652
EDINBURGH
several public parks, including the Braid Hills and Blackford Hill. Finance. —The debt of the city at 15th May 1900, existing and in immediate prospect, amounted to £3,515,585, made up as follows:—To be met out of the rates, £1,623,440; tramways, £1,147,817 ; electric lighting, £652,078 ; municipal debt to be met out of Common Good revenue, £92,250. The estimated net expenditure of the city, under the Municipal and Police Acts, for the year ending 15th May 1901, was £331,365, of which £303,098 was chargeable on the burgh assessment. The rates imposed for 1900-1901 were at 9^d per £ on owners and Is. 8Jd. per £ on occupiers, together 2s. 5|d. per £, being the same as the rates imposed in the preceding year. The estimated capital expenditure contemplated on schemes sanctioned by the Council includes the sums of £116,000 on the improvement of the City Chambers, £57,000 for the purchase of the new park at Saughton, £193,000 for the erection of the new City Hospital, and £153,000 for acquiring and demolishing old property and erecting new houses on “ Dwelling-House Improvement ” account. Industries.—Many new branches of industry have been started ; and the older industries, like printing and brewing, for which the town has long been celebrated, have received further development. But Edinburgh is still, as it was in 1875, and as it has been during its recorded history, a residential rather than a commercial or manufacturing city. City improvements, some of them still in progress, have swept away, as ‘ ‘ slum property, ” numerous buildings of venerable age and historic associations. Along with this inevitable process of change there has gone, however, an effort not only to preserve ancient and characteristic features of the street architecture of the Old Town, but to rescue from degradation, and to restore something of their long-lost social dignity to, the closes and front “lands” of the Lawnmarket, the High Street, and the Canongate. If the city is no longer, in the same sense as early in the 19th century, the home and centre of literary society, it can still claim to be a place whose main industry is education, which, whether as regards its University and Medical School, its secondary, technical, and endowed institutions, or its public elementary schools, has undergone immense development since 1875. The Castle.—The Castle, which from its rock has always dominated the site and history of Edinburgh, has received a number of improving and restoring touches. The most important of these was due to the late Mr William Nelson, publisher, who, by his restoration of the Argyll Tower and of the Old Parliament Hall, furnished but one of the many instances of local patriotism and private munificence exhibited during their lifetime by citizens on behalf of the amenities and institutions of the town. The Parliament and Banqueting Hall forms a lofty, spacious, and beautiful hall of arms, with a fine collection of Scottish armour and weapons and old regimental colours, and the heraldic bearings of royal and distinguished figures in national history emblazoned on the windows overlooking the Grassmarket. A new hospital, in the Scottish baronial style, has also replaced the former ugly structure. Ilolyrood. —The neglected and dilapidated royal vault in the Chapel Royal has been repaired and put in order. Clockmill House and grounds have been added to the area ol the parade ground, and there have been improvements in the Abbey precincts and in the accesses to the King’s Park. The privileges ol sanctuary came to an end with the abolition of imprisonment for debt in 1881. Old Town Improvements.—Time and the city improvements have laid heavy hands on the Old Town buildings. Other agencies that have been active in producing change have been railway extension and the necessity for forming new or widening old streets. Much that was ancient and interesting has had to yield place to the requirements of sanitation, social progress, and public convenience. On the other hand, it. has been found possible in many cases to increase the amenity .of the main thoroughfares and the closes of “ Auld Reekie,” while preserving, and even enhancing, the picturesque features of its architecture. The Canongate quarter has suffered comparatively little alteration. New buildings have arisen, however, in the Watergate and Horse Wynd, and in the North and South Back of Canongate. The Old White Horse Close has been tastefully renovated ; a public board school has taken the place of Milton House, traditionally associated with Cromwell’s residence in Edinburgh ; New Street, a town improvement of more than a century ago, and the home of eminent men in law and letters of a past generation, has disappeared in the course, of railway alterations. Much change has taken place in the vicinity of the Netherbow, where formerly the bounds and authority of the city met those of the Canongate. St Mary Street, the former “Rag Fair ” outside the town wall, has been almost rebuilt; it was the first-fruits of the labours of the Improvement Trust. Jeffrey Street has supplanted what was once Leith Wynd, and is continued westwards in Market Street, which fronts the railway line
