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Publication Account
Date 1951
Event ID 1096430
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1096430
249. The King's Wark, The Shore.
This, in its day the largest and most impressive of the public buildings of Leith, stood on The Shore, facing the harbour, on a site extending from the modern Bernard Street to Broad Wynd. Designed to serve as a royal residence, a store-house, and an armoury, it was begun by James I in 1434 (1), but was not completed until about 1500. Nothing is known of its original aspect except that it was flanked on the E. by a tower containing a cellar, a hall, and three chambers, and on the W. by an arch with a house above it. Before 1538 the Wark was occupied by James V and his officers (2), and in 1537 its "foreloft" was in use for the storage of wool (3). In 1544 it was damaged by Hertford's troops; but the tower evidently survived as, in the following year, this was given by the Queen-Regent to the baron of Restalrig for use as a tolbooth (4).
The records of the tenure of the King's Wark during the succeeding century are confusing, and it is possible that, as the structure evidently contained a number of separate tenements, some of these were retained by the Crown and others were granted concurrently to private persons. At any rate, although no reversion of her mother's grant is on record, we find Mary, Queen of Scots, granting the Wark in feu-ferm in 1564 to John Chisholm, her Controller of Artillery-ostensibly as a reward for good service but perhaps really in the hope that he would repair the damaged buildings (5). In making this grant the queen stipulated that a cellar stored with wine and provisions should be reserved for her use. Again, in 1590 the Wark was occupied for some days by James VI and his bride on their arrival in Leith from Denmark (6), although it is only in 1593 that its reversion to the Crown is recorded (7). In 1606 the king gave the Wark to one of his Gentlemen of the Bedchamber, Bernard Lindsay (8), but it appears that Lindsay had already acquired some part of the property from Chisholm, the beneficiary of Queen Mary's grant (9).
Lindsay, whose Christian name has been perpetuated in the modern Bernard Street, conceived the idea of making the Wark the chief ornament of Leith, a monument that would attract the notice of all who entered the harbour; and to this end he constructed an arched piazza on pillars of polished stone and furnished it with stone seats for the convenience of native and foreign merchants who might wish to use it as an exchange. As a recompense for his expenditure the king granted him the proceeds of an impost of £4 per tun charged on all wine brought into or taken out of the vaults of the Wark (10). Lindsay in due course enlarged the extent of his property, by encroachment as well as by purchase, and constructed a tennis-court where the king and his courtiers played during a visit paid to Leith in 1617 (11). His diligence was rewarded in1623 by the erection of the King's Wark into a free bailiary, of which he was the hereditary bailie, and by its consequent exemption from the jurisdiction of the burgh magistrates (12).
In 1647 the tower, the tennis court, and three tenements, having in the meanwhile changed hands more than once, were conveyed to the magistrates of Edinburgh (13); while another of the tenements likewise came into their possession in the course of the 18th century. The tennis court was turned nto a weigh-house in 1649, and by 1752 had undergone further extensive reconstruction (14).
RCAHMS 1951
(1) Exch. Rolls, iv, p. 578. (2) Exch. Rolls, xvii, pp.170, 283. (3) Ibid., p. 741, footnote. (4) Reg. Mag. Sig.,1513-1546, No. 3088. (5) Ibid., 1546-1580, No. 1558. (6) Robertson, Sculptured Stones of Leith, p. 67, and Calderwood, The True History of the Church of Scotland, p. 255. (7) Acts Parl. Scot., iv. p. 28, No. 32. (8) Ibid., p. 315, No. 57. (9) Reg. Mag. Sig., 1620-1633, No. 454. (10) Reg. Mag. Sig., 1609-1620, No. 668. (11) Reg. Mag. Sig., 1620-1633, No. 454. (12) Ibid. (13) Reg. Mag. Sig., 1634-1651, No. 1775; B.R.,1642-1655, p. 119. (14) Maitland, History, p. 496.
