#paulsandby — Public Fediverse posts

The thread about the Guse Pye; house of a poet and a painter that’s still there if you know where to look

There is a stunning watercolour landscape painting of Edinburgh in the mid-18th century, observed from the point of view of the Castle looking north to Leith by Paul Sandby (there’s a whole thread on that if you click the link). In the mid-ground of that picture is a prominent and intriguing building: a tall octagonal structure with a wing and portico to its front. This building was Ramsay Lodge or Ramsay Hut, the home of the romantic poet and stalwart figure of the Edinburgh enlightenment, Allan Ramsay.

During his 4 years in Edinburgh, the young Paul Sandby – a military draughtsman engaged in assisting William Roy with his “Great Map” of North Britain – had become well acquainted with Allan Ramsay and a welcome addition to the social circle that redeveloped around him. It is therefore not surprising that his house features so prominently in this and another landscape painting by Sandby.

Ramsay was born in Leadhills, Lanarkshire, the son of the superintendent of the lead mines that gave the settlement its name. As a boy, he was apprenticed to a wigmaker in Edinburgh and it was in this trade that he would first find success, both financial and professional. A man of broad interests and intelligence, in 1720 he entered the book selling trade from his shop on Niddrie’s Wynd and in 1722 he relocated himself and the business to the Luckenbooths – 18th century Edinburgh’s premier retail space. It was from the first floor here,in 1725, that he opened Scotland’s first circulating library. This establishment had over 30,000 titles available to borrow and it became the hangout for city’s literati.

As well as a businessman, Ramsay was something of a wit and a writer, and published his own work. His romantic poetry, exemplified by The Gentle Shepherd brought him critical acclaim and he found himself desiring a “poet’s nest” as befitting a bard of his standing. What he needed was a suburban retreat, at once in the heart of the city’s bustling Old Town but at the same time outwith its confines. He found this such a spot on the northern slopes of the Castle Hill, commanding views over the fields: past the smoky smudge on the shoreline of Leith and across the Forth and Fife beyond to the Highland mountains in the distance.

In September 1733, Ramsay acquired a portion of garden land at this location from Robert Hope, a surgeon. In Memorials of Edinburgh, a story is related that he desired “as much land as he could get” to build a “cage for his burd” (i.e. his wife, of whom he was fond) and that this was the reason for its unusual, tall, octagonal structure. From an architectural point of view, it is thought the house may be inspired either by the Tower of the Winds in Athens or the 1720 Octagon Room of Orleans House in Twickenham by Scottish architect James Gibb for James Johnston, a former Secretary of State for Scotland.

Ramsay wanted the whole town to admire his mansion but the wags of the city derided his hubris and called his octagonal house the Guse Pye, after the shape of the traditional Scottish Christmas dish. Ramsay’s pride was hurt and he complained to Patrick Murray, 5th Lord Elibank, who retorted “Indeed, Allan, when I see you in it, I think the wags are not far wrong“. The ownership of the house was transferred to his son, also Allan Ramsay, in 1741. This Allan Ramsay is as famous as his father, but as a portrait painter, and he had designs on using the building as his studio (although he would spend most of his time away from his native City).

In 1742, Ramsay the Poet retired to his Guse Pye, shutting up his house and bookshop in the Luckenbooths. He intended to spend what would be the final 12 years of his life in “ease and tranquil enjoyment” however his burd, Christian Ross, died the following year. He was not alone in life however, as his company was courted by all ranks of Edinburgh, who sought him out at the Guse Pye. It is said that he preferred instead to be surrounded by his family and their young friends, joining in their fun and games with “hearty life and good humour“. These young friends included the Paul Sandby also painted a very intimate sketch of Ramsay smoking an enormous “Churchwarden’s Pipe” in the house. Surrounded by two young women; with a book on his table; a cup by his side to drink from and a candle burning on the wall, it is a very homely scene. Ramsay was a bit of a closet Anglophile at heart, desiring to be an equal with the London literary wits, and this talented young Englishman would have been a fine addition to his circle.

When the Jacobites routed the Hanoverian Army under Sir John Cope at Prestonpans in September 1745, Ramsay the Poet – despite his known Jacobite sympathies (or perhaps because of them) – retired a safe distance to Mavisbank in Midlothian, the home of his correspondent and friend Sir John Clerk of Penicuik, 2nd Baronet. The Highland army of Charles Edward Stuart soon occupied the city, without resistance, where Ramsay the Painter, happened to be present on one of his infrequent sojourns north. Word was soon sent to him from the Palace of Holyroodhouse, desiring him to come at once and paint a picture of the Prince who hoped to be his King: which he did.

During this period, the Guse Pye found itself damaged by the cannons of Edinburgh Castle and then ransacked by the garrison, who damaged many of the buildings on the Castle Hill to try and stop them being occupied by the Jacobite pickets. The latter were under direct orders from the Young Pretender to prevent – on pain of death – supplies and communications from reaching the Castle. As the last building between the city and the Castle, Ramsay’s house was directly in the firing line. By November however the Prince and his army were gone south – as had Ramsay the Painter too – but unlike the Former, the latter would make it to London.

