#sandby — Public Fediverse posts

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!

Drawn at The Execution of John Young in the Grass Market, Edinbr., © The Trustees of the British Museum

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

Soldier of the King’s Own / 4th Regiment of Foot, 1742

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.

Battle of Fontenoy 1745, by Pierre L’Enfant

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.

The Battle of Falkirk Muir, 1746

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.

An Incident in the Rebellion of 1745 by David Morier.

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 .

Fort George as it was in 1744, illustration (c. 1780) by Paul Sandby. Royal Academy of Arts

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.

Royal Bank of Scotland 20 Shilling note, 1745, of the sort forged by Young and Parker

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.

Soldier of 24th Regiment of Foot, 1742

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.

Henry G. Duguid, The Old City Tolbooth and St Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh. CC-by-SA NGS

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.

Hall of the Old Tolbooth, c.1795, by William Clark © Edinburgh City Libraries

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!

Clock of the Netherbow Port, 1766, from an engraving by John Runciman entitled “
View of the Netherbow Port of Edinburgh from the West”. © Edinburgh City Libraries

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“

William Lizars Home, 1800, the Edinburgh Old Town Guard © Edinburgh City Libraries

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.

Grassmarket and Bow, James Skene, 1827, © Edinburgh City Libraries

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 crowd in Sandby’s scene, talking amongst themselves, looking anywhere but at the “action” going on at the scaffold.

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…

Closer look at the scaffold and background in Sandby’s scene.

“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.

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#Lochend #Logan #Restalrig #StMargaret

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.

Paul Sandby by Francis Cotes

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.

The “North Flanker”

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).

Slezszer’s “The North Side of the Castle of Edenborrow” © Edinburgh City Libraries

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.

Leith.

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).

The Lang Gait

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.

Picardy, by John Clerk of Eldin. © Edinburgh City Libraries

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.

Barefoot’s Park and the Nor’ Loch.Seen from the north bank of the Loch, the fleshmarkets (left) and premises of the skinners and tanners (right) from John Slezer’s “Edinburgh and the North Loch”, c. 1673. © Edinburgh City Libraries

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.

Moutrie’s Hill and the Calton

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.

The Physick Garden, Trinity College & HospitalTrinity College Kirk from the old Physick Garden in the early-mid 19th century. CC-by-NC National Galleries Scotland

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.

Goose Pie House

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.

The Castlehill

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).

In the distance

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:

Travelers' Map is loading...
If you see this after your page is loaded completely, leafletJS files are missing.

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.

#Lochend #Logan #Restalrig #StMargaret

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.

Paul Sandby by Francis Cotes

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.

The “North Flanker”

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).

Slezszer’s “The North Side of the Castle of Edenborrow” © Edinburgh City Libraries

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.

Leith.

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).

The Lang Gait

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.

Picardy, by John Clerk of Eldin. © Edinburgh City Libraries

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.

Barefoot’s Park and the Nor’ Loch.Seen from the north bank of the Loch, the fleshmarkets (left) and premises of the skinners and tanners (right) from John Slezer’s “Edinburgh and the North Loch”, c. 1673. © Edinburgh City Libraries

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.

Moutrie’s Hill and the Calton

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.

The Physick Garden, Trinity College & HospitalTrinity College Kirk from the old Physick Garden in the early-mid 19th century. CC-by-NC National Galleries Scotland

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.

Goose Pie House

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.

The Castlehill

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).

In the distance

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.

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The thread about a view of 18th century Leith and its talented, young English artist

This thread was originally written and published in December 2021.

Here is a Now and Then transition that shows a view of Leith in the distance overlaid on the same vista these days. This particular original view is by the English artist Paul Sandby and is called “View of Leith from the East Road“. It was sketched here around 1750, making it one of the earliest accurate views of the town.

The foot of Easter Road, c. 1750 (left) and 270 years later (right). Move the slider to compare CC-by-NC National Galleries Scotland

It’s possible to use the relative positions of the primary landmarks of old Leith – the steeple of South Leith Kirk , the first cone-shaped glass bottle kiln down on Salamander Street and in the distance the island of Inch Keith – to establish an fairly good approximate position from where Sandby sketched out his scene. However a modern building means we can’t get into quite the right place now.

