Publication Account
Date 1951
Event ID 1097765
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1097765
56. George Heriot's Hospital.
George Heriot, a descendant of the Heriots of Trabroun, a well-connected East Lothian family,* was born at Edinburgh in 1563, the eldest son of a substantial goldsmith. He followed his father's calling, and on his marriage to Christian Marjoribanks in 1586 setup on his own account in a “krame” or booth attached to the N.E. corner of St. Giles' Church. In 1588 he gained admission to the Incorporation of Goldsmiths, of which he was Dean in 1598, in 1603-4 and in 1607-8 (1). Having been appointed goldsmith to the Queen in 1597, and to King James VI four years later, he followed the Court on its removal to London and there enjoyed a very large share of the Royal and public patronage. He married secondly Alison Primrose, daughter of the Clerk to the Privy Council, but became a widower once more in 1612, and died without legal issue.
When he died in London on 12th February 1623-4, he left a fortune in houses, land, mortgages and loans, as well as pictures, jewels and other stock in trade. The residue of his estate, amounting to £23,625 10s. 3½d., he bequeathed to the municipality and clergy of Edinburgh to found and endow a hospital for the maintenance and education of fatherless boys, sons of freemen of the town of Edinburgh, which hospital was to be governed by statutes either made by himself or framed after his death by his nephew, Dr. Waiter Balcanquhal, Dean of Rochester. Although the executors were zealous, the estate necessarily took some time to wind up and in the end certain large sums, which were still due ten years later from the Duke of Buckingham and the royal family, had to be compounded at a heavy loss. Nevertheless the project began to take shape in 1627, when Dr. Balcanquhal came to Edinburgh and met the magistrates and clergy. With commendable promptitude the matter of a site was settled in a single day; one at the foot of Gray's Close and Todrick's Wynd, which Heriot had himself bequeathed for the purpose, was unanimously rejected as being too small, and another was selected at High Riggs, on ground lately acquired by the magistrates from Sir George Touris of Inverleith.** On this field of 8 ½ acres, lying on the uneven hillside between Greyfriars Churchyard and the Flodden Wall, the new building was to be erected “conforme to the paterne of the same given be the said Dean of Rochester”, and material was ordered forthwith in order that building might be started nine months later. In point of fact the first sod was turned on 3rd June 1628, while the foundation stone was solemnly laid on 1st July, as is testified by an inscription cut on the basement course of the building at its N.W. corner. The master mason and his men received two rose-nobles for drink-silver on the occasion, and the barrowmen £6 13s. 4d. Scots. This master mason was none other than William Wallace, the King's Master Mason, a craftsman renowned both for his skill in carving and for his ability in design.
There has been considerable controversy as to the identity of the architect of the Hospital, but nothing is known except that the “paterne” was supplied by the Dean of Rochester. That is to say, Dr. Balcanquhal no doubt specified his requirements possibly suggesting that an existing building should be taken as a model since the plan is not abreast of its time - and these were drawn out by some master mason, in all probability Wallace, for the whole is characteristically Scots in detail. Wallace died in 1631 and William Ayton, a notable mason from Fife, was appointed as his successor in the following year, on engaging to remove to Edinburgh.*** His contract bound him not only to hew mouldings and carve with his own hands and to direct his subordinates and follow the model set by his predecessor, but also to re-design and draw out any details necessary for the further embellishment of the building, making the actual moulds and patterns with his own hands.
As the extent of the operations undertaken in anyone year was governed, as a general rule, by the amount of the annual income received from investments, progress was necessarily slow. Moreover, at the time of the first Bishops' War the revenue failed altogether, and building had therefore to be suspended and was not resumed until 1642. Then, in 1650, as the work was approaching completion, Cromwell took the place over as quarters for his sick and wounded, and eight years had to elapse before it was vacated. But a claim to the Hospital and its whole revenue, made by the Protector in 1651 on the ground that the testator's wishes had not been carried out, was successfully resisted, the sequestration being removed in 1654. At length, in June 1659, the Hospital was solemnly dedicated in the presence of the whole body of magistrates, and was opened with thirty scholars clad, as the statutes prescribed, in doublets, breeches, and stockings or hose, all of sad-russet cloth, with gowns of the same colour and black hats and strings. But even in 1692 the S.E. side was still not quite finished, while the steeple also, the design for which had been approved as far back as 1676 by Sir William Bruce, the eminent Scottish architect, was still incomplete. In 1693, however, Robert Mylne, then King's Master Mason, submitted a design for its completion and carried the work to a close. Finally, gardens were laid out around the building, and these became a fashionable promenade.
The only approach to the Hospital was on the N., from the Grassmarket, by way of a steep narrow street called Heriot's Bridge; the N. aspect of the new work alone was open, the other three sides being shut off respectively by the Flodden Wall, by Telfer's extension of it, and by the boundary of Greyfriars Churchyard. With characteristic Scots economy only the front was built of ashlar, rubble being deemed sufficient for the back and sides. But about 1828, when the approach was transferred to the S. side, the governors decided to re-face the back and sides with ashlar, leaving the moulded and carved work undisturbed. This was done in 1833, and the work was so skilfully executed that the alteration can be detected only by contrasting the cold hue of the Craigleith stone then used with the golden colour of the original stone quarried at Ravelston. Otherwise the fabric is all of a piece and is the most complete embodiment of the Jacobean conception of formal architecture that is to be seen not in Edinburgh alone but in the whole of Scotland. The primary elements of the design, moreover, are sufficiently simple and virile to support their rich clothing of ornament, which is everywhere logically applied. Embellishment here takes the form of enriched quoin-stones and crow-steps, moulded string-courses, carved window-pediments, sun-dials, corbelling and niches, with ornately fluted chimneystalks over all, some of which are set out on gablets.
[see RCAHMS 1951 pp 111-114 for an architectural description]
RCAHMS 1951
*From whom George Buchanan was also descended.
**The magistrates did not lose by this transaction, as they had purchased 10 acres for 5,800 merks and now sold 8 ½ acres to the Hospital for 7,650 merks. The ground purchased had been incorporated with the burgh in free burgage by a charter of the Great Seal, and was the only acquisition held on a similar footing to the burgh itself.
***He became a burgess in 1640.