The Ramsays continued to extend their landholding on the Castle Hill; acquiring the portion further down the slope from the house in 1748 from the Hopes and adding a new frontage, new wing and a proper entryway as befitting a house of its status. In 1754, workmen improving the garden accidentally broke through into a subterranean chamber some 14 feet square. In amongst the rubble and detritus they found a statue of white stone with a crown upon its head – supposed to be a Virgin Mary – two brass candlesticks, a dozen old Scottish and French coins and two cannon balls. It was supposed that this space dated to the middle of the 16th century when a large fortification, known as the Spur, was built out of the castle by its French garrison under the Regent Mary of Guise. Another theory was it was the remains of a supposed medieval chapel to St. Andrew which had once stood on the castle hill.

When Ramsay the Poet died in 1757, his son the Painter succeeded to it and let it out. By 1759 it was occupied by William Johnston, an advocate and a member of Ramsay’s Select Society.

In 1765, Ramsay junior was granted permission to build two town houses – known as Ramsay Street – to the east of the Guse Pye, on the site of the town’s old Bell Foundry which he had acquired from the City. It was his intention that these houses, to designs by the family friend Robert Adam, should be “in the English fashion, fit to accommodate two small families of distinction“. These houses were never built and instead in 1768 he erected a terrace of three, four-storey houses, known as Ramsay Garden. One of these houses was occupied by Ramsay’s widowed mother-in-law and his sister in law.

Ramsay the Painter spent little time in Scotland in the later years of his life and was appointed Principal Painter to His Majesty in London in 1767. But he continued to consolidate his land on the north slopes of the Castle Hill, acquiring the last portion of the Hope’s holding in 1773. He died in 1784, the lands and houses of Ramsay Garden now passing to his only surviving son, Captain (later General) John Ramsay.

John had accompanied his late father on a “Grand Tour” of Italy in 1782, and despite a career as a soldier, he found time to take up painting himself. He died without issue and as a result the house and his fortune passed to a distant relative: Lord Murray of Henderland (for whom the district of Murrayfield is named). An 1850s plan to build a large terrace infront of the Guse Pye for the statue of Allan Ramsay senior, which now resides in West Princes Street Gardens, came to nothing.

The houses of Ramsay Lodge and Ramsay Garden were let out, until the former was purchased in 1890 by the sociologist, philanthropist and pioneering town planner Patrick Geddes.

Geddes engaged the architect Stewart Henbest Capper to design a 5-storey, arts and crafts fantasia around the Guse Pye. His intention was to establish a mixed community, composed of artisans and students alongside private dwellings, to promote regeneration in the decrepit Old Town of the City. Capper’s 1892 development was extended two years later by Sydney Mitchell, who incorporated, extended and redeveloped the Guse Pye and the original Ramsay Garden into the structure as a hall for residence for students, the first of its kind in Edinburgh.

The end result – which we’ll pluralise as Ramsay Gardens – was a striking complex, high up on the Castle Hill, a curious mix of late medieval and early modern Scottish architectural style and (then) modern ideas about construction and planning and one which rendered the original house almost unrecognisable. This rambling, highly ornamented and colourful building was in radical contrast to the prevailing, conservative architecture of Edinburgh at the time:

The grey old metropolis of the North had been getting greyer year by year with freestone and slate, when suddenly on the east slope of the Castle Hill, a bright-hued pile arose, shocking the devotees of drab.

Margaret Armour, writing in “The Studio”, 1897

Geddes part-financed the project himself and when it was complete took up residence in one of its main apartments and established a co-operative publishing company from there. He also incorporated into it an art school, the Old Edinburgh School of Art, where the Celtic revival painter John Duncan led classes in design, metalwork, leatherwork, woodwork etc. in the spirit of the arts and crafts movement. It was Geddes who commissioned Duncan to design the Witches’ Well, which is installed nearby on the Castle Hill as a monument to those executed near that spot for witchcraft.

Geddes had further plans for the redevelopment, including arts studios and a sculpture gallery built into the slopes below, a gatehouse – crowned with a full-scale replica of the city’s old Netherbow Port – spanning Ramsay lane to link it into the quadrangle of the New College buildings and a new public hall next door atop the Castle Hill Reservoir. His various schemes financially overstretched him however and he was declared bankrupt, owing £60,000, in 1896, putting an end his ambitions. His friends and supporters set up a philanthropic company, the Town and Gown Association, to take over Ramsay Gardens and run it in the spirit with which he had intended it.

Ramsay Gardens was sold by the Town and Gown Association in 1945 to the Commercial Bank of Scotland, who used it as a residential building for staff and a training centre. It has subsequently passed into private hands and is a mix of exlusive residential homes, pieds-à–terre and holiday lets. The original houses of the two Allan Ramsays are still there in plain site, within this most famous of skylines, even if you’d hardly know it to look at them.

Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.

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Soldier-turned-forger: the thread about the farcical execution of John Young

“Drawn at The Execution of John Young in the Grass Market, Edinbr., 1751” The description says “a crowd… in the foreground, beyond them the gallows officers with the condemned man on a platform“. Except that’s not quite what’s going on here… Let’s find out more!

The image is by the hand of Paul Sandby, the young English draughtsman who came to Edinburgh in the aftermath of the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion to turn the triangulations of William Roy’s survey of Scotland into the incredible illustrated map. Sandby also proved to be quite the artist and with his little gang of esteemed friends (including John Clerk of Eldin and Robert Adam) in his free time he would sketch the street scenes of the city. But this isn’t a thread about Paul Sandby, it’s a thread about the scene he drew and how not is quite what meets the eye.

