one form or another since the late 15th century and was finally demolished in 1817 to widen and improve the High Street.
• The Mercat Cross. The ancient meeting point on the middle of the High Street, it had been taken down in 1756 and its stones scattered amongst other buildings and gardens, the cross and its shaft finding its way to Drum House, from where it was restored to the High Street in 1866. As a result of this, it was unique in being the only exhibit in the reconstruction that still existed (even though it was a restoration)

The stunt was a roaring success. On June 5th 1886, the Dundee Weekly News described to its readers “A Saunter Round the Old Edinburgh Street” at night, in a long, 3-column report complete with in-depth descriptions of each building and illustrations. They said it was “A fine replica of early Scottish architecture – a group of ancient buildings with which are associated much of Edina’s romance and history” and that Mitchell was “worthy of all praise for the truthful representation he has given as of those historic edifices which have long since corroded under the rime of years“.

Thank you to Alan Faichney for reminding me that I never wrote this thread up at the time, and for bringing it back to my attention 4 months later!

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#1886InternationalExhibition #architect #architecture #Buildings #exhibition #OldEdinburgh #OldTown #PatrickGeddes

Educating Children, Bakers and Tourists: the thread about Castlehill Public School

Preamble. The schools of the “School Board” era of public education (1872-1918) have for some reason a particular fascination for me, one which is more profound where they are either no longer in use as schools or have disappeared entirely. This thread began as a couple of lines for my own notes about each of the “Lost Board Schools of Edinburgh” but rapidly snowballed into an intention to cover each, in alphabetical order, on its own and in rather more detail, but not so much that they can’t be posted quite frequently.

The third chapter of our series looking at the “Lost Board Schools of Edinburgh” investigates the life and times of Castlehill School. This occupied the site of the Gordon House, the 17th century residence of George Gordon, 1st Duke of Gordon who was Captain and Constable of Edinburgh Castle and is remembered for surrendering that fortification all too readily to the Protestant Lords during the Glorious Revolution of 1689. His property came later into the possession of the Bairds of Saughtonhall who gave their name to Blair’s Close that forms the western boundary of the school plot.

The school was designed by Robert Wilson, architect to the Edinburgh School Board, and was a radical departure in style from its rather austere Collegiate Gothic contemporaries by the adoption of Scots Baronial Revival; complete with turrets, crowstepped gables and mock battlements. This was seen as more befitting of its prominent location at the head of the Old Town. Another change was the use of red Cornockle sandstone from Lochmaben in Dumfriesshire to add a visual contrast with the more usual yellowy-grey from the local Hailes Quarry.

A third change from its predecessors was the extension from two to three storeys; an attic level, lit by rooflights, providing rooms for teaching specialist subjects such as needlework and drawing. This was done to make the best use of a cramped site which amounted to just quarter of an acre; half that of the contemporary Milton House School in the Canongate and even less than the notoriously cramped Bristo Public School. (The only other three storey board school before this was West Fountainbridge, which had a similarly small plot)

Internally, three original mantlepieces from the Gordon mansion were incorporated into staff rooms as was an old entrance door. To the rear (south), the site dropped steeply away down the slope of the Old Town’s Crag and Tail topography. An additional level was therefore required, originally this was an open colonnade, providing a covered extension to the playgrounds, but later it was enclosed to provide additional teaching areas. A tall retaining wall faced onto Johnston Terrace at the rear, with entrance staircases (separate for boys and girls) up to the playgrounds and a three storey Janitor’s house bridged the two levels.

The school opened on Monday December 3rd 1888. Although there was no formal ceremony to mark the occasion, over 800 pupils were marched out of their old schools (those inherited by the School Board at Brown Square, Borthwick and Old Assembly Close and Victoria Terrace) up the hill to their new home. A formal opening would take place exactly 5 months later on May 3rd 1889.

Interestingly, the legend carved prominently into both the front and read façades reads “CASTLE HILL SCHOOL”, even though it was nearly always officially referred to as one word, just Castlehill, a change that was also reflected in the Ordnance Survey maps around the time.

