[271] The site was midway between Edinburgh and Leith, now represented
by Shrub Place.
[272] Sir Walter’s brother Thomas was married to a sister of Mr
M’Culloch.
[GABRIEL’S ROAD.
Previous to 1767 the eye of a person perched in a favourable situation
in the Old Town surveyed the whole ground on which the New Town was
afterwards built. Immediately beyond the North Loch was a range of
grass fields called Bearford’s Parks, from the name of the proprietor,
Hepburn of Bearford in East Lothian. Bounding these on the north, in
the line of the subsequent Princes Street, was a road enclosed by two
dry-stone walls, thence called the Lang Dykes; it was the line by which
the Viscount Dundee rode with his small troop of adherents when he had
ascertained that the Convention was determined to settle the crown upon
the Prince of Orange, and he saw that the only duty that remained for
him was to raise the Highland clans for King James.[273] The main mass
of ground, originally rough with whins and broom, but latterly forming
what was called Wood’s Farm, was crossed obliquely by a road extending
between Silvermills, a rural hamlet on the mill-course of the Leith,
and the passage into the Old Town obtained by the dam of the North Loch
at the bottom of Halkerston’s Wynd. There are still some traces of
this road. You see it leave Silvermills behind West Cumberland Street.
Behind Duke Street, on the west side, the boundary-wall of the Queen
Street Garden is oblique in consequence of its having passed that way.
Finally it terminates in a short, oblique passage behind the Register
House, wherein stood till lately a tall building containing a famous
house of resort, Ambrose’s Tavern. This short passage bore the name
of Gabriel’s Road, and it was supposed to do so in connection with a
remarkable murder, of which it was the scene.
The murderer in the case was in truth a man named Robert Irvine. He was
tutor to two boys, sons of Mr Gordon of Ellon. In consequence of the
children having reported some liberties they saw him take with their
mother’s maid, he conceived the horrible design of murdering them,
and did so one day as he was leading them for a walk along the rough
ground where the New Town is now situated. The frightful transaction
was beheld from the Castle-hill; he was pursued, taken, and next day
but one hanged by the baron of Broughton, after having his hands hacked
off by the knife with which he had committed the deed. The date of
this off-hand execution was 30th April 1717. Both the date and the
murderer’s name have several times been misstated.[274]
Adjacent to this road, about the spot now occupied by the Royal Bank,
stood a small group of houses called Mutrie’s Hill, some of which
professed to furnish curds and cream and fruits in their seasons, and
were on these accounts resorted to by citizens and their families on
summer evenings. One in particular bore the name of ‘Peace and Plenty.’
The village of Silvermills, for the sake of which, as an access to the
city, Gabriel’s Road existed, still maintains its place amidst the
streets and crescents of the New Town. It contains a few houses of a
superior cast; but it is a place sadly in want of the _sacer vates_.
No notice has ever been taken of it in any of the books regarding
Edinburgh, nor has any attempt ever been made to account for its
somewhat piquant name. I shall endeavour to do so.
In 1607 silver was found in considerable abundance at Hilderstone,
in Linlithgowshire, on the property of the gentleman who figures in
another part of this volume as Tam o’ the Cowgate. Thirty-eight barrels
of ore were sent to the Mint in the Tower of London to be tried,
and were found to give about twenty-four ounces of silver for every
hundredweight. Expert persons were placed upon the mine, and mills
were erected on the Water of Leith for the melting and fining of the
ore. The sagacious owner gave the mine the name of _God’s Blessing_.
By-and-by the king heard of it, and thinking it improper that any
such fountain of wealth should belong to a private person, purchased
God’s Blessing for £5000, that it might be worked upon a larger scale
for the benefit of the public. But somehow, from the time it left the
hands of the original owner, God’s Blessing ceased to be anything like
so fertile as it had been, and in time the king withdrew from the
enterprise a great loser. The Silvermills I conceive to have been a
part of the abandoned plant.[275]]