with many handsome buildings, including the new Trinity College Church. In the place of the historic Blackfriars Wynd there is a new and prosaic thoroughfare ; and “Beaton’s Palace,” the old Cunzie House, and other ancient dwellings have been removed from the adjoining Cowgate. Much more significant and more important are the changes produced by the rebuilding of the North Bridge. The bridge has been widened and heightened, and at its northern end, opposite theGeneral Post Office, the North British Railway Company have built a magnificent new hotel. To make way for the lofty and handsome block of buildings fronting the new North Bridge Street on the east side, many old houses have been pulled down,, including Robert Fergusson’s birthplace in the Cap and Feather Close, and Allan Ramsay’s wigmaker’s shop, “at the sign of the Mercury, opposite Niddry Wynd.” As great a sweep of ancient landmarks has been made on the other side of the thoroughfare, where the new and stately Scotsman buildings occupy thesite of the many famous drinking “howfs” of the Fleshmarket Close and Milne’s Square. In the part of High Street between the Tron Church and Parliament Square an important city improvement has involved the demolition of a host of noteworthy sites and dwellings in Stevenlaw’s, Burnet’s, Covenant, and Assembly Closes, all these narrow and unwholesome alleys being now opened to the air and light. The extension of the Municipal Buildings in Writers’ Court and Warriston Close has caused the destruction of Clerihugh’s tavern, the scene of the “high jinks” described in Guy Mannering; and the earlier improvement of opening St Giles Street, beside which stands the new Bank of Scotland, caused another great breach in the ranks of the old High Street houses. Opposite, at thecorner of High Street and George IV. Bridge, the County Buildings, erected in 1818, will be replaced by a more commodious structure. Among the improvements and additionsmade on the adjoining Parliament House may be mentioned the Library of the Solicitors before the Supreme Courts, which, presents to the Cowgate a lofty elevation in red sandstone.. The Sheriff Court Buildings and the new Free Library also rise out of the depths of that hidden thoroughfare, and face each other on the higher level of George IV. Bridge. The latterstructure is the gift to the city of Mr Carnegie, and cost. £50,000. The Lawnmarket, the West Bow, and the Castle Hill bear many traces, in frontages and recesses, of change tempered! by taste. The congeries of alleys on the north side of the Lawnmarket, from Paterson’s Close to James Court, have been cleansed and connected ; and here Lord Rosebery has acquired and restored the 17th-century dwelling in which was located the legend of “My Aunt Margaret’s Mirror.” Another modell restoration of a historic Edinburgh close is found across the wayin Riddle’s Court, converted into a “University Hall.” Quaint examples of Lawnmarket and Bow Head tenements have disappeared, partly through the extension of the Free Church Assembly Hall; a board school has usurped the place of the old Gordon mansion on Castle Hill; while a new and noteworthy addition has been made to the architectural features and the social amenities of this part of the Old Town by the development of Allan Ramsay’s former residence of Ramsay Lodge into the imposing group of Ramsay Gardens. The University, &c.—The “youngest of the Scottish universities” has continuously maintained and enhanced its reputation as a seat of learning, and more particularly as a medical! school; and it has increased in wealth, in equipment, and in thenumber of its students, which in 1899-1900 reached 2789, compared with 2065 in 1875-6. The constitution, administration, and curriculum of the university have undergone great development, themost recent changes taking place under the Act of 1889. In 1883 it celebrated its tercentenary; it was one of the first universities to admit women students to its classes and degrees and its alumni have been brought into closer bonds of sympathy and action by the formation of a handsomely housed Students’ Union. The university buildings have received extension and embellishment to meet the needs and tastes of the age. The plan of the structure, designed by Adam and Playfair, has been completed by a dome and cupola crowning the fa9ade in South Bridge Street; the opening up of the spacious thoroughfare of Chambers Street, on the site of College Wynd and Brown and Argyll Squares, has cleared the precincts of the old university buildings of unsightly obstructions and unsavoury neighbours ; the Museum ol Science and Art, structurally united to it, has been completed and enriched with additional collections illustrative of industry, art, and natural history ; and opposite have arisen other new structures, the Min to House Medical College and the Heriot-Watt College, which may be regarded as adjuncts of the university. Within, the library hall has received restoration and decoration, largely through the generosity of Sir William Priestley, formerly member for the university ; while munificent additions to the academic funds and resources have been made by the late Earl of Moray, Sir William Fraser, Mr John Usher, and others. The University will benefit also, like the other Scottish Universities, from Mr-