My experience of looking at the detail of Sandby’s images of Edinburgh and Leith is that his draughtsmanship is exceptionally good and faithful to reality on the ground. There are occasions where he explicitly chooses not to do things like flip key details around to make a more dramatic or romantic scene, but it’s usually done in an obvious and deliberate way and was completely in line with his contemporaries. I think we can therefore be confident he was faithfully and accurately drawing the scene that he saw before him of Leith in 1751.

“Paul Sandby,” Francis Cotes (1726–1770), CC-by-NC-ND, Tate

Our picture is an etching, with the detail composed of fine lines scratched into a wax-coated copper plate and then used to produce a print, and it was made by Sandby himself after his original watercolour. While watercolour was his primary medium, he was also a skilled etcher and printmaker. The original in the collection of the Ashmoleon Museum in Oxford. Sadly I cannot show you the colour original as it has not been digitised or included in print, but you can see from the below black and white scan that it is a perfect match.

South Prospect of Leith, Watercolour, 1749. Sutherland Collection © Ashmoleon Museum, Oxford

There are multiple different versions of this view by Sandby. Below are two engravings, again by his own hand – engraving was another art in which he was particularly gifted and involved incising a copper printing plate with a cutting tool to use for printmaking. Version 1 seems to be for a large print with much detail and Version 2 was possibly for inclusion as a plate within a book judging by its simplification and cruder detail.

Version 1, finer detail and stagecoaches on the road.Version 2, simplified detail of the foreground figures, a single horse on the road, a more dramatic sky and crude ships added on the Forth

The Lowland part of William Roy’s “Great Map”, which was made just a few years after Sandby’s illustration shows the Kirk (1), the glass cone (2) and that windmill (3). Sandby is just off the Easter Road looking downhill probably somewhere off of the modern street of Thorntreeside

Zooming in on the detail in Engraving 1, to the right of the scene we can see the glass cone, the windmill (which was built early in the 18th century and was possibly in association with a saw mill and the farmhouse of Coatfield. The workers are bringing in the crops in the foreground. Sandby was keen on adding romantic elements such as these to his work – you can see that while they are included in the original watercolour he has varied and elaborated them here.

Bringing in the crops.

In the foreground, workers at leisure. A couple dance on the left (the main is in typical lowland garb), those on the right may be sitting down to eat, the central figure holds the stoup to drink from. The piper with kilt and tartan hose suggests a Government soldier, the Dress Act of 1746 having forbidden the wearing of “the clothes commonly called Highland clothes” by anyone apart from officers and soldiers. These gaily frolicking figures are absent from the watercolour, these were the sorts of detail a printmaker added to their work to make it more commercially attractive to a London market.

Dancers. The piper on the right wears Highland dress.Figures at rest. The woman, centre, holds the stoup

The young Paul Sandby was in Edinburgh for work and had a position as a cartographer to the Board of Ordnance under Lt. Col. David Watson at this time. He was usually based in a drawing office at Edinburgh Castle, but at times went out in the field in the Highlands to accompany Watson and make on-the-spot illustrations (such as that below) to illuminate the latter’s reports, so would have been used to being accompanied by soldiers. Watson, a son of the Lothians, came up with the idea for the military survey of Scotland and had appointed William Roy as its very capable cartographer. Sandby’s principal job was working under Roy as a cartographic draughtsman, turning the surveyor’s field observations and triangulations into a beautifully illustrated map. When you look at Roy’s Highland maps, you are looking at Sandby’s hand too.

“Surveying Party by Kinloch Rannoch”, Paul Sandby, 1749. K.Top.50.83.2. British Library

But back to our engraving. To the left of the print is South Leith itself (North Leith was an entirely separate parish and jurisdiction at this time), with the distinctive Dutch steeple of the Kirk. The large house in the foreground, directly below the church may be that known as Whitfield House, it is approximately where Crown Street is in modern Leith. The line of buildings of the Kirkgate – the principal north-south street of auld Leith – is obvious, running off to the left from the Kirk. The tall building left of the Kirk may be the Tollbooth. The masts of the ships sitting in the port beyond are to the right of the Kirk.