From the beginning the school was also used for evening education. But – maintaining the theme of being different – at Castlehill this was not for adults. Instead it catered only for children under 14, pupils given special dispensation by the School Board to attend evening school on account of them needing to work during the school day to help support their families. In 1898 there were 212 boys and girls so registered. In 1890, the school’s first headmaster, John Davidson, resigned on account of poor health. In May 1898 headmaster William C. S. Hunter died and was replaced by James C. Anderson of Leith Walk School. His salary of £340 being equivalent to around £38,400 in 2025 and his “reign” was formally inaugurated with a presentation by Colin G. Macrae, chairman of the School Board, and concert at the school on Wednesday 1st June that year.

The school and its pupils suffered as a result of the harsh social conditions in Edinburgh’s Old Town in the late 19th and early 20th century. Headmaster Anderson was one of a number of his peers in the district who in spoke publicly in 1904 on “how drunkenness [of parents] affects the children“. 150 of his pupils were on the “food roll” due to the inability of their parents to feed then, with a further 30 receiving relief from the district fund. This was almost a quarter of the school and other children of leaving age (14) were being taught with 7 year-olds on account of how much schooling they had missed. Anderson put this down to drunkenness which he said was getting worse, as was thriftlessness. In 1908, under the terms of the Education (Scotland) Act of that year, the School Board instituted a meal scheme for necessitous children, each receiving a bowl of soup and bread during their school day. This was a great success and was expanded in 1911 by converting West Fountainbridge School into a dedicated central cooking centre. One hundred children from Castlehill were among the first recipients to benefit, but as their school lacked a dining hall they went to the Independent Labour Party Hall on Melbourne Place to eat. The tickets for these dinners issued daily at school to encourage children deserving of the meals to actually attend their lessons. They could also be purchased for 6d a week; with a little bit of liberal rounding they became known as “penny dinners“.

Feeding was not the only effort made to improve the lot of the children of Castlehill. In 1908 permission was gained by the School Board to adopt a piece of ground on Johnston Terrace next to the Church of Scotland Normal School (a teacher training college) for use as a playground, that at the school being completely insufficient in size and aspect. In 1909, under the auspices of Patrick Geddes’ Edinburgh Social Union, a patch of wasteland on Johnston Terrace was converted by pupils at the school into a model demonstration garden of their very own. Geddes established numerous such gardens, believing them as living classrooms for teaching both biology and self-improvement. Vegetable plots 150 feet long and 7 feet wide grew potatoes, peas, beans, cauliflowers, cabbages, turnips, leeks, onions, carrots, lettuces and other salad vegetables which were used in cookery classes in the school. This space was used for teaching natural history lessons and the principles of crop rotation. It also allowed the school to apply for a valuable additional grant for teaching gardening from the Education Department.

The next year, 1910, headmaster H. F. Sim brought the first case of its kind in Edinburgh to the City Police Court under the Children Act 1908, when two shopkeepers were charged with and pleaded guilty to selling “smoking mixture” to to children under the age of 16. Sim had caught boys in the school trying to smoke a pipe filled with the ersatz tobacco and confiscated from them their paper bag marked “The Boys’ Smoking Mixture and Pipe: price One Halfpenny“. On questioning, he had found from them where they had acquired it and reported the matter to the city’s Medical Officer of Health. The magistrate admonished the defendants and said “a warning should be given to tobacconists that the sale of such a mixture was an illegal practice, and that in other cases of the kind the offenders would certainly be punished.“

In October 1912, to remedy a lack of accommodation in the school, the adjacent ancient tenement known as Cannonball House – the last block of old Castlehill – being acquired by the Board for £1,925. It had recently been bought by the Cockburn Association with a view to preservation and the Board spent £3,500 thoroughly renovating and converting into additional teaching spaces. Its four principal classrooms could accommodate 180 children and there were special rooms for practical subjects such as cookery. In the basement were “spray baths“; showers for the children, most of whom lacked even basic domestic sanitation in their homes. The building was substantially altered, with one wing and the old Blair’s Close removed to improve ventilation and daylight. A number of original 17th century features were uncovered during restoration and were retained and installed in the fabric in new locations, making the end result something of a chimaera. The east gable is the biggest give-away way that not all is what it seems with this apparently old tenement; look for the tall classroom windows and the Edinburgh School Board emblem high up on the pediment.

