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Edinburgh, 36 And 38 High Street,

Tenement (18th Century)

Site Name Edinburgh, 36 And 38 High Street,

Classification Tenement (18th Century)

Alternative Name(s) Charteris Close; Hyndford's Close; South Gray's Close

Canmore ID 52322

Site Number NT27SE 298

NGR NT 26075 73667

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/52322

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 298 2608 7367

Late 17th century and 18th century. Front block originally 6-storey, now demolished mainly to 2nd floor. Fragment of ground floor arcade now entrance to Museum of Childhood. Back wing (Museum of Childhood) 5-storey with stair-tower; late 17th century, much remodelled in 18th. RCAHMS 1951.

Architecture Notes

Hyndford's Close is shown on Edgar 1742. While James 2nd Earl of Hyndford certainly had property in it in 1710, the name might otherwise be from his father John Carmichael, Baron Carmichael, who was created Earl of Hyndford in 1701. The close got its earlier name of Collingtoun's or Colinton's Close from the circumstance that a house in it, later to be Hyndford's or a part of it, was owned and lived in in 1635 by Andrew Ainslie, merchant, and thereafter came into the possession of the Foulis of Colinton through Ainslie's daughter Barbara, who married Sir James Foulis, 6th of Colinton, in 1644, and became the mother of their son James, seventh laird. Both sat in the Court of Session, the father as Lord Colinton from 1661 and his son as Lord Redford from 1674; but while the latter, who succeeded as laird of Colinton in 1688, certainly gave his name to South Foulis's Close, it is likely that Colinton's Close was named for the elder Sir James, made burgess in 1646 in right of his wife. Earlier still, the close was Charteris' Close, from an early owner recorded as John Charteris, burgess. This may have been the John Chartres listed as an owner in 1635; but since he was not a resident it is more likely that the name was from an earlier John Charteris, probably of the same family, mentioned in RMS (Register of the Great Seal of Scotland Vols I-XI) 1538 and was a councillor in 1551 and dean of guild in 1559. (from Stuart Harris, "Place Names of Edinburgh", 1996, pages348-9)

REFERENCE: NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

Water Colour Sketches by Thomas Brown, Advocate Vol II no 42-1 view

Activities

Publication Account (1951)

40. Hyndford's Close and South Gray's Close, 34 and 40 High Street.

The entries to these closes pass beneath the E. ends of two rubble-built tenements, facing the street, which, to judge by their architectural detail, appear to have been built simultaneously in the late 17th century. In the centre of their front is a newel-staircase, entered from the pend of South Gray's Close and serving both "lands." The tenement on the E. has six storeys, and the one on the W. had the same number until its uppermost floor was removed. Owing to the fall of the site, however, there is a difference in the levels of the two tenements, the W. one standing on higher ground, and it was thus impossible for the three string-courses that enriched the superstructure to be carried continuously across the front of both. These string-courses run as sill-courses beneath the four back-set windows of the W. tenement, continue above the staircase windows, and return downwards to form the sill-courses of the four similar windows of the E. building. The lower storeys have been modernised, and the upper ones, which contain two flats on each floor, call for no remark. As a plaque on the first-floor front of the W. "land" records, this was the birthplace both of Henry Erskine, Lord Advocate (b. 1746) and of his brother Thomas, afterwards Lord Chancellor (b. 1749).

Both tenements have extensions to the back. The easternmost of these has five storeys, reached from a newel-stair with a moulded entrance in Hyndford's Close, and can hardly be earlier than the 18th century. The extension to the W. contains a long vaulted cellar, probably of the 17th century, but the two storeys above have been reconstructed at some later date. What had been the ground and first floors were gutted in the late 18th century and turned into a hall with a gallery at the sides and a proscenium opening at the S. end. The floor that was then removed has now been replaced; but the upper part of the proscenium still exists, as does the enriched, coved, plaster ceiling of the hall, which is lit by cupolas.

RCAHMS 1951

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