Walks near Edinburgh 15

Walks near Edinburgh 15

The land on either side of us once formed part of the Figgate Muir,

through which flowed the Figgate Burn, as the lower reaches of the

Braid Burn were called. It was a wild, desolate expanse, covered

with whins and heather, and bordered by a broad, sandy beach. The

Fishwives' Causeway, which ran across it, was a remnant of one of the

roads formed by Queen Mary, soon after her return from France, for

the improvement and civilization of her more barbarous kingdom. It

is said to have been made on the site of an old Roman road. It was

formerly the favourite way for the fishwives to carry their wares

into Edinburgh, and they remained faithful to it long after the

present road was made.

 

As we reach the sea, Portobello lies to our right. It has been called

the Brighton of Edinburgh; and, with the adjoining village of Joppa,

it presents a labyrinth of villas and lodging-houses, which in the

summer-time are generally full. The origin of the name is that the

first house built here was erected in 1742 by an old seaman, who had

served under Admiral Vernon, and who called his house Portobello

Hut, in honour of the triumph of the British flag at Portobello, in

the West Indies. By degrees more houses sprung up round this humble

cottage, and the discovery of a bed of clay by the Figgate Burn

started the manufacture of Portobello ware. This pottery, which has

not been made for many years, was almost identical with that made at

Prestonpans and Bo'ness, and resembles very rude Staffordshire. The

earthenware was coarse, and the colouring crude, but the Toby-jugs

and figures were often well modelled. Specimens can still be picked

up, but they are more often objects of curiosity than of beauty.

 

We shall not explore Portobello further, but turn to the left, and

follow the road that runs parallel to the railway to Leith. On one

side of us is the sea, breaking on a narrow, shingly beach; and

beyond, there is nothing to stop the eye till it reaches the distant

shores of Fife, but the rugged outline of Inchkeith, with its lines

of fortification gleaming white in the sunlight. Before we have gone

very far, we see a level crossing and a signal-box on the railway

beside us; and, taking advantage of our privileges as pedestrians,

we pass safely and unquestioned through the narrow posterns, while

it might require some persuasion to get the heavy gates unlocked and

opened for a carriage to enter them. We now find ourselves following

a straight path leading across the flat green meadows, which stretch

far away on either side, their expanse being only broken by narrow

watercourses. With the level rays of the afternoon sun glancing

over them, gilding the tips of the grass, and imparting an air of

Dutch-like prosperity and peace, it comes upon one rather as a shock

to be told that these quiet pastures are the great sewage farm of

Edinburgh, an experiment on a large scale which has turned out

successfully. We presently come to high walls, behind which stands

the old house of Craigentinnie, long the inheritance of the Nisbets,

a younger branch of the Nisbets of Dean. As we have already said, it

was bought in the last century by the father of the late Mr. William

Miller. The latter added greatly to the house, and built steep roofs

and turrets in the style of a French château, which has altered it

very much from the old Scotch house that originally stood there.

 

We now come to the little village of Restalrig, or Lestalric, as

it used always to be called. For centuries it was famous all over

Scotland as the burial-place of the blessed virgin St. Triduana. "She

is said," writes Dr. Laing, "to have come from Achaia in the 4th

century in company with St. Regulus, and to have died at Restalrig in

the year 510, in the reign of Eugenius III., the 8th of October being

held as her festival day. Although no precise date can be assigned

when a church or chapel was first erected and dedicated to this

saint, whose bones for many centuries were held in high veneration,

or when it first became the parish church of Leith, we can trace it

back at least to the 12th century."[48]

 

[48] _Collegiate Churches of Midlothian._ Bannatyne Club, 1861.

 

St. Triduana's name is unknown in the Roman breviary, but tradition

says that, with two companions, she devoted herself to a recluse life

at Roscoby. Her great beauty attracted the attentions of Nectan, a

Pictish chief; and she fled to Dunfallad in Athole to escape him.

His emissaries still pursued her, and as she discovered it was her

eyes which had entranced him, she plucked them out and sent them to

him transfixed on a thorn.[49] She then withdrew to Restalrig, where

she died. Henceforward she became the patron saint of those whose

eyesight was defective, and many a pilgrimage was made to her well.

She was frequently painted carrying her own eyes on a salver, or on

the point of a sword.

 

[49]

 

Sanct Tredwell als thare may be sene,

Quhilk on ane prik hes baith her ene.

 

SIR DAVID LINDSAY--"The Monarchie."