John Young was an Irishman, born into a lower middle-class protestant family in Belfast. He had a good start in life, was educated and apprenticed to a linen draper. But when his master died, he ended up having to go to London for work, which he found as a clerk. But he had to abandon this position in a hurry however and fled London in disgrace after he got his master’s serving maid pregnant. On the road, with no prospects, he was easy prey for the Army’s recruiting sergeants and with liberal application of intoxicants he took the King’s Shilling

This was about 1744, the War of the Austrian Succession was raging, and the Army was in need of recruits. Being educated, intelligent and amenable, the officers liked him and the disgraced clerk actually found that military life in the ranks suited him. It was (apparently) the 4th Regiment of Foot (The King’s Own) that he joined and his manners and abilities quickly saw him promoted into the first sergeant’s vacancy that came along.

Shipped off to Flanders, John was said to be at Fontenoy when the Allied Army, the British contingent under the Duke of Cumberland, were defeated by the French under Louis XV. However most of the 4th missed the battle as they had been detached beforehand. Wherever he was, and whichever Regiment he was with, he apparently acquitted himself with bravery and was rewarded with promotion to company paymaster and with being sent back to England with a recruiting party to help replace the Army’s losses in Flanders.

It turned out that recruiting was also something John took to naturally. He signed men up on honest and frank terms and didn’t swindle them (or their families) out of their sign-on bounty. Again he was recognised by his superiors and a promotion to Sergeant Major was forthcoming. He rejoined his regiment in a hurry, as they had been shipped back to Britain along with the Duke of Cumberland to help put down the Jacobite Rebellion. (This fits with him being in the 4th). He was at the Battle of Falkirk Muir in January 1746, and apparently accounted for a few Jacobites with his Sergeant Major’s halberd. Although it was a Jacobite victory, it was a hollow one and they retreated from it.

John marched on with his Regiment after the retreating Jacobites and was at the bloody Battle of Culloden in April. Circumstances fit that he was in the 4th, the Grenadiers of whom are prominent in David Morier’s well known painting of that battle. The 4th were hit hardest of the Government units by the Highland charge, taking 25% losses.

But John, and the 4th, survived the Jacobites and survived the battle. As a result of its performance and losses, the regiment remained in Scotland for “mopping up” duties, before being sent to garrison Edinburgh castle. John was sent off recruiting, reaching as far south as Bristol. Coming back to Edinburgh with plenty of recruits, he was sent off again, this time to Yorkshire. But it wasn’t just recruits who followed him back to Edinburgh on this occassion, he also had an innkeeper’s wife, with whom he had fallen in “criminal intercourse” with.

That might have been that, except the woman had cleared out her husband before fleeing. It wasn’t long before an aggrieved Yorkshire innkeeper pitched up in Edinburgh on the hunt for his wife, his money and a licentious recruiting Sergeant He didn’t take long to find all three; but John was saved from punishment on account of his having been ignorant of the wife’s theft and having not conspired with her, and the fact his officers liked him; he was a good soldier, and the army needed such men.

The 4th were shipping out anyway, so John was sent off with them to Inverness and (the first) Fort George, garrisoning the remains of it while preparations were made to build the bigger replacement at Ardersier. Coincidentally, Paul Sandby made a reconstruction illustration of it as it would have looked before the retreating Jacobites blew much of it up .

It was in Inverness that John became familiar with one of his new recruits, a man by the name of Parker who had served some time as a printer. John was company paymaster, and when assisting him one day, Parker mentioned how easy it would be to copy the bank notes if you knew how. John knew better than to continue the discussion in public, but managed to get Parker aside in a tavern and pick his brains. It would be easy, said he, if you could just get a note to copy, somewhere safe to copy it, and the materials to engrave a printing plate. John could do all three, and he took on a private room where Parker and another could work, “borrowed” a Royal Bank of Scotland note from the company purse, and acquired all the materials a forger might need from the Garrison’s supplies.

Parker was good to his word, soon he had produced some Royal Bank notes that couldn’t easily be told apart. They could get away with things for a reasonable time, if they were clever, as such promissory notes would circulate in the local economy for a good long while, rather than being sent back to Edinburgh to be reconciled with the accounts against which they were issued. And although he was a mere Sergeant Major, as a paymaster it was not unusual for John to have reason to be carrying and exchanging paper money.

They got away with it for at least 6 months, before their regiment got notice that it was leaving Inverness. It now seems that he may have been with the 24th Foot, the Earl of Ancram’s, rather than the 4th.

The hitherto cautious John now over-reached himself, and before leaving Inverness he had an Aberdeen stocking manufacturer, Mr Gordon, convert £60 worth of notes into Sterling. This suited Gordon as it was safer than carrying “real” money on his journey home. Gordon left a merry trail of counterfeit paper notes across the north of Scotland as he made his way home from town to town and tavern to tavern. He was horrified to get back to Aberdeen and find notices in the newspapers from the directors of the Royal Bank that they were advising merchants in the north of Scotland that they were aware of counterfeit notes circulating and to please be on the lookout for them

Realising he had been swindled, Gordon went straight back to Inverness and called upon the Sheriff. It didn’t take long to put the facts together, and news was sent chasing along after the 24th that the law would like to ask one of their Sergeant Majors a few questions. The law caught up with the Regiment, and with John, in Glasgow. When arrested, he had the copper plate and 300 forged notes on his person.