In WW1 the school was requisitioned by to act as a depot and billeting for soldiers of the 5th Royal Scots based out of Edinburgh Castle. The Church of Scotland Young Men’s Guild was given the use of a room the following year to run a canteen and recreation room for them, with a gramophone, games, books, newspapers and writing materials. A teacher at the school, James Bathgate, was injured on war service in July 1915 when serving as a private with the College Company, 4th Royal Scots, in France. In April 1917, Headmaster Sim lost his son, Charles Henry Stuart, who died in hospital having been fatally injured serving with the Royal Field Artillery.

After the war, in April 1922, Headmistress Miss C. E. Anderson retired and was presented with a gold wristlet watch from the parents and her colleagues and a diamond brooch from the pupils. She had been teaching the children of the area since the school opened – a record period of 41 years!

In 1936 a new technological front in teaching was opened up at Castlehill when a room was specifically converted for the use of the Edinburgh branch of the newly instituted Scottish Educational Film Association for the production of educational films. It had been recognised that technology had a part to play in education – in 1931 a group from Canonmills School had been given a trial lesson on the theme of sound recording and reproduction at their local cinema – but further progress was wanting on account of a lack of suitable films for the classroom. The Education Committee thus resolved to make them for themselves: as well as providing the studio for the Association, they also covered the (then) substantial overhead of film costs and in return had a controlling say in the content of films. The first production was a four-part geography film entitled “The Port of London“. The Association would remain at Castlehill until 1957, when they moved to Boswell’s Court.

On the morning of September 1st 1939, children showed to schools all over the city with their coat, a bag or case and a cardboard label – they were being evacuated. Some 200 gathered at Castlehill before heading to Waverley station and destinations unknown. The school remained open for those children that stayed behind and there were still 273 on the roll in September 1940. The logbook records the peculiarities of an education during wartime; there were separate air raid shelters for infants, girls and boys; all children had to carry their gas masks with them; there were weekly gas mask drills and weekly marching drills to and from the shelters.

Additional wartime uses were found for the partially vacant school. A central depot for clothing for evacuees was established in October 1939; donations were received and sorted before being distributed to those in need who had been evacuated and found themselves wanting during their “enforced holiday to the country“. This was organised by Miss Cairns, Superintendent of Domestic Subjects for the Corporation, and she had 50 sewing mistresses from across the city under her direction. The supply of children’s coats proved insufficient and so these “clever-fingered” women picked apart the excess of larger items, cut them down to the required sizes and put them back together again. They were joined by women of the Edinburgh Personal Service League who performed a similar operation for men’s clothing, to be sent via the Red Cross to injured servicemen and prisoners of war. Wartime cookery classes were run in the school by the Corporation’s night school teachers. These were aimed at women to try and instruct them in how to eke out their rations, substitute various items that were off ration to recreate old favourites and how to do so more healthily and with less waste of fuel. Mrs Gray of the Women’s Voluntary Service (WVS) established a group of like-minded women to make soft toys and dolls and clothing for babies and toddlers who were being cared for in public nurseries, their mothers being on war work. Most of these things were no longer being manufactured during wartime. Such was the success of this endeavour that it later relocated to a dedicated workshop at Bristo School as the Nursery Equipment Centre.

Postwar, a shock announcement in May 1951 broke news that the school was to be closed at the end of that term. It had been built for 800 but as a result of the long term urban depopulation of the city it was down to 293 by this point; there was plenty excess capacity to rehouse them at Milton House, Tollcross and South Bridge schools for the same reason.

A secondary reason behind the closure was that the authorities wanted to establish a Central School Of Bakery and Catering where apprentice workers from the city’s important baking industry (as well as more general cookery and catering) could undertake industry-specific further education. Parents protested the decision but the Corporation was unmoved and voted by 14 to 5 for closure. Its only concession was to promise crossing guards to help children navigate the busy roads that they now needed to transit on their way to their new schools.

The bakery school opened on Monday 19th January 1954, Councillor H. A. Brechin performed the honours and stated “these new premises, together with the modern equipment, give Edinburgh one of the most up-to-date baking and catering schools in the United Kingdom“.

