Flora Macdonald
Across the street is Anchor Close, at the lower end of which, in a building now removed, was the printing office of William Smellie. Here Burns corrected the proofs of the Edinburgh edition of his poems.
Farther down, in Old stamp Office Close, Flora Macdonald, the Jacobite heroine, attended school, and the beautiful Susanna, Countess of Eglintoun (to whom Allan Ramsay dedicated his Gentle Shepherd) resided.
At the corner of High Street and South Bridge is the Tron Church, which received its name from being situated opposite a public weighing - beam, or tron.
The fabric, a notable example of "Laudian Gothic," was erected in 1637, by order of Charles I., to accommodate a congregation, which was obliged to leave St. Giles' when it was transformed into a cathedral.
In the Cap and Feather Close, now covered by the North Bridge, was born Robert Fergusson, whom Burns describes as "my elder brother in misfortune, by far my elder brother in the muses."
At the top of Carrubber's Close, the first below North Bridge, there stood the "Sign of the Mercury," a timber-fronted building with an outside stair. This was the shop in which Allan Ramsay made wigs, sold books, and published his early poems.
Opposite is Niddry Street, taking the place of Niddry's Wynd, which contained a mansion that afforded refuge in 1591 to James VI. and his Queen when they were persecuted by Francis, Earl of Bothwell.
At the south-east corner stands St. Cecilia's Hall, which, in the eighteenth century, was the centre of the musical life of the city. The edifice in its original state was a copy of the Opera House at Parma.
On the north side, the tenement fronting the street next Bailie Fyfe's Close, replaces another which collapsed killing 35 people. A young boy, Joseph McIvor was the only survivor and pinned down by the ruins, shouted to the rescuers: "Heave awa', lads; I'm no' deid yet." To this day the building is known as the 'The Heave Awa Hoose'.