He was sent to Edinburgh to stand trial. He was optimistic that he might be let off or treated leniently, but the embarrassed bankers of Edinburgh wanted an example made of him, and so it was. Parker and the other accomplice turned King’s evidence. The trial on November 9th 1750 lasted all of a day. He was found guilty and sentenced to hang. John prevailed upon his officers to intercede, on account of his good record, but they couldn’t, wouldn’t, or were of no avail. He was sent to the Tolbooth to await his fate.

On the evening of 19th December, as was the custom, he was chained in the Iron Room, the “escape proof” cell where the condemned of Edinburgh spent their last night before the final walk to the gallows. The following morning, the magistrates and 2 ministers awoke him to read him his sentence. Did he have any objections? No he did not. Would he like to speak with the ministers? Yes he would. He asked to be excused with the latter for some “ghostly consolation” for a while.

But John was less concerned with spiritual matter, his quick mind was instead hatching a plan. His sentence, which had just been read to him, had stated that he would be hung between 2 and 4 PM that afernoon. Having been misled by other prisoners, he assumed all he had to do was delay proceedings until after 4 and he would get a temporary reprieve. After prayers with the Ministers, he asked the men of God if they might give him a moment’s private contemplation, to prepare himself for his maker. This they readily agreed to. They left the cell, and he quietly pulled the door shut.What nobody was sure how he did it, but somehow he contrived to lock himself in the cell, and the ministers, magistrates and gaolers out of it.

When it was realised what he had done, no amount of pleading, shouting, or beating of the door could get John Young to come to his senses and accept his fate. “No“, said he, “in this place I am resolved to defend my life to the utmost of my power”. As he saw it, all he had to do was buy himself a few hours for another night on earth…

The tradesmen of the City were called, but they said it was impossible to break through the Iron Room’s door or wall without compromising the building. More likely they couldn’t be bothered with such heard work and found it all very funny. Time was ticking away. Perhaps John was going to get away with it. The magistrates summoned the Lord Provost, George Drummond, and together the combined minds of the city administration hit upon a simple scheme to thwart him. They had the town clock stopped!

This bought them the time they needed, and finally they resolved to smash through the floor of the room above the cell and get him out that way. This took 2 hours hard work but once a large enough hole was made, one of the Town Guard poked his musket through to help persuade him out. But John was a battle-hardened soldier and had faced worse than the Edinburgh town guard. Quick as you like he grabbed the barrel of the gun and pulled it to himself, “declaring, with an oath, that, if any man attempted to molest him, he would immediately dash out his brains“

The gun however was unloaded, so the guardsman followed through the hole after it. He took the full force of the butt of it for his efforts, knocking him down, and it took 4 of his burly colleagues to subdue John Young. Asking if it was now after 4PM, he was informed that it was, but “he would be hanging even if it was after 8“. Realising the game was up, John resolved to be “no accessory to my own murder” and be uncooperative to his last. It took 8 guardsmen to carry him, head first, out of the Tolbooth. Refusing to walk, a cart had to be sourced, and he rode this, with the noose already around his neck, the short distance down the West Bow to his place of execution in the Grassmarket. James Skene’s sketch of 1827 shows a scene fundamentally unchanged from Sandby’s of 1750. The gallows is on the left, the structure on the right was used as a corn market.

What I am pretty sure we can actually see in Sandby’s sketch is not a crowd watching the condemned ascend the gallows, it’s a scene of one waiting, in boredom and anticipation, wondering where is John Young? Where’s the afternoon’s promised gruesome entertainment?

The guardsman on the left, the one with the Lochaber Axe, looks positively bored. Is his colleague on the right pushing back the restless crowd? And what – or who – is that arriving in the background on a cart…

“John Young underwent the sentence of the law in the Grassmarket of Edinburgh, about six o’clock on the evening“. Uncooperative to the last, he had to be carried up the scaffold. It apparently took a whole 30 minutes for his desperate cling to life to be extinguished. It is unclear what motivated him; he was not known as a spender of money or an indulger in drinking or gambling. His men and his officers liked him, he was otherwise a good, honest and brave solider, and there seems little in life he desired that his pay could not cover

It is not known either where John Young’s final resting place was. No Edinburgh Kirk recorded his death or burial in their registers that I can find. The newspapers are the only record of his exploits, his final story being printed far and wide. “This poor man had served in the army many years, with reputation, was beloved by his officers, being never before convicted of the least offence, and was said to have been recommended to the first vacant colours in his corps.” In June 1751, the Royal Bank re-issued all its 1750 edition. 20 shilling bank notes.

Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.

If you have found this site useful, informative or amusing then you can help contribute towards its running costs by supporting me on ko-fi. This includes my commitment to keeping it 100% advert and AI free for all time coming, and in helping to find further unusual stories to bring you by acquiring books and paying for research.
Or please do just share this post on social media or amongst friends and like-minded people, sites like this thrive on being shared.

Explore Threadinburgh by map:

These threads © 2017-2026, Andy Arthur.

NO AI TRAINING: Any use of the contents of this website to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 The Westgate in Canterbury - a painting by Paul Sandby from ca. 1783

The English city of Canterbury is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Westgate is still there, though its surroundings have significantly changed over the centuries.

