Edinburgh, Niddrie, Niddrie Marischal House

Niddrie House.

This building, the home of the Wauchopes of Niddrie-Marischal, stands about 3 miles south-east of the General Post Office, secluded within a finely wooded policy traversed by a small stream, the Burdiehouse Burn (O.S. ‘Niddrie Burn’). It is a stately, widespread structure, greatly altered and added to in course of time. The earliest part, dating from the early 17th century, is an L-shaped structure of three storeys and an attic fronting the stream and enclosed on all sides except the south by later building. The main block runs east and west, roughly parallel with the stream, and contains the apartments, while the tower lies to the north in alignment with the west gable and houses the staircase and entrance. The sloping site entails entrance at a level between the floors; steps therefore lead down from the doorway to the basement and up from it to the first floor.

An earlier house, destroyed in the late 16th century, had previously occupied the same or an adjacent site; from its materials the stair-tower appears to have been largely built. This tower measures 19 feet by 22 feet externally and rises above the present ground-level to a height of 40 feet, where it terminates in a look-out with an enclosing parapet. The parapet, crenellated and containing gun-loops of a late 16th-century type, does not overhang the wall-face but is, on the contrary, slightly set back. The corbel table is surmounted by a cavettoed cornice with gargoyles, and is composed of two separate orders of small corbels set chequerwise. The walls of the tower are rubble built, were once harled and show 16th-century quoins on the external angles. The upper north window is of 16th century type, with rounded arrises, while the lower windows date from the 17th century and have dressed back-set and chamfered margins. The old entrance, built up and long disused, has a well-moulded 17th-century architrave.

The walls of the main block are of rubble, rough-cast, and are divided horizontally by two moulded string-courses and an eaves-course. The windows are similar to the lower windows of the tower, but the attic windows are dormers with pediments. The eastern pediment bears the initials S. I. W. for Sir John Wauchope, the builder of the house (1), and D. A. H. for Dame Anna Hamilton, his wife (2). The central pediment is dated 1636, while the western bears the initials of Sir John's parents, S. F. W. for Sir Francis Wauchope, and D. I. S. for Dame Jean Sandilands (3). The roof of the main block is modern, and, while its apex is at the original level, the southern wall-head has been raised.

Within the older part of the mansion there are on the basement floor three vaulted cellars, which must originally have intercommunicated. The first floor comprises the dining-room, a stately chamber 31t feet by 20 feet, on the west, and a chamber on the east which has been thrown into the modern hall. The dining room has evidently been remodelled in the early 18th century, but it retains a portion of a modelled plaster ceiling (Fig. 116), commemorating the Restoration. This is, on plan, a square quartered by a cruciform band enriched in relief with cherubs' heads and a scroll of flowers and fruits, at which birds peck; in each quarter moulded ribs form quadrants and leave a central panel roughly cruciform in shape. The north-west and south-east quarters are similar, and the north-east and south-west identical. The former quarters have, in the central panel, a pendant between two fleurs-de-lys beneath stars, and two roses, slipped, beneath crowns disposed crosswise. The quadrants (Fig. 116) contain :-(a) on a cartouche the inscription NOBIS HJEC INVICTA MISERVNT108 PROAVI ;4 above the cartouche a baton and a sword saltire-wise beneath a crown; (b) a lion crowned sejant affronte on a cushion, holding in its right paw a sword and in its left a baton; flanking the crown are the initials C.R.; (c) a cherub's head; (d) a foliaceous scroll. The north-east and south-west quarters have in the central panel a pendant bordered by two thistles, slipped, beneath crowns, and two roses, slipped, beneath stars. The quadrants contain:(a) a lion rampant with a star for difference between paw and head; (b) a crown surmounting a saltire, which has betwixt its upper arms the date 1661 and within the sidearms the initials C. R.; (c) a cherub's head;(d) a foliaceous scroll.

The dining-room is fully panelled from floor to cornice, apparently in pine. The fireplace, centred in the west gable, has a black and white marble surround, a garlanded and cushioned wooden frieze and a moulded and enriched wooden cornice. The opposite wall is similarly treated, but a characteristic 18th-century niche replaces the fireplace. The room is well lit by three large windows in the south wall; the north wall is blank, but inset in its panelling are five picture panels. One of these shows a view of the house as it was in the early eighteenth century. A sixth picture, inset above the fireplace, claims to represent Sir William Wallace.

The east chamber and the upper floors have been modernised but retain a few pieces of 18th-century woodwork; the end chambers on the attic floors have mural closets. The staircase is a particularly fine and spacious example of the scale-and-platt type. It rises from the basement to the attic floor; from this level access is obtained to the low chamber formed above the stair and to the roof look-out by a wheel-stair contained within a turret corbelled out within the re-entrant angle. This turret, the upper part of which has been rebuilt, has an ogival roof. At the top of the main staircase the newel becomes a solid balustrade with moulded cope and is adorned with great globular finials, set on foliaceously enriched necks. On the principal landing lower down the stair the newel is embellished with an engaged shaft terminating in well-moulded capital and base. This staircase is one of the finest hitherto noted in these Inventories.

RCAHMS 1929, visited 8 April 1921.

(1) Family MS. notes cited in History and Genealogy of the Family of Wauchope of Niddrie Merschell, by James Paterson (1858), p. 29. Cf. also tombstones in No. 153 [NT37SW 27]; (2) Ibid., p. 40; (3) Ibid., p. 40 ; (4) Taylor, the Water Poet, relates that he saw in 1618 over an upper door in the inner court of Holyrood Palace the inscription NOBIS HÆC INVICTA MISERVNT 106 PROAVI, translated for him as "106 fore-fathers have left this to us unconquered." Sir William Brereton, 1636, notes the same inscription upon the wall of Edinburgh Castle. (Early Travellers in Scotland, Hume Brown, pp. III, 139.) The reference was to Buchanan's list of Scottish monarchs, in which James V. was No.106. Here and on the ceiling at Gorgie House (NT27SW 8) the inscription has been copied and adapted to a Restoration setting. Note that Mary is omitted: as a Queen, she was not, grammatically, a proavus.