 

 

The church, which in its restored form we should hardly recognise as

being of great antiquity, was erected into a collegiate church by

James III. in honour of the Holy Trinity, and was endowed by the two

succeeding monarchs. James V. placed here a dean, nine prebendaries,

and two singing boys. It was John Sinclair, Dean of Restalrig,

that married Queen Mary to Lord Darnley in Holyrood Chapel in July

1564. By that time the building itself had suffered sadly from the

effects of the Reformation. It was demolished by order of the General

Assembly in 1560, and many of the stones were taken to build the new

port or gate just inside the Netherbow, which was erected during the

siege of the Castle of Edinburgh in 1571. We have no description,

plan, or representation to furnish us with any idea of what the

collegiate church was like. Such ruins as remained were restored in

1836; and the eastern window and wall of the present church formed

part of the old chancel. The huge mound resembling a mausoleum,

which stands on the south side, though generally called the family

vault of the Logans, was undoubtedly attached to the church, either

as a chapter-house, or as St. Triduan's Chapel. It has internally

a beautiful groined roof, springing from a single pillar in the

centre. Of late years it has certainly been used as a burial-place,

and some of the Logans, as well as the Balmerinos, their successors,

lie here. Among them is "Lady Janet Ker, Lady Restalrig, quha

departed this life 17th May 1526." The tomb now belongs to Lord

Bute; and Wilson in his _Reminiscences_ quotes an incident told him

by Charles Sharpe respecting it, which shows how often political

animosity outlives the grave:--"Application was made to him (Lord

Bute) to allow Miss Hay, whom I well knew,--daughter of Hay of

Restalrig, Prince Charles's forfeited secretary,--to be buried in the

vault. This was refused; and she lies outside the door. May the earth

lie light on her! old lady, kind and venerable." In the last century

Restalrig churchyard was a favourite resting-place of the non-juring

Scottish Episcopalians, as the burial service was then forbidden to

be read in the city burial grounds. Several bishops of the Scottish

Church lie here.

 

After leaving the church, we turn first north, then eastwards,

along a road running between very high walls; and pass a tall

gloomy-looking villa called Marionville. It was built in the last

century by the Misses Ramsay, whose milliner's shop was on the east

side of the old Lyon Close. There they made a fortune, out of which

they built Marionville. It was locally known as "_Lappet Ha'_," in

derision of their profession. In later years it was the residence of

Captain Macrae, whose unfortunate duel (in 1790) with Sir George

Ramsay of Bamff on Musselburgh Links, and its fatal consequences,

made him an exile for the remainder of his life.[50] Beyond

Marionville a road to the right leads to a small sheet of water

called Lochend.

 

[50] See Chambers's _Traditions of Edinburgh_.

 

[Illustration: _Lochend_.]

 

The modern villa, standing among trees immediately behind

Craigentinnie, is now called Restalrig House, but the old castle

of the Logans crowned the rocky bank which rises abruptly from

Lochend; and parts of it may still be distinguished in the more

recent building which has been engrafted on it. These powerful barons

possessed Restalrig from the 14th century. They came to an end with

Robert Logan, who was mysteriously mixed up in the Gowrie Conspiracy.

He had before that been deeply involved in the treasonable

projects of Francis, Earl of Bothwell; but his share in the Gowrie

Conspiracy remained unknown till nine years after his death, when

the correspondence between him and Lord Gowrie was discovered in

the possession of Sprot, a notary at Eyemouth. Their intentions had

been, after seizing the king's person at Gowrie House, to hurry him

into a boat on the Tay, and carry him by sea to Logan's inaccessible

fortress of Fast Castle (which he had acquired by marriage with

the heiress, a Home), and there await the decision of the other

conspirators as to his ultimate fate. It is a matter of history how

completely their schemes failed; but every one who had been concerned

in the plot, to the smallest degree, suffered for it. Sprot was

executed merely for possessing the treasonable letters. Logan's dead

bones were brought into court, to have the following sentence passed

on them: "That the memory and dignity of the said umqle Robert Logan

be extinct and abolisheit, his arms riven and deleted from all books

of arms, and his goods escheated."[51]

 

The lands of Restalrig next passed into the hands of the

Elphinstones, Lords Balmerino. They lost them from too faithful a

devotion to their exiled king. The Hays followed them in acquisition

and forfeiture, and now the property is all broken up.

 

[51] The Logans of Restalrig quartered the arms of Ramsay of

Dalhousie with their own. They bore 1st and 4th, or, three piles

issuing from a chief, and conjoined in base, sable, for Logan; 2nd

and 3rd, argent, an eagle displayed with two heads sable, beaked and

membered gules, for Ramsay.

 

We are now close to the outskirts of Leith, so we will turn back and

take the first road to the right, which soon brings us out on the

London Road, not far from Abbeyhill.

 

 

 

 

WALK V.

 

 

Corstorphine--The Cat-Stane--Gogar--Hatton--Saughton

Hall--Dalry.

 

Our walk to-day takes us in an entirely different direction, and to

fields as yet unexplored. With our faces to the setting sun, we leave

Edinburgh by the great west road, which for the first few miles is

so cramped and hemmed in by modern houses that all recollections of

the past are effaced. By degrees, as we pass Murrayfield, the villas

grow fewer, the gardens and parks which lie on the hill slopes to

our right get larger, but there is a sadly short interval of green

fields and hedgerows, before we enter the rapidly growing village of

Corstorphine, which threatens soon to lose its identity, and become a

mere suburb of Edinburgh. How changed since the day when

 

On Ravelston cliffs, and on Clermiston Lee

Died away the wild war-notes of bonnie Dundee.