#PaulSandby #Canterbury #England #Westgate #England #UK #Britain #UnitedKingdom #FascinatingEurope #Europa #Europe #ArchitecturalRevival #heritage #cityscape #architecture #city #town #art #artwork #vintage #painting #WesternPainting #WesternArt #GreatBritain

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 The Westgate in Canterbury - a painting by Paul Sandby from ca. 1783

The English city of Canterbury is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Westgate is still there, though its surroundings have significantly changed over the centuries.

#PaulSandby #Canterbury #England #Westgate #England #UK #Britain #UnitedKingdom #FascinatingEurope #Europa #Europe #ArchitecturalRevival #heritage #cityscape #architecture #city #town #art #artwork #vintage #painting #WesternPainting #WesternArt #GreatBritain

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 The Westgate in Canterbury - a painting by Paul Sandby from ca. 1783

The English city of Canterbury is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Westgate is still there, though its surroundings have significantly changed over the centuries.

#PaulSandby #Canterbury #England #Westgate #England #UK #Britain #UnitedKingdom #FascinatingEurope #Europa #Europe #ArchitecturalRevival #heritage #cityscape #architecture #city #town #art #artwork #vintage #painting #WesternPainting #WesternArt #GreatBritain

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 The Westgate in Canterbury - a painting by Paul Sandby from ca. 1783

The English city of Canterbury is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Westgate is still there, though its surroundings have significantly changed over the centuries.

#PaulSandby #Canterbury #England #Westgate #England #UK #Britain #UnitedKingdom #FascinatingEurope #Europa #Europe #ArchitecturalRevival #heritage #cityscape #architecture #city #town #art #artwork #vintage #painting #WesternPainting #WesternArt #GreatBritain

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 The Westgate in Canterbury - a painting by Paul Sandby from ca. 1783

The English city of Canterbury is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Westgate is still there, though its surroundings have significantly changed over the centuries.

#PaulSandby #Canterbury #England #Westgate #England #UK #Britain #UnitedKingdom #FascinatingEurope #Europa #Europe #ArchitecturalRevival #heritage #cityscape #architecture #city #town #art #artwork #vintage #painting #WesternPainting #WesternArt #GreatBritain

The thread about a remarkable view of Edinburgh in 1750; what we can see of a cityscape that was about to change forever

This thread was originally written and published in October 2020. It has been lightly edited and corrected as applicable for this post.

The British Library has done great things for the accessibility of the images in their collection by putting many of them at high resolution on Flickr, with a rights-free access. One such image is an absolutely glorious 1750s watercolour painted from the Castle Hill in 1750 by Paul Sandby, showing Edinburgh on the cusp of the great transition which would drain the Nor Loch, build the New Town and North Bridge, and change the city forever. One of the main things is just how big Calton Hill appears, as it’s been built upon and what we think of now as the hill is just the top poking out. Also the Castle Esplanade has not yet been landscaped

https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary/50263334808

The young Paul Sandby had a position first in the Military Drawing Department in London, and then as a draughtsman with the Board of Ordnance under Lt. Col. David Watson. At this time Watson was engaged in surveying and mapping almost the whole of the country of Scotland in the aftermath of the Jacobite rebellion of 1745. It was Watson who headed up the military survey of Scotland and who was involved in appointing William Roy as its cartographer.

Sandby was employed to translate Roy and Watson’s surveying triangulations onto the paper as maps, and in summer he would join some of the surveying expeditions to make detailed and accurate landscape illustrations of important military features such as castles. He was not just a very good draughtsman, he turned out to be an exceptionally talented landscape artist. These watercolours show a striking accuracy and an attention to detail for the topography and lighting that make them particularly realistic. In his down time, Paul started making quick sketches and watercolours of the Scottish landscape and its people, documenting the country around him at the time.

He left military employ in 1751 to become an artist and became known for making “real views from nature in this Country“. Paul’s older brother, Thomas, was also an artist and surveyor. He was the personal draughtsman to the Duke of Cumberland (or Butcher Cumberland, depending on your point of view), and it may have been his influence that secured Paul his position and from whom Paul got his early artistic training. He also made good sketches and illustrations of Scotland, including a few of Edinburgh.

So let’s immerse ourselves on a little tour of this part of Edinburgh in 1750; I’ll try and highlight some of the interesting features in it, concentrating on the things you can no longer see. Before we get going, two of the most striking topographical features are; just how big Calton Hill appears as it’s been built upon (what we think of now as the hill is just the top poking out) and that the Castle Esplanade has not yet been levelled and landscaped, instead it was fairly rough ground, an extension of the Castle Hill and a favoured place to promenade by the city’s upper classes.

Let’s start on the left. First up we see the “North Flanker” of the Castle’s outer defences, one of a pair of arrowhead bastions defending the outer gatehouse still there (in a remodelled manner) to this day.

An earlier image, from about 60 years previous, by John Slezer – a Dutch or German surveyor who made a number of sketches and stylistic maps of the City – shows where Sandby’s vantage point was (red arrow). Also shown are the West Kirk or St. Cuthbert’s (orange arrow) and the Castle wellhouse tower remains (blue).

On the shores of the Forth we can see North Leith and Newhaven (yellow), South Leith (green), St. Mary’s Kirk (blue) and the first of the glassworks cones (red), which had relocated to this spot only 2 or 3 years previously from North Leith. Not marked to the right of the glass cone is a windmill – used for crushing lead ore (a key ingredient in making crystal glass) – and the long, low sheds of the roperies – the principal, shore-based industry of Leith at the time. Sandby made other sketches and watercolours overlooking Leith too.