Old South Leith.South Leith Kirk, and on its left probably the Tolbooth and its neighbouring Signal Tower. The building below them, with the two tall chimneys, is the King James Hospital, where the Leith High School met.

A few doors down from the Tolbooth was a signal tower, seen in this engraving in “Memorials of Edinburgh in the Olden Time” by Daniel Wilson, which may be the tall structure left of the steeple.

The Ancient Signal Tower via Edinburgh Bookshelf – http://edinburghbookshelf.org.uk/volume10/)

This signal tower wasn’t very well located, particularly as the taller tenements grew up around and it would be relocated to Robert Mylne’s late 17th century windmill at the head of the Shore in around 1805. We can see this structure in the below watercolour by John Clerk of Eldin; this is some time inbetween its abandonment as a windmill and its conversion to a signal tower, as it retains its original roof. When Sandy had been in Edinburgh, he fell in with the artistically inclined Clerk of Penicuik family, and the Adam family of architects who were in their circle. Sandy was a particular friend to John Clerk of Eldin and Robert Adam, and the three whiled away their youth travelling Midlothian and sketching ruinous castles together. John was a capable artist and printmaker in his own right, but was much influenced by Paul.

Leith Harbour from the West, late 18th century, John Clerk of Eldin, CC-by-NC National Galleries Scotland

Daniel Wilson’s book also has the below engraving of South Leith Kirk with that steeple again. We can see just how closely Sandby’s image matches this. I have said it before and will say it again, his mix of artistic skill, a cartographers eye and a bit of military discipline means that Sandby’s landscapes are usually very accurate. These sorts of Dutch Steeple belfries were very common on both religious and civic buildings in post-Reformation East Scotland, and amongst others North Leith (St. Ninian’s), the Tron Kirk and the Holyrood Abbey church also had them.

South Leith Kirk, print from “Memorials of Edinburgh in the Olden Time” by Daniel Wilson

An interesting thing about South Leith kirk is that it’s really only one half of a church; the nave (west bit) and its aisles. The chancel (east part), crossings and central tower were destroyed or damaged beyond repair in the Siege of 1560. If you squint at it on the contemporary siege map, you can see a central tower and the crossing. The sketch is a little bit squished, it was quite a long, low building in reality, twice as long as the church we have today.

“Petworth House Map” of the Seige of Leith, 1560

Daniel Wilson’s engraving shows the rather crudely filled in arches at the east end of the nave (blue arrows) and the remains of the arches supporting the original tower and crossing roof (orange). The 1560 map and arch remains suggests a crossing only to the north.

Detail from Wilson’s print showing the ruined masonry that once supported the tower and crossing of the old St. Mary’s Kirk

Back to Paul Sandby, he made this rather nice sketch of his boss Lt. Col David Watson around this time. Watson was son of Thomas Watson of Muirhouse and a seasoned campaigner, present at the battles of Dettingen, Fontenoy and Culloden. It was Watson who picked up General Wade’s road and fortification building scheme after the 1745 Jacobite rising and massively extended it. He spent eight and a half years in the Highlands on this project, which would spawn Roy’s Military Survey and give us those beautiful and insightful maps of most of Scotland, the first really accurate topographic survey of the country.

Lt. Col David Watson, by Paul Sandby © Royal Collections Trust

This was not the only panorama that Sandby made of Leith, he made a watercolour with the town in the distance in 1747, probably painted from the vicinity of the old village of Broughton. Given that the Ashmoleon collection explicitly forbid any sharing of their images in any form, you’ll have to go and take a look on their site. In another thread, we look at another remarkably detailed and accurate Sandby illustration, painted from the ramparts of Edinburgh Castle and looking north towards Leith over the lands were the New Town would follow a few decades later.

Paul Sandby’s work heavily influenced many British watercolour artists who would follow. The Scottish artist Alexander Carse made a similarly pastoral view of South Leith from the Easter Road around 20-30 years after Sandby. Again we see workers at rest and play, set in a rural landscape but one that is not far removed from the urban and from creeping industrialisation.

Alexander Carse, South Leith from the Easter Road, c. 1790-1800 (left) and 220-30 years later (right). CC-by-NC National Galleries Scotland

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:

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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.

#Lochend #Logan #Restalrig #StMargaret