Edinburgh's lost 1700s shopping centre

For the past few years I've been searching for the lost Scottish Parliament. Now I've stumbled across something shocking, because its disappearance has gone unnoticed...

Parliament Close around 1700 looking east from the entrance to Parliament Hall.

There are very few contemporary images of the old Scottish Parliament, the Exchequer building, and the shops clinging to the walls of St Giles. But when it comes to the rest of Parliament Close (as Parliament Square used to be known) there are fewer still. In the last blog post we explored this, and discovered that the only time artists felt moved to record the scene was when it was burning down, in the great fire of 1824. Here's a reminder of one of the images in the aftermath...

Parliament Square, Edinburgh, after the Great Fire. 1824. William Home Lizars (1788 - 1859). National Galleries of Scotland. Transferred from the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.

It was tricky to recreate the image at the top of this blog, since so little evidence remains, and what has survived is ambiguous and confusing. At first glance the Lizars print above seems to suggest that the tenements on the right of the view (the south east corner) were a storey higher than those to the left (NE). However the little-known Robert Barker panorama - not on public display) explains the reality.

Part of Robert Barker's panorama 'Edinburgh from the Crown of St Giles' - with kind permission from The City of Edinburgh Council Museums & Galleries; City Arts Centre.

There were windows in the chimney stacks - and that is what is shown protruding above the roof edge. What a bizarre arrangement! A stack which would normally be a conglomeration of flues seems to have had a room within. Forgive me some speculation here, and if anyone has more information then do leave a comment.

We have to remember that these buildings were the world's first skyscrapers. The tenements on the south side of the Close (on the right of the top illustration) have seven storeys looking on to Parliament Close, plus in places a further row of attic dormer windows or skylights. But these buildings were on the crest of a hill. At the back of what we see here there was a drop down to the Canongate, and at their rear the tenements had a further four storeys, making eleven floors in all. So they had a lot of fireplaces, and the overall height to the top of the chimney stack was massive. This would suggest that the practice of sending a brush down the lum (or chimney) to clean the flue from right at the top may have been impractical. I wonder if the small room in the chimney stack was an access point for hatches into each flue. Get in touch if you know more.

The Exchequer building (on the right of the top illustration) may have been grander, but the tenements towered above it. And their height wasn't far off the wall tops of St Giles, which we can see on the left of the picture. Let's take a walk down to the end of the Exchequer building, towards the south east corner of the Close.

Parliament Close, SE corner - author's computer model

I know that the King's Arms was one of these four frontages, alongside the vennel leading down to the Meal Market. (A vennel is a 'close' or passageway.) I've chosen one of the two doors immediately beside the vennel. Again if you have any further information as to which exact spot it occupied then get in touch and I'll update the model.

Parliament Square bookshops

Next door is the rather fine bookshop of Manners and Millar. This shop was particularly popular with Edinburgh's more fashionable customers.

Peter's Letters to His Kinsfolk, Volume 2, by John Gibson Lockhart (Blackwoods 1819) describes the shop...

If one be inclined, however, for an elegant shop, and abundance of gossip, it is only necessary to cross the (High) street, and enter the shop of Messrs Manners and Miller - the true lounging-place of the blue-stockings, and literary beaumonde of the Northern metropolis. Nothing, indeed, can be more inviting than the external appearance of this shop, or more amusing, if one is in the proper lounging humour, than the scene of elegant trifling which is exhibited with in. At the door you are received by one or other of the partners... who has perhaps been handing some fine lady to her carriage, or is engaged in conversation with some fine gentleman, about to leave the shop after his daily half-hour's visit. You are then conducted through a light and spacious anti-room, full of clerks and apprentices, and adorned with a few busts and prints, into the back-shop, which is a perfect bijou. Its walls are covered with all the most elegant books in fashionable request, arrayed in the most luxurious clothing of Turkey and Russia leather, red, blue, and green-and protected by glass folding-doors, from the intrusion even of the little dust which might be supposed to threaten them, in a place kept so delicately trim. The grate exhibits either a fine blazing fire, or, in its place, a beautiful fresh bush of hawthorn, stuck all over with roses and lilies, as gay as a Maypole. The centre of the room is occupied by a table, covered with the Magazines and Reviews of the month, the papers of the day, the last books of Voyages and Travels, and innumerable books of scenery - those beautiful books which transport one's eye in a moment into the heart of Savoy or Italy... In the midst of all this, the Bookseller himself moves about doing the honours of the place, with the same unwearied gallantry and politeness-... One sees, in a moment, that this is not a great publishing shop; such weighty and laborious business would put to flight all the loves and graces that hover in the perfumed atmosphere of the place.

Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk, by John Gibson Lockhart, Published Blackwoods, Letter XLIV p 177

It is no surprise that there is a bookshop next door to the King's Arms. Parliament Close is packed with them. In his excellent website Parliament Square Edinburgh John Chalmers describes how Edinburgh had made a slow start in the publishing business. In the late 1700s

‘the printing of newspapers, and of school-books, of the fanatic effusions of Presbyterian clergymen, and the law-papers of the Court of Session, joined to the patent Bible printing, gave scant employment to four printing houses'

(The History of Edinburgh, from the Earliest Accounts, to the Year 1780, Hugo Arnot, 1816, p258)’

It was felt that Scotland was held back by having two languages in common use - Scots and English. (Gaelic was barely noticed at this time.) Clearly you couldn't hope to be taken seriously on the international stage when half the time you persisted in using a mangled incomprehensible distortion of English. And when you tried to speak English or French you did it with a mangled and incomprehensible accent. And yet the remarkable success of Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott in the 1700s seemed to undermine this dismissive attitude.

In 1757 the philosopher David Hume wrote:

…really it is admirable how many Men of Genius this Country produces at present. Is it not strange, that, at a time when we have lost our Princes, our Parliaments, our independent Government, even the Presence of our chief Nobility, ..and…speak a very corrupt Dialect of the Tongue which we make use of; is it not strange, I say, that, in these Circumstances, we should really be the People most distinguished for Literature in Europe?

Letter to Gilbert Elliot of Minto, July 1757 in The Letters of David Hume (1932) Ed Greig J Y T vol 1 p255 

Edinburgh had been helped by changes in copyright law which allowed it to compete on a level playing field with established publishing houses in London when it came to publishing new editions of the classics. But Scotland's own literary flourish was now driving the whole publishing industry. And it must be significant that the emphasis in Scotland on the universal teaching of reading and writing had created a more literate population, with a greater demand for pamphlets, newspapers and books.

John Chalmers goes on to note:

Printing and publishing had rapidly become Edinburgh’s chief industry, much of it conducted within the vicinity of Parliament Square. Peter Williamson’s Directory of 1777 lists twenty one booksellers, mostly located in and around the Square.  These had increased to a hundred and twenty eight by 1827. Printing works had increased from six in 1763 to sixteen in 1790 and fifty six in 1845 employing one thousand workers.

 Parliament Square Edinburgh 

The importance of the Old Town was overwhelming:

The only great lounging book-shop in the New Town of Edinburgh is Mr Blackwoods. The prejudice in favour of sticking by the Old Town was so strong among the gentlemen of the trade, that when this bookseller intimated a few years ago his purpose in removing to the New, his ruin was immediately prophesied by not a few of his sagacious brethren.

Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk, by John Gibson Lockhart, Published Blackwoods, Letter XLIV p 186

This is at the heart of something which struck me as wholly unexpected.

My mental associations had been based on reputation rather than research. They were generalisations. But they are probably shared by many:

Edinburgh's Old Town

Medieval, unsanitary, rat infested, filthy, disease-ridden - gardyloo! Crowded, dangerous, subject to mob rule. Drinking dens and public executions.

Edinburgh's New Town

Classical renaissance, elegant, enlightened, spacious, town planning, coherent design. A modern international city fit to be exposed to international scrutiny.

Now I'm astonished to learn that the blossoming of Scotland's international reputation in literature and publishing was almost entirely an Old Town phenomenon.

There's a 1775 engraving by William Forrest entitled Church of St Giles, Edinburgh from Parliament Square - From a Drawing in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. It's a little crude, but it corroborates details in the 'Kay' painting in the Museum of Edinburgh, and fills in some missing angles This is the view which would have greeted you when you stepped out of Manners and Millar. Let's add these details to our model.

The little lane on the right is the main entrance for vehicles from the High Street. We know from Peter Williamson's Directory that there were over twenty bookshops in and around Parliament Close, and there are only fifteen premises unaccounted for on the east and south sides of Parliament Close - so a great number of these must have been bookshops. We've seen what a fashionable meeting place like Manners and Millar must have felt like, but others were more academic. A clue is contained in John Chalmers' statistic above:

Printing works had increased from six in 1763 to sixteen in 1790 and fifty six in 1845 employing one thousand workers.

The explanation is that in those early days there was less distinction between the different parts of the publishing process. Some shops would have a printing press, and would publish their own works, and also sell them on the premises. Some bookshops would sell the works of other local publishers.

The shops attached to St Giles

The shops clustered around the south walls of St Giles were of a different flavour. They included gift shops, silversmiths, engravers. Here you might order a set of initialed silverware as a wedding present. The shop on the far left is marked 'Auld, Goldsmith' n the Kay painting, and most likely belonged to George and William Auld. Next door to the right the sign says 'Reid, WatchMaker'. It belonged to Thomas Reid (1746-1831). Mathie the Jeweller is next door, on the other side of a narrow passageway leading up some steps to a side door to St Giles. This led on to Regent's Aisle. Business deals were conducted here within the Church beside the tomb of the Regent Earl of Moray - a recognised location for the settlement of important business matters and the exchange of money.

