At the first angle of the Bow, on the west side of the street, is a
tall picturesque-looking house, which tradition points to as having
been the first place where the fashionables of Edinburgh held their
dancing assemblies. Over the door is a well-cut sculpture of the arms
of the Somerville family, together with the initials P. J. and J.
W., and the date 1602. These are memorials of the original owner of
the mansion, a certain Peter Somerville, a wealthy citizen, at one
time filling a dignified situation in the magistracy, and father of
Bartholomew Somerville, who was a noted benefactor to the then infant
university of Edinburgh. The architrave also bears a legend (the title
of the eleventh psalm):