Where Princes St. now runs, is a narrow, walled roadway, the Lang Dykes or Lang Gait (Scots for the long walls or long road – marked in red). In green is the little village of Picardy, established in 1730 to accommodate French weavers brought in to improve the local industry. Also, houses belonging to Sim (blue) and Hogg of Moultrieshill (yellow).

About 40 years after Sandby, the prolific watercolourist John Clerk of Eldin made a good illustration of Picardy, taken from the north slopes of the Calton Hill. We can see it is something of a model village, to its right is the house of the amusingly named Mr Spankie.

South of the Lang Gait is the area of fields and parkland (green) known as the Barefoot’s Park, and south again the blue area of the Nor’ Loch. At this point it would have been a partially drained swamp, and we can see this in the image with a lot of marshy ground breaking its surface. In orange is an area of quarrying where the Waverley “Mall” now sits. Poking out at the bottom in yellow is a collection of buildings around the old Castle wellhouse fortifications, which were used by skinners and tanners in the dirty business of processing the hides of the animals slaughtered at the eastern end of the Loch in the fleshmarkets.

In yellow is the collection of houses around Moutrie’s or Multer’s Hill (now styled Multrees), roughly where the Register House was soon to be built. In red, the tenements along Leith Wynd of the High and Low Calton. And on the hill (green) the Old Calton Burial Ground, later cut through by Waterloo Place. This cemetery was for the citizens of the Burgh of the Calton, most of whom were – for reasons of historical land ownership patterns – actually in the parish of South Leith, which was inconvenient for burial purposes.

At the head of the Nor’ Loch, below the medieval dam which held back its filthy waters, was the Physick Garden, where medicinal herbs and plants were cultivated. This institution was a direct fore-runner of the Royal Botanic Garden, it had moved here from the grounds of the Palace of Holyroodhouse in 1675 and would move again, to a location alongside Leith Walk, in 1763, before its final journey to Inverleith. By it are Trinity College Kirk (yellow) and Hospital (blue) and behind (red) is Paul’s Work, a charitable poorhouse which by this time had evolved into a “house of correction” or workhouse.

On the north slopes of the Castle Hill, is Alan Ramsay’s house and garden (no guesses where they took the name Ramsay Garden for the Victorian fantasia which now occupies this site from – Ramsay’s house was incorporated into it). Ramsay’s original house was built about 1740 and was known as the Guse Pye (Goose Pie) on account of its tall, octagonal form.

On the right in blue are the tall tenements (at least 9 or 10 storeys tall) of the Castlehill. The lower structures are clearly damaged, most likely from the brief siege of the ’45 when the Castle’s guns were turned on the Jacobites and the castle garrison sallied forth to burn the closest buildings to deny them as cover to the Jacobite pickets. Note in this image and the previous there are groups of well attired women and men promenading on the footpaths where the Esplanade would later be constructed.

Less distinct – but take my word for it they are there! – we can make out Pilrig House (red) in the lands between Edinburgh and Leith, and down by Leith Links are two big houses, probably Coatfield Mains and Hermitage House (in yellow).

Sandby’s work (like Slezer before him) is an invaluable record of what Edinburgh and Leith looked like at this time, when there are relatively few artists active in documenting what this part of the world looked like. They are an accurate reference point to compare with the maps of this time and also the plethora of Victorian engravings which frequently fill in the gaps with romantic speculation. If you’d like to see more of Sandby’s extensive back catalogue, look no further than the National Galleries of Scotland’s online collection.

n.b. this thread was originally written a full 9 days before a very similar article about the same picture coincidentally appeared in the Edinburgh Evening News. You read it on Twitter first!

Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.

If you have found this site useful, informative or amusing then you can help contribute towards its running costs by supporting me on ko-fi. This includes my commitment to keeping it 100% advert and AI free for all time coming, and in helping to find further unusual stories to bring you by acquiring books and paying for research.
Or please do just share this post on social media or amongst friends and like-minded people, sites like this thrive on being shared.

Explore Threadinburgh by map:

These threads © 2017-2026, Andy Arthur.

NO AI TRAINING: Any use of the contents of this website to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.

The thread about a remarkable view of Edinburgh in 1750; what we can see of a cityscape that was about to change forever

This thread was originally written and published in October 2020. It has been lightly edited and corrected as applicable for this post.

The British Library has done great things for the accessibility of the images in their collection by putting many of them at high resolution on Flickr, with a rights-free access. One such image is an absolutely glorious 1750s watercolour painted from the Castle Hill in 1750 by Paul Sandby, showing Edinburgh on the cusp of the great transition which would drain the Nor Loch, build the New Town and North Bridge, and change the city forever. One of the main things is just how big Calton Hill appears, as it’s been built upon and what we think of now as the hill is just the top poking out. Also the Castle Esplanade has not yet been landscaped

https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary/50263334808

The young Paul Sandby had a position first in the Military Drawing Department in London, and then as a draughtsman with the Board of Ordnance under Lt. Col. David Watson. At this time Watson was engaged in surveying and mapping almost the whole of the country of Scotland in the aftermath of the Jacobite rebellion of 1745. It was Watson who headed up the military survey of Scotland and who was involved in appointing William Roy as its cartographer.