According to Williamson's Edinburgh Directory 1790-92, John Millar, the next shop along, was a mathematical instrument maker. Then Robertson was Patrick Robertson, the jeweller - that's the shop with the sloping window blinds. The next to the right, Alex Gardner, jeweller, is also listed by Williamson.

Then there's Robert Green, the Watchmaker, with the roof sloping down to the right. Petrie, the engraver was an upstairs tenant. Peter Williamson records five engravers within Parliament Square and one in the adjacent Luckenbooths.

In 1826 the eminent American bird painter, John James Audubon (1785-1851) came to Edinburgh as a tourist in the course of a voyage to find an engraver, probably in London or Paris, capable of reproducing his life size bird paintings. In Edinburgh he was surprised to be introduced to the engraver William Home Lizars  (1788-1859) who offered to undertake the engravings and proceeded to produce the first six to Audubon’s great satisfaction. 

Finally there is Ker and Dempster. In 1739 James Ker (later Kerr) took on an apprentice William Dempster, who became his son-in-law by marrying his daughter, Violet, in 1751.  Ker and Dempster went into a successful partnership. 

The Luckenbooths

The Luckenbooths were the stalls nestling in the narrow lane to the north side of St Giles which ran parallel to the High Street. It was nicknamed the 'Stinkin' Style'. I'll devote another blog to the Luckenbooths in the future, but as we look at the Parliament Close 'shopping centre' we should take into account what they had to offer.

In Heart of Midlothian Sir Walter Scott describes the scene in 1736:

To give some gaiety to this sombre passage, (well known by the name of Krames,) a number of little booths, or shops, after the fashion of cobblers’ stalls, are plaistered, as it were, against the Gothic projections and abutments, so that it seemed as if the traders had occupied with nests,…every buttress and coign of vantage, as the martlett [house martin] did in Macbeths’s Castle.  Of later years these booths have degenerated into mere toy-shops, where the little loiterers chiefly interested in such wares are tempted to linger enchanted by the rich display of hobby-horses, babies, and Dutch toys, arranged in artful and gay confusion; yet half-scared by the cross looks of the withered pantaloons, or spectacled old lady, by whom these tempting stores are watched and superintended. But, in the times we write of, the hosiers, the glovers, the hatters, the mercers, the milliners, and all who dealt in the miscellaneous wares now termed haberdasher’s goods were to be found in this narrow alley.

Taverns and coffee shops

How do we reconcile this explosion of literary, medical, legal and academic publishing reputation with what are commonly imagined to be the dire living conditions in the old town? The answer is that both were true.

You wouldn't visit your doctor or lawyer at their house. Because these men of fine reputation were most likely living in a pokey, rat-infested tenement flat much like your own. They wouldn't have grand reception rooms for consultations. Instead you would meet them in a tavern or coffee shop.

John Chalmers writes:

Dr Archibald Pitcairne, an eminent physician, was one of the founders of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, He had a close connection with Parliament Square for he consulted his patients there in Keggie’s tavern – the entrance was directly opposite the east window of St Giles. Pitcairne would see his patients there in a dark cellar starting at 6.30 am and would sometimes stay there for several days, his servant bringing a change of clothing from time to time.

 Parliament Square Edinburgh 

Keggie's tavern would have been a couple of doors to the left of John's Coffeehouse, shown above (with myself depicted in costume fancying a pint). In a very Edinburgh display of historical continuity John's Coffeehouse recently reopened a few yards back from the original colonnade. Not sure if your doctor would prescribe there, but your lawyer might well fancy a glass of claret.

The lost super-mall!

Look at the illustration above, and imagine you're just walking in to Parliament Close from the High Street. You've got a collection of bookshops rivalling other capital cities worldwide. There are coffee shops and pubs. To your right are renowned silversmiths, goldsmiths, jewellers, watch and clock makers, engravers, with international reputations. And for a bit of fun you can buy gloves and hats in the Luckenbooths, together with toys and hobby horses for the kids, in an Aladdin's cave of trinkets more redolent of an Arab souk than a medieval market. But this is no mere hotbed of commercialism. Facing you as you turn to the right is a concentration of civic pride.

The Scottish Parliament, incorporating the courts and legal establishment. The Scottish Exchequer, with its associated finance and banking businesses. Goldsmiths Hall, providing a showcase for skilled trades and their practitioners. The magnificent church of St Giles. All in the epicentre of what must be one of the oldest settlements in Scotland, in arguably the most picturesque city setting in the world.