Publication Account

Date 1951

Event ID 1097629

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Publication Account

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1097629

RCAHMS County Inventory: The City of Edinburgh

RIDDLE'S COURT.

[see also NT27SE 268 and NT27SE 269]

The entrance to the passage beneath the W. tenement [NT27SE 269], as well as the window immediately above it, have been rebuilt within recent years, but the passage itself remains unaltered and debouches into Riddle's Court. This was originally a narrow area, oblong but for the projection of the staircase of Riddle's Land into the N.W. corner. Although the buildings on the E. and W. sides of the court were removed some years ago, the 17th-century building on the S. side shows what the general treatment was. Built of rubble with freestone dressings, and having its three remaining storeys defined by string-courses, this surviving part is pierced by a central pend leading into the inner enclosure that is called Riddle's Court.

The pend is flanked by a doorway on either side, the W. one, which is plain, giving access only to a cellar. The E. one, however, which is moulded, and is set at an angle within a projection which is further advanced on corbelling above the lintel, leads to what must have been originally a good habitable chamber. Subsequently divided, this chamber now contains the staircase leading to the first floor, the original scale-stair having been demolished with the wing on the E. side of the courtyard. The projecting wooden staircase from the first to the second floor is entirely modern. Minor external additions include the motto VIVENDO DISCIMUS cut on the voussoirs of the pend arch, and the armorial panel immediately above the arch which interrupts the lowest string-course. At the W. end of this string-course there has been inserted an old skew-put, brought from elsewhere, which exhibits a shield with a monogram apparently of the initials A M I L. The interior has been considerably altered, but the rooms on the first floor still have early 18th-century wall-panelling of pine. The westernmost room on the second floor has panelling of the same date but its fine modelled plaster ceiling is dated 1648. The adjoining room, through which this one is entered, still has some panelling round the moulded and carved mantelpiece.

RIDDLE'S CLOSE.

Although its E. side is an addition and the W. and S. sides may be vestiges of an earlier building, the inner court appears to be all of one piece and to be datable either to the last decade of the 16th or to the first half of the 17th century. On three sides the buildings rise three main storeys above the court, but the wing intruded on the E. has two storeys only, the upper one being an attic. The S. building also has an attic over the W. end, lit through a gablet rising over all, while below the level of the court it contains two "laigh floors," the upper one of which can be reached both from the courtyard and from Victoria Terrace to the S. while the lower, now converted into shops, is entered from Victoria Street. The S. parts of these "laigh floors" may be extensions of the primary building.

The frontage towards the S. was rebuilt in the 19th century. In the elevations towards the courtyard the masonry is rubble with freestone dressings, string-courses defining the floors within. The lowest string-course serves as a cornice for the three principal moulded doorways on the S., which are flanked by rudimentary pilasters surmounted by finials. In all there are seven doorways. The one on the N. side, through which the N. building is entered, was originally a window. The two that gave access to the buildings on the E. and W. sides have both been closed. The easternmost one to the S. may have been struck out at a later date than the others but is more likely to be an older doorway enlarged. Another, set beside this one, opens to a stair which descends to the floor immediately below the level of the courtyard. The sixth door, now partly closed, opens on a turnpike, while the seventh, situated at the N.W. corner, is the access generally used to-day. The back-set window-margins are rounded at the arris. At the S.E. angle is a long window, held to have been originally an access for goods, while the curious arched stone hood immediately above it is thought to have been a support for hoisting-tackle. On neither point, however, is the evidence conclusive. On the E. of the hood a stone water-spout projects from the heavy chimney stalk on the gable of the E. building; this, considered in conjunction with the fragment of an eaves-course farther W., suggests that the E. half of the S. building has been heightened. The gab let still farther W also has the appearance of being an addition, although one of its finials is said to have borne the initial M, for McMorran, a circumstance which would suggest a date in the late 16th century.*

The internal arrangement of the buildings round this court is intricate and difficult to analyse. In the first place, however, the building on the N. side, already referred to on p. 81, can be eliminated as it has obviously been a separate property. The manner in which the remainder was divided up is uncertain. The doorway at the S.W. corner opens into a lobby giving access on the right to the W. wing, where a large kitchen-fireplace can be traced in the gable; on the left to a spacious turnpike; and at the end to the OrweIl Hall, which occupies the full width of the property on the S. side and looks out on Victoria Terrace. The Hall is modern, having been formed by the removal of the original partitions; but it still has a good late 18th-century mantelpiece in the W. gable. Near the E. end of the N. wall a doorway opens on a passage giving access, on the E., to a small room and debouching into the courtyard through the doorway that has been described as having probably been enlarged. Near the middle of the same wall another door gives access to a straight stair, which rises to the room lit by the long window beneath the stone hood. This room also had direct access from the turnpike.

The first floor contains two stately rooms above the Orwell Hall. Both have marble mantelpieces and are panelled in pine in 18th-century fashion, but the E. room has, in addition, a good ornamental plaster ceiling of the early 17th century. The room in the W. wing is also panelled. Although the seven apartments on the floor above have been modernised two features of special interest remain besides the turnpike. One is the little circular garderobe at the entrance to the chamber in the W. wing, and the other a narrow irregular closet, believed to have been a strong room. The latter is lit from the E. window in the gablet. The straight stair that leads down from the courtyard to Victoria Terrace divides the upper "laigh floor" equally. On each side of the stairfoot is a large room, entirely modernised, with a vaulted cellarage on its N. side. From the W. cellarage the turnpike rises to serve all the floors above, while in the E. cellarage there is a narrow service-stair which only rose to the level of the courtyard and is now closed off. Below, within the modern shops in Victoria Street, can be seen the arches that carry the back wall of the tenement.

On the plan (Fig. 243) the walls have be enhatched to indicate the principal building-periods, but so much alteration has taken place that it would not be possible to assign any particular part to a given date without having the walls stripped. So far as can be ascertained at present, the development of the whole complex is as follows. In the 16th century the arrangement comprised four houses facing the main street, those at either end presenting one side to the thoroughfare while the two central ones each presented a gable. The frontage lines of all four were several feet farther S. than at present. Behind these buildings rose others, grouped round two courtyards and adjusted to the slope of the ground; and of these latter a considerable part survives in the N.,w. and S. sides of Riddle's Close.

In the 17th century the four front buildings seem to have been reconstructed as two properties, the frontages of which were brought forward to the present limits; the buildings round the courtyards were remodelled; and a wing was inserted on the E. side of Riddle's Close. In either this or the following century, but in any case before 1742, the building on the S. side of Riddle's Close was extended southwards to its present limits. In 1725 or 1726 the western of the two tenements facing the street was reconstructed, its neighbour to the E. being refronted and remodelled in 1752.

RCAHMS 1951

*The courtyard buildings are generally ascribed to Bailie John McMorran, a merchant of Edinburgh and City Treasurer 1589-91, who was shot in 1595 by William Sinclair at a barring-out of the High School. (Grant, Old and New Edinburgh, i, p. 110). James VI, his queen, Anne of Denmark, and her brother the Duke of Holstein were entertained in McMorran's house in 1598 (Diary of Robert Birrel, p. 46, in Fragments of Scottish History, 1798).