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Edinburgh, 101, 103 West Bow

Tenement (17th Century)

Site Name Edinburgh, 101, 103 West Bow

Classification Tenement (17th Century)

Alternative Name(s) 105 West Bow

Canmore ID 52276

Site Number NT27SE 257

NGR NT 25478 73428

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/52276

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
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Administrative Areas

  • Council Edinburgh, City Of
  • Parish Edinburgh (Edinburgh, City Of)
  • Former Region Lothian
  • Former District City Of Edinburgh
  • Former County Midlothian

Archaeology Notes

NT27SE 257 25478 73428

101-105 West Bow. Three storeys and attic; base of fleur-de-lis finial dated 1561; 17th-century appears more likely. No 107: five storeys and attic; half a door lintel is inscribed ?BLESSED BE! GOD FOR ALL HIS GIFTIS 1616; the front to Grassmarket looks an early 18th-century reconstruction, but a stair-tower at W side supports a 17th-century origin.

RCAHMS 1951; J Gifford, C McWilliam and D Walker 1984.

For 107 West Bow, as described above, but numbered 105 West Bow on the current GIS map, see NT27SE 696 and NT27SE 98 Grassmarket.

Activities

Publication Account (1951)

52. 1 Grassmarket [now 96 Grassmarket and 101-105 West Bow].

This address covers two adjoining tenements, situated at the corner of the West Bow and Grassmarket, which have in the course of time become a single property and are to-day used as a warehouse. The S. tenement is the older and more interesting, and in its prime was one of the finest domestic buildings in Edinburgh. There is some evidence that it originally stood open on three sides, but Gordon's map shows that before 1647 other buildings had already grown up upon its N. side and also proves that the fabric now seen represents a rebuilding subsequent to that year (infra). On plan it includes an oblong main block, five storeys and an attic in height, facing the market-place and presenting one gable to the West Bow, with a small rectangular tower, surmounted by a belfry, projecting from the S.W. corner; but the re-entrant angle thus formed is now only apparent from the first floor upwards as the base of the main block has been carried forwards at some later time into line with the face of the tower. The lower part of the face of the tower runs at an angle to the main block, but the upper part is set parallel to it by means of corbelling. The lowest windows of the front are modern. Each of the four main upper floors has four windows, while the attic has two within a gabled projection rising above the eaves which, if it is not wholly an 18th-centuryaddition, must represent a reconstruction made in that period. These windows are large and those of the tower are smaller; all have margins either chamfered or rounded at the arrises. Beneath the second-floor and third-floor windows of the front there have been string-courses at the level of the sills; these also extended across the E. gable and returned upwards near the N.E. corner. The upperpart of the tower with its ogival roof seems to be quite modern. The exposed gable is blank, save for the string-courses already mentioned and the windows at either end, which are unmoulded. Until recently the masonry was for the most part covered with cement, although ashlar work could still be seen at the S.W. corner of the tower; it has now, however, been cleaned, and the process has exposed the remains of a built-up doorway at the N.E. corner. This has a heavily moulded architrave and the lintel is inscribed [16 BLESSED BE] GOD FOR ALHIS GIFTIS 66, thus supplying a date for the reconstruction of the building. Another built-up doorway can be seen at the S.E. corner; and several built-up windows, which appear to be secondary, rest on the string-courses of the first and second floors.

The building has been gutted and all the partitions removed, with the result that every floor has become a single large apartment and the original method of division is left more or less doubtful. Each floor has apparently been a separate flat, the lowest one entered off the Grassmarket and those above from a turnpike approached from the West Bow. This is still extant within the N.E. corner. There is nothing worth noting on the ground floor except the projection of the stair-well, within the N.E. corner, and two recesses in the N. wall which can hardly be anything but window-embrasures closed up. On the first floor can be traced a suite of three rooms in an18th-century arrangement and, as on the N. side of the floor beneath, there seem to be two early windows built up. The second floor, on the other hand, had four rooms in the 18th century. A large kitchen fireplace in the N. wall, however, flanked by two recesses which are probably those of windows, and a bolection-moulded fireplace in the E. gable, are all remnants of an earlier state of things. Four rooms, all of which evidently had pine panelling of the 18thcentury, can also be traced upon the third and fourth floors. But in the attic there were only three rooms, the one at the E. end showing traces of having been panelled.

The neighbouring building on the N. has a main block, facing the West Bow and therefore at right angles to the last and in line with its E. gable. From either end of this main block two short wings extend westwards, the space between, in which there may once have been wooden galleries, having been partly filled up at some later time. The front, covered with cement, is enriched by a single string-course running above the ground floor in continuation of one upon the adjoining building. The fact that there are two doorways and two windows opening to the street suggests that the ground floor was divided. At the N.E. corner a forestair with bottle-nosed steps gives access to the first floor. The first and second floors are both lit by two pairs of small chamfered windows, while another window, above the entrance, was perhaps intended to light an internal wooden stair. The attic floor has two windows in a crow-stepped gab let rising from the eaves, surmounted by a third which is intended to ventilate the roof-space. The gab let-finial was a fleur-de-lys, and beneath the base of this may be seen the date 1561; the facade as a whole, however, has all the appearance of having been built a century later. The interior of this building now contains nothing worthy of note except two fireplaces, which may be dated to the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries.

RCAHMS 1951

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