It did not last long however and as a result of changes to further education and the city’s industries, it was closed by 1970. While it once again sought a purpose, during the Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh that year it served as a temporary museum of regimental history at Edinburgh Castle. In 1971 the main building was converted to offices for the City Engineer’s department and would later be occupied by the Drainage Department of Lothian Regional Council. Between 1972 and 1974 it was also the home for the Theatre Workshop, an arts and drama centre for children, while it was found permanent premises.

In August 1986, Lothian Region accepted an offer for £250,000 from William Muir distillers who proposed to convert the former school it into a whisky museum and heritage centre. £2 million was spent on this project which opened its doors on 3rd May 1988, the building’s centennial year. It was an instant success and is now into its 5th decade of offering a very different sort of education than that the building’s planners had in mind.

Cannonball House was retained by the Education Department when the main building became the bakery school and was used for community education, passing to Lothian Regional Council on the formation of that organisation. In 1984 a Children’s History Centre was opened and the building was later properly converted by the Region for £200,000 for use as a schools education centre modelled on Patrick Grddes’ ideas; the Castehill Urban Studies Centre. It was the first such centre in Britain and I recall school trips there in the early 1990s, the name of the guide was Mrs Quick – I’m not sure why that name stuck with me, but it did!. Between 1999 until the opening of the new Scottish Parliament at Holyrood in 2004, Cannonball House was used as a schools education centre for the temporary parliament housed in the General Assembly Hall of the Church of Scotland on the Lawnmarket. In 2013, 100 years after it opened as part of the school, it found a new life as a high-end restaurant by the Scottish-Italian Contini family, who themselves had started out in Scotland a century before.

Want to read more about Edinburgh’s Lost Board Schools? The previous chapter was about Canonmills School.

If you have found this useful, informative or amusing, perhaps you would like to help contribute towards the running costs of this site – including keeping it ad-free and my book-buying budget to find further stories to bring you – by supporting me on ko-fi. Or please do just share this post on social media or amongst friends.

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NO AI TRAINING: Any use of the contents of this website to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.

The thread about the Guse Pye; house of a poet and a painter that’s still there if you know where to look

There is a stunning watercolour landscape painting of Edinburgh in the mid-18th century, observed from the point of view of the Castle looking north to Leith by Paul Sandby (there’s a whole thread on that if you click the link). In the mid-ground of that picture is a prominent and intriguing building: a tall octagonal structure with a wing and portico to its front. This building was Ramsay Lodge or Ramsay Hut, the home of the romantic poet and stalwart figure of the Edinburgh enlightenment, Allan Ramsay.

During his 4 years in Edinburgh, the young Paul Sandby – a military draughtsman engaged in assisting William Roy with his “Great Map” of North Britain – had become well acquainted with Allan Ramsay and a welcome addition to the social circle that redeveloped around him. It is therefore not surprising that his house features so prominently in this and another landscape painting by Sandby.

Ramsay was born in Leadhills, Lanarkshire, the son of the superintendent of the lead mines that gave the settlement its name. As a boy, he was apprenticed to a wigmaker in Edinburgh and it was in this trade that he would first find success, both financial and professional. A man of broad interests and intelligence, in 1720 he entered the book selling trade from his shop on Niddrie’s Wynd and in 1722 he relocated himself and the business to the Luckenbooths – 18th century Edinburgh’s premier retail space. It was from the first floor here,in 1725, that he opened Scotland’s first circulating library. This establishment had over 30,000 titles available to borrow and it became the hangout for city’s literati.

As well as a businessman, Ramsay was something of a wit and a writer, and published his own work. His romantic poetry, exemplified by The Gentle Shepherd brought him critical acclaim and he found himself desiring a “poet’s nest” as befitting a bard of his standing. What he needed was a suburban retreat, at once in the heart of the city’s bustling Old Town but at the same time outwith its confines. He found this such a spot on the northern slopes of the Castle Hill, commanding views over the fields: past the smoky smudge on the shoreline of Leith and across the Forth and Fife beyond to the Highland mountains in the distance.

In September 1733, Ramsay acquired a portion of garden land at this location from Robert Hope, a surgeon. In Memorials of Edinburgh, a story is related that he desired “as much land as he could get” to build a “cage for his burd” (i.e. his wife, of whom he was fond) and that this was the reason for its unusual, tall, octagonal structure. From an architectural point of view, it is thought the house may be inspired either by the Tower of the Winds in Athens or the 1720 Octagon Room of Orleans House in Twickenham by Scottish architect James Gibb for James Johnston, a former Secretary of State for Scotland.

