Edinburgh, High Street, The Black Turnpike

83. The Black Turnpike, High Street.

This mansion, which was also known as the "Auld Bishop of Dunkeld's Ludging," was built in 1461 on the S. side of the High Street and a few feet W. of the Tron Church. Two 18th-century drawings of the house exist; one, by James Skene (1), shows a building of four storeys with closed piazzas, and theother, made by George Sandy in 1788 (2), gives it three storeys only and shows the piazzas as open. The latter representation is much more likely to be accurate than the former, as there is no evidence of any 15th-century house possessing more than three storeys. An inscribed door-lintel which appears to have come from this house is preserved at Abbotsford (3). The inscription, which reads THE LORD OF ARMEIS IS MY PROTECTOR / BLISSIT AR THAY THAT TRVST IN THE LOR/D, is set between a monogram of the initials A C and M B at one end and the date 1575, associated with a monogram of the initials A C, at the other. The Black Turnpike was demolished in 1788 to make room for Hunter Square and Blair Street, these alterations being part of the scheme of improvements of which the construction of the South Bridge was a leading feature.

Mary Queen of Scots and Darnley stayed in the Black Turnpike after their return from Dunbar in 1566, but the tradition that Mary was imprisoned there after her capture at Carberry appears to have originated in a confusion between this house and the house of Sir Simon Preston on the N. side of the High Street, which was also known as the “Black Turnpike” (4). It is uncertain whether James V also stayed there as the guest of the Bishop of Dunkeld, as the Bishop had a second house on the N. side of the High Street.

RCAHMS 1951

(1) Skene, Series of Sketches, p. 80 and Grant, Old and New Edinburgh, i, p. 136. (2) MS. diary preserved in the Signet Library. (3) Memorial of Walter Scott, pp. 98 f. (4) P.S.A.S., lxxiv (1939-40), pp. 116 ff.