Adam Smith

In the second close from the churchyard (north side), within a little courtyard on the right, stands Panmure House, the home of Adam Smith from 1778 till his death in 1790.

Still farther down (south side), a tall house, with projecting wings and enclosed by a high wall, arrests attention. This mansion was built in 1681 by Lord Haltoun, afterwards 3rd Earl of Lauderdale, and was for about a century the residence of the Dukes of Queensberry. After their day the edifice was raised a storey, and last century it was used as a barrack and as a fever hospital.

Opposite is Whitefoord House, which occupies the site of the mansion of the Earls of Winton, referred to in Scott's Abbot. Darnley lodged here on his first visit to Scotland.

In White Horse Close, at the foot of Canongate (north side), there is a picturesque group of buildings which, for their better preservation, are in the hands of a trust. Here was established the White Horse Inn, of which the curious may read in Scott's Waverley. From this Inn, which bears the date 1623, travellers in the old days started on their journey to London.

Nearby, a narrow thoroughfare leading to the courtyard of Holyroodhouse has an arrangement of stones in the causeway marked with the letter "S". This is the site of the Girth Cross, and indicates the limit in this direction of the royal Sanctuary of Holyrood.

Until the abolition in 1881 of imprisonment for civil debt, any debtor might live secure from creditors so long as he remained within Sanctuary and conformed to certain rules. The Sanctuary of Holyrood included the whole of the King's Park, the limit on the south being Duddingston Loch.

Advertisements