Sandby was employed to translate Roy and Watson’s surveying triangulations onto the paper as maps, and in summer he would join some of the surveying expeditions to make detailed and accurate landscape illustrations of important military features such as castles. He was not just a very good draughtsman, he turned out to be an exceptionally talented landscape artist. These watercolours show a striking accuracy and an attention to detail for the topography and lighting that make them particularly realistic. In his down time, Paul started making quick sketches and watercolours of the Scottish landscape and its people, documenting the country around him at the time.

He left military employ in 1751 to become an artist and became known for making “real views from nature in this Country“. Paul’s older brother, Thomas, was also an artist and surveyor. He was the personal draughtsman to the Duke of Cumberland (or Butcher Cumberland, depending on your point of view), and it may have been his influence that secured Paul his position and from whom Paul got his early artistic training. He also made good sketches and illustrations of Scotland, including a few of Edinburgh.

So let’s immerse ourselves on a little tour of this part of Edinburgh in 1750; I’ll try and highlight some of the interesting features in it, concentrating on the things you can no longer see. Before we get going, two of the most striking topographical features are; just how big Calton Hill appears as it’s been built upon (what we think of now as the hill is just the top poking out) and that the Castle Esplanade has not yet been levelled and landscaped, instead it was fairly rough ground, an extension of the Castle Hill and a favoured place to promenade by the city’s upper classes.

Let’s start on the left. First up we see the “North Flanker” of the Castle’s outer defences, one of a pair of arrowhead bastions defending the outer gatehouse still there (in a remodelled manner) to this day.

An earlier image, from about 60 years previous, by John Slezer – a Dutch or German surveyor who made a number of sketches and stylistic maps of the City – shows where Sandby’s vantage point was (red arrow). Also shown are the West Kirk or St. Cuthbert’s (orange arrow) and the Castle wellhouse tower remains (blue).

On the shores of the Forth we can see North Leith and Newhaven (yellow), South Leith (green), St. Mary’s Kirk (blue) and the first of the glassworks cones (red), which had relocated to this spot only 2 or 3 years previously from North Leith. Not marked to the right of the glass cone is a windmill – used for crushing lead ore (a key ingredient in making crystal glass) – and the long, low sheds of the roperies – the principal, shore-based industry of Leith at the time. Sandby made other sketches and watercolours overlooking Leith too.

Where Princes St. now runs, is a narrow, walled roadway, the Lang Dykes or Lang Gait (Scots for the long walls or long road – marked in red). In green is the little village of Picardy, established in 1730 to accommodate French weavers brought in to improve the local industry. Also, houses belonging to Sim (blue) and Hogg of Moultrieshill (yellow).

About 40 years after Sandby, the prolific watercolourist John Clerk of Eldin made a good illustration of Picardy, taken from the north slopes of the Calton Hill. We can see it is something of a model village, to its right is the house of the amusingly named Mr Spankie.

South of the Lang Gait is the area of fields and parkland (green) known as the Barefoot’s Park, and south again the blue area of the Nor’ Loch. At this point it would have been a partially drained swamp, and we can see this in the image with a lot of marshy ground breaking its surface. In orange is an area of quarrying where the Waverley “Mall” now sits. Poking out at the bottom in yellow is a collection of buildings around the old Castle wellhouse fortifications, which were used by skinners and tanners in the dirty business of processing the hides of the animals slaughtered at the eastern end of the Loch in the fleshmarkets.

In yellow is the collection of houses around Moutrie’s or Multer’s Hill (now styled Multrees), roughly where the Register House was soon to be built. In red, the tenements along Leith Wynd of the High and Low Calton. And on the hill (green) the Old Calton Burial Ground, later cut through by Waterloo Place. This cemetery was for the citizens of the Burgh of the Calton, most of whom were – for reasons of historical land ownership patterns – actually in the parish of South Leith, which was inconvenient for burial purposes.

At the head of the Nor’ Loch, below the medieval dam which held back its filthy waters, was the Physick Garden, where medicinal herbs and plants were cultivated. This institution was a direct fore-runner of the Royal Botanic Garden, it had moved here from the grounds of the Palace of Holyroodhouse in 1675 and would move again, to a location alongside Leith Walk, in 1763, before its final journey to Inverleith. By it are Trinity College Kirk (yellow) and Hospital (blue) and behind (red) is Paul’s Work, a charitable poorhouse which by this time had evolved into a “house of correction” or workhouse.

On the north slopes of the Castle Hill, is Alan Ramsay’s house and garden (no guesses where they took the name Ramsay Garden for the Victorian fantasia which now occupies this site from – Ramsay’s house was incorporated into it). Ramsay’s original house was built about 1740 and was known as the Guse Pye (Goose Pie) on account of its tall, octagonal form.

On the right in blue are the tall tenements (at least 9 or 10 storeys tall) of the Castlehill. The lower structures are clearly damaged, most likely from the brief siege of the ’45 when the Castle’s guns were turned on the Jacobites and the castle garrison sallied forth to burn the closest buildings to deny them as cover to the Jacobite pickets. Note in this image and the previous there are groups of well attired women and men promenading on the footpaths where the Esplanade would later be constructed.

