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Publication Account

Date 1951

Event ID 1095993

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Publication Account

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1095993

186. Bruntsfield House, Whitehouse Loan.

This property, once part of the Burgh Muir, takes its name from Richard Broune, King's Sergeant of the Muir, "Broune's field" having become "Bruntsfield" by a simple phonetic change. In 1381 Broune resigned the property to Sir Alan de Lauder, whose descendants built the existing mansion in the late 16th century to replace an earlier structure. Standing as it does, screened by venerable trees within high-walled grounds, the house is still secluded although the city has long since overtaken and surrounded it. As first built, it was shaped on plan like the letter Z, as it comprised an oblong main block, measuring about 57 ft. from E. to W.by 26 ft. from N. to S., and two rectangular towers projecting from diametrically opposite corners and measuring respectively 18 ft. by 21 ft. and 34 ft. by 23 ft. All three divisions held three storeys and an attic, the upper ones reached from two turret-stairs corbelled out within the N.W. and S.E. re-entrant angles. This nucleus forms the W. part of the present building. In 1605, two years after he had acquired the property, John Fairlie of Braid reconditioned the old fabric and extended the main block about 39 ft. eastwards, at the same time rebuilding the E. end of the old S. wall and providing an additional stair-turret within the N.E. re-entrant angle. On the S. he also formed a courtyard, the arched entrance to which still exists although it has been considerably enlarged. His great-grandson sold the property in 1695 to George Warrender of Lochend, then a bailie and ultimately Lord Provost of Edinburgh, with whose descendants it remained until it was purchased by the municipality in 1935. In the 19th century the Warrenders remodelled the place internally and also made additions to the S. and N.E. The masonry throughout is rubble, prepared for harling, with exposed dressings which are rounded at the arris. The two original turret-stairs have conoidal corbelling enriched with cable- and billet-ornament. The one on the N. is again corbelled out near the top to support a cap-house, which may in the first instance have been an open bartizan looking out towards Edinburgh Castle. The conical roof of the S. turret has a thistle-shaped finial of stone. The dormer windows have triangular or circled pediments bearing the initials of John Fairlie and his wife Elizabeth Westoun; the same initials, cut singly and combined in monogram, and accompanied by the date 1605, occur in the pediments of the large windows upon the first floor of Fairlie's extension. The original entrance, now built up and covered by a modern vestibule, is in the E. wall of the larger tower; it appears to have been surmounted by a pediment of 1605, over which again was an earlier armorial panel. In the primary arrangement this entrance admitted to a vaulted passage containing a scale-and-platt staircase at its farther end. A doorway on the N. side of the passage opened into the main block, while another on the opposite side gave entry to the original kitchen, which was situated at the S. end of this tower. When the staircase was removed, kitchen and passage were thrown into one although the vaults of both were left, while the wide, arched, kitchen fireplace in the S. gable was also retained. A short vaulted passage on the S. side of the main block gives access to two vaulted cellars on the N., and to a third at the E. end. The last, in its turn, gives access to a fourth vaulted cellar in the basement of the N. tower, and since 1605 it has a1so led to the nearer of two vaulted compartments in Fairlie's extension, evidently a storeroom, through which anew groin-vaulted kitchen was approached. On the first floor there was a single room in the N. tower, while the S. tower contained the stair-head and a room in addition. The main block held two rooms, and the larger, or westernmost, of these still retains its early 18th-century panelling, which is, apart from the bolection-moulded fireplaces in some of the other rooms, the only feature of special interest left in the building. The 17th-century extension contains a single large room on the first floor. On the second floor there was one room in the N. tower, four in the main block, one of which had a close garderobe, and two in the S. tower. The arrangement of the attic floor is generally similar.

TOMBSTONE. A 17th-century grave slab found nearby in Spottiswoode Street has been built into a garden wall on the E. of the house. Measuring 6 ft. 6 in. by 3 ft. 3 in., it bears in its lower half a shield charged with a saltire; this may possibly be for Rose, as at one time the initials M I R and the date 1645 were legible beside the shield (1). In the upper part is a scroll bearing an illegible motto above a weatherworn cherub's head, as well as a skull and cross-bones flanked by two mattocks.

RCAHMS 1951, visited c.1941

(1) Warrender, Walks near Edinburgh, p. 17.

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