Ramsay wanted the whole town to admire his mansion but the wags of the city derided his hubris and called his octagonal house the Guse Pye, after the shape of the traditional Scottish Christmas dish. Ramsay’s pride was hurt and he complained to Patrick Murray, 5th Lord Elibank, who retorted “Indeed, Allan, when I see you in it, I think the wags are not far wrong“. The ownership of the house was transferred to his son, also Allan Ramsay, in 1741. This Allan Ramsay is as famous as his father, but as a portrait painter, and he had designs on using the building as his studio (although he would spend most of his time away from his native City).

In 1742, Ramsay the Poet retired to his Guse Pye, shutting up his house and bookshop in the Luckenbooths. He intended to spend what would be the final 12 years of his life in “ease and tranquil enjoyment” however his burd, Christian Ross, died the following year. He was not alone in life however, as his company was courted by all ranks of Edinburgh, who sought him out at the Guse Pye. It is said that he preferred instead to be surrounded by his family and their young friends, joining in their fun and games with “hearty life and good humour“. These young friends included the Paul Sandby also painted a very intimate sketch of Ramsay smoking an enormous “Churchwarden’s Pipe” in the house. Surrounded by two young women; with a book on his table; a cup by his side to drink from and a candle burning on the wall, it is a very homely scene. Ramsay was a bit of a closet Anglophile at heart, desiring to be an equal with the London literary wits, and this talented young Englishman would have been a fine addition to his circle.

When the Jacobites routed the Hanoverian Army under Sir John Cope at Prestonpans in September 1745, Ramsay the Poet – despite his known Jacobite sympathies (or perhaps because of them) – retired a safe distance to Mavisbank in Midlothian, the home of his correspondent and friend Sir John Clerk of Penicuik, 2nd Baronet. The Highland army of Charles Edward Stuart soon occupied the city, without resistance, where Ramsay the Painter, happened to be present on one of his infrequent sojourns north. Word was soon sent to him from the Palace of Holyroodhouse, desiring him to come at once and paint a picture of the Prince who hoped to be his King: which he did.

During this period, the Guse Pye found itself damaged by the cannons of Edinburgh Castle and then ransacked by the garrison, who damaged many of the buildings on the Castle Hill to try and stop them being occupied by the Jacobite pickets. The latter were under direct orders from the Young Pretender to prevent – on pain of death – supplies and communications from reaching the Castle. As the last building between the city and the Castle, Ramsay’s house was directly in the firing line. By November however the Prince and his army were gone south – as had Ramsay the Painter too – but unlike the Former, the latter would make it to London.

The Ramsays continued to extend their landholding on the Castle Hill; acquiring the portion further down the slope from the house in 1748 from the Hopes and adding a new frontage, new wing and a proper entryway as befitting a house of its status. In 1754, workmen improving the garden accidentally broke through into a subterranean chamber some 14 feet square. In amongst the rubble and detritus they found a statue of white stone with a crown upon its head – supposed to be a Virgin Mary – two brass candlesticks, a dozen old Scottish and French coins and two cannon balls. It was supposed that this space dated to the middle of the 16th century when a large fortification, known as the Spur, was built out of the castle by its French garrison under the Regent Mary of Guise. Another theory was it was the remains of a supposed medieval chapel to St. Andrew which had once stood on the castle hill.

When Ramsay the Poet died in 1757, his son the Painter succeeded to it and let it out. By 1759 it was occupied by William Johnston, an advocate and a member of Ramsay’s Select Society.

In 1765, Ramsay junior was granted permission to build two town houses – known as Ramsay Street – to the east of the Guse Pye, on the site of the town’s old Bell Foundry which he had acquired from the City. It was his intention that these houses, to designs by the family friend Robert Adam, should be “in the English fashion, fit to accommodate two small families of distinction“. These houses were never built and instead in 1768 he erected a terrace of three, four-storey houses, known as Ramsay Garden. One of these houses was occupied by Ramsay’s widowed mother-in-law and his sister in law.