Less distinct – but take my word for it they are there! – we can make out Pilrig House (red) in the lands between Edinburgh and Leith, and down by Leith Links are two big houses, probably Coatfield Mains and Hermitage House (in yellow).

Sandby’s work (like Slezer before him) is an invaluable record of what Edinburgh and Leith looked like at this time, when there are relatively few artists active in documenting what this part of the world looked like. They are an accurate reference point to compare with the maps of this time and also the plethora of Victorian engravings which frequently fill in the gaps with romantic speculation. If you’d like to see more of Sandby’s extensive back catalogue, look no further than the National Galleries of Scotland’s online collection.

n.b. this thread was originally written a full 9 days before a very similar article about the same picture coincidentally appeared in the Edinburgh Evening News. You read it on Twitter first!

Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.

If you have found this site useful, informative or amusing then you can help contribute towards its running costs by supporting me on ko-fi. This includes my commitment to keeping it 100% advert and AI free for all time coming, and in helping to find further unusual stories to bring you by acquiring books and paying for research.
Or please do just share this post on social media or amongst friends and like-minded people, sites like this thrive on being shared.

Explore Threadinburgh by map:

These threads © 2017-2026, Andy Arthur.

NO AI TRAINING: Any use of the contents of this website to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.

The thread about a Leith “Beggar’s Badge”; when the Scottish state sanctioned begging as a privilege for a select few

This thread was originally written and published in December 2020.

Today’s Auction House Artefact is this Leith beggar’s badge or token. It is inscribed on the front with an earlier version of the emblem from the Burgh coat of arms and motto Persevere. The date 1565 which refers to the date of Mary Queen of Scots writing permission for Leith to erect its Tolbooth, and on the back with “Leith Poor No. 10.” It’s not date stamped, but I would wager this is from the second half of the 19th century, given the better quality of the token, the style of the crest and the fact the Persevere motto does not appear in use until around the 1860s.

“The growth of a large class of beggars in medieval times led to the necessity for limiting the numbers of those
officially entitled to beg“. This was put into Scottish law by an Act of Parliament as early as 1424. Only those with a badge were allowed to beg, and it had to be worn on outer clothing. Begging was seen as a privilege for certain “deserving poor” and restricted to such charitable cases as widows, the aged or those with disabilities or injuries that precluded them from working.

Anyone found begging without a badge was liable to be dealt with severely by vagrancy laws. Sheriffs would round up “masterless men” and arrest them – these might itinerants such as wood or wool gatherers. They would be given 40 days to find a master or craft, under pain of either imprisonment, banishment from the county (which may involve the hand being branded) or being sent into bonded labour such as coal mining or salt panning. “Egyptians” (gypsies) were in particular persecuted, being banished from Scotland if they did not renounce their itinerant ways. Landowners and heritors in the 17th and 18th century were subject to a tax called “Vagabond Money”, which was to pay for the employment of vagrants as labourers. The words vagabond and vagrant both come from the Latin vagari, to wander.

Parishes and burghs all over Scotland issued these badges, as they were responsible for the maintenance of their own poor. It allowed the bearer to beg in the burgh or parish that issued it, and protected them from the force of the vagrancy laws. The parishes and burghs were resentful of having to support “idle beggars” or “sturdy beggars” from other areas, and so wanted to be able to identify their own. Begging was thus an official and strictly controlled activity.

Beggar’s badges were generally lead, pewter, copper or some other easily cast, cheap metal. Stone and pasteboard are also recorded. Not many survive, they usually have a serial number. Dates are less common and the holder’s name is almost never seen. There are at least four further Leith badges in public collections. The National Museum of Scotland lists three. Two are shown below, the third is described as “A lead circle, featuring the arms of Leith, similar to the one at the start of the thread, numbered No. 9“:

I believe the Hunterian collection in Glasgow has a No. 4. And there are a wide range of other designs from across Scotland. Interestingly, as far as I’m aware no tokens from the 2 largest burghs (Edinburgh and Glasgow) are known to survive, this may be because they were melted down and recycled whenever they were renewed.

The other authority which could issue beggar’s token was the Crown. Such “King’s Bedesmen” were first appointed by King James VI. They were commonly known as Blue Gowns, on account of the official cloak that they were issued with, or Jockies. They had a lodge house outside the city of Edinburgh; the Jockies Lodge – this is where the neighbourhood of Jock’s Lodge takes its name from. Every birthday of the reigning monarch, each Jockie received a new cloak, their tin badge with the motto “pass and repass“, a Scots shilling for every year of the monarch’s age and their dinner. “Pass and repass” referred to the holder being allowed to pass freely through the land, not being subject to the local begging laws and being charged with vagrancy. The artist David Allan sketched many of the common folk of Edinburgh in the 1780s, including a blue-cloaked and badged Bedesman. Paul Sandby, whose work in the city in the 1750s clearly influenced Allan also drew numerous beggars and vagrants, and frequently colours their coats blue.

Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.

If you have found this site useful, informative or amusing then you can help contribute towards its running costs by supporting me on ko-fi. This includes my commitment to keeping it 100% advert and AI free for all time coming, and in helping to find further unusual stories to bring you by acquiring books and paying for research.
Or please do just share this post on social media or amongst friends and like-minded people, sites like this thrive on being shared.

Explore Threadinburgh by map:

These threads © 2017-2026, Andy Arthur.

NO AI TRAINING: Any use of the contents of this website to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.