Edinburgh, Leith Links, Lady Fife's Brae
Battery (16th Century)
Site Name Edinburgh, Leith Links, Lady Fife's Brae
Classification Battery (16th Century)
Alternative Name(s) Pelham's Battery; Leith Links, Artillery Mounds
Canmore ID 51927
Site Number NT27NE 12
NGR NT 2753 7583
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/51927
- Council Edinburgh, City Of
- Parish Edinburgh (Edinburgh, City Of)
- Former Region Lothian
- Former District City Of Edinburgh
- Former County Midlothian
NT27NE 12 2753 7583
See also NT27NE 11 and NT27NE 141.
(NT 2753 7583) Lady Fife's Brae (NAT)
Pelham's Battery (NR) (Remains of)
OS 6" map, (1966)
The mound, visible on Leith Links, and known as 'Lady Fife's Brae' is the remains of a gun position, Pelham's Battery, occupied by five cannon, set up in 1560 during the seige of Leith by English troops supporting the Congregation against the Queen Regent, Marie de Guise-Lorraine.
RCAHMS 1951; G Donaldson 1966.
A low grass-covered mound measuring 46.0 metres NE/SW by 27.0 metres.
Visited by OS (B S) 27 November 1975.
The tradition that Lady Fife's Brae and Giant's Brae were gunsites during the 1560 siege seems to go no further back than 1827 (A Campbell 1827). Lent authority by Robertson in 1851 and the Ordnance Survey of 1852, it led to them being spared when the rest of the numerous hillocks in the links were levelled in the 1880's. The Petworth map shows some features in the Links about 120 yards in front of the eastern ramparts. One reads as a long, straight ditch, perhaps the remains of an entrenchment by Somerset in 1547, while the others, irregular in shape and tinted in the same manner as Lochend Loch, appear to be ponds. Possibly they were noted on the map because they impeded a frontal attack on the ramparts.
See NT27NE 141.
D H Robertson 1851; S Harris 1992.
Scheduled (with NT27NE 11) as Leith Links, artillery mounds.
Information from Historic Scotland, scheduling document dated 11 December 2002.
Publication Account (1951)
247. Siege Works, Leith Links.
On the S. side of Leith Links are two large mounds about 250yds. apart, known respectively as the "Giant's Brae" and "Lady Fife's Brae". The latter name refers to the Countess of Fife, who lived in Hermitage House immediately S. of this mound (1). They are in reality the remains of two gun positions, Somerset's battery and Pelham's battery, set up in 1560, during the siege of Leith, by the English troops supporting the Congregation against the Queen Regent, Marie de Guise-Lorraine. Cf. Calendar of State Papers, i, p. 400.
RCAHMS 1951, visited c.1941
(1) Russell, The Story of Leith, p. 279.