Ramsay the Painter spent little time in Scotland in the later years of his life and was appointed Principal Painter to His Majesty in London in 1767. But he continued to consolidate his land on the north slopes of the Castle Hill, acquiring the last portion of the Hope’s holding in 1773. He died in 1784, the lands and houses of Ramsay Garden now passing to his only surviving son, Captain (later General) John Ramsay.

John had accompanied his late father on a “Grand Tour” of Italy in 1782, and despite a career as a soldier, he found time to take up painting himself. He died without issue and as a result the house and his fortune passed to a distant relative: Lord Murray of Henderland (for whom the district of Murrayfield is named). An 1850s plan to build a large terrace infront of the Guse Pye for the statue of Allan Ramsay senior, which now resides in West Princes Street Gardens, came to nothing.

The houses of Ramsay Lodge and Ramsay Garden were let out, until the former was purchased in 1890 by the sociologist, philanthropist and pioneering town planner Patrick Geddes.

Geddes engaged the architect Stewart Henbest Capper to design a 5-storey, arts and crafts fantasia around the Guse Pye. His intention was to establish a mixed community, composed of artisans and students alongside private dwellings, to promote regeneration in the decrepit Old Town of the City. Capper’s 1892 development was extended two years later by Sydney Mitchell, who incorporated, extended and redeveloped the Guse Pye and the original Ramsay Garden into the structure as a hall for residence for students, the first of its kind in Edinburgh.

The end result – which we’ll pluralise as Ramsay Gardens – was a striking complex, high up on the Castle Hill, a curious mix of late medieval and early modern Scottish architectural style and (then) modern ideas about construction and planning and one which rendered the original house almost unrecognisable. This rambling, highly ornamented and colourful building was in radical contrast to the prevailing, conservative architecture of Edinburgh at the time:

The grey old metropolis of the North had been getting greyer year by year with freestone and slate, when suddenly on the east slope of the Castle Hill, a bright-hued pile arose, shocking the devotees of drab.

Margaret Armour, writing in “The Studio”, 1897

Geddes part-financed the project himself and when it was complete took up residence in one of its main apartments and established a co-operative publishing company from there. He also incorporated into it an art school, the Old Edinburgh School of Art, where the Celtic revival painter John Duncan led classes in design, metalwork, leatherwork, woodwork etc. in the spirit of the arts and crafts movement. It was Geddes who commissioned Duncan to design the Witches’ Well, which is installed nearby on the Castle Hill as a monument to those executed near that spot for witchcraft.

Geddes had further plans for the redevelopment, including arts studios and a sculpture gallery built into the slopes below, a gatehouse – crowned with a full-scale replica of the city’s old Netherbow Port – spanning Ramsay lane to link it into the quadrangle of the New College buildings and a new public hall next door atop the Castle Hill Reservoir. His various schemes financially overstretched him however and he was declared bankrupt, owing £60,000, in 1896, putting an end his ambitions. His friends and supporters set up a philanthropic company, the Town and Gown Association, to take over Ramsay Gardens and run it in the spirit with which he had intended it.

Ramsay Gardens was sold by the Town and Gown Association in 1945 to the Commercial Bank of Scotland, who used it as a residential building for staff and a training centre. It has subsequently passed into private hands and is a mix of exlusive residential homes, pieds-à–terre and holiday lets. The original houses of the two Allan Ramsays are still there in plain site, within this most famous of skylines, even if you’d hardly know it to look at them.

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#AllanRamsay #Buildings #CastleHill #OldTown #PatrickGeddes #PaulSandby #Ramsay #Written2023

Patrick Geddes and his work need more attention.

Via Lost Edinburgh on FB.

#Edinburgh #Philosophy #anarchism #urban #cityplanning #Greens #poverty #PatrickGeddes #Scotland

“simply in the springing of the year” Robert Frost

What a brilliant #ZoomRegenerative with Dr John Ennis sharing insights from Journeys in Design ... Soil, Seas and Streets ... Flax, plastic recovery from the seas & biophilic walks in Edinburgh, London and Barcelona ... (re)introducing/reinforcing #PatrickGeddes as a significant thinker, not only in town planning and sustainability ("Folk Place Work") but also biophilic design (“By Leaves We Live”)