On the north side of the High Street, a hundred yards or so below the North Bridge, there existed previous to 1813 an unusually large and handsome old land or building named the Bishop’s Land. It rested upon an arcade or piazza, as it is called, and the entry in the first floor bore the ordinary legend:

BLISSIT BE ZE LORD FOR ALL HIS GIFTIS,

together with the date 1578, and a shield impaled with two coats of arms. Along the front of this floor was a balcony composed of brass, a thing unique in the ancient city. The house had been the Edinburgh residence of Archbishop John Spottiswood. Most unfortunately the whole line of building towards the street was burned down in the year 1813.

In the latter part of the last century the Bishop’s Land was regarded as a very handsome residence, and it was occupied accordingly by persons of consideration. The dictum of an old citizen to me many years ago was: ‘Nobody without livery-servants lived in the Bishop’s Land.’ Sir Stuart Threipland of Fingask occupied the first floor. His estate, forfeited by his father in 1716, was purchased back by him, with money obtained through his wife, in 1784; and the title, which was always given to him by courtesy, was restored as a reality to his descendants by George IV. He had himself been engaged in the affair of 1745-6, and had accompanied ‘the Prince’ in some part of his wanderings. In the hands of this ‘fine old Scottish gentleman,’ for such he was, his house in the Bishop’s Land was elegantly furnished, there being in particular some well-painted portraits of royal personages—not of the reigning house. These had all been sent to his father and himself by the persons represented in them, who thus showed their gratitude for efforts made and sufferings incurred in their behalf. There were five windows to the street, three of them lighting the drawing-room; the remaining two lighted the eldest son’s room. A dining-room, Sir Stuart’s bedroom, his sister Janet’s (who kept house for him) room, and other apartments were in the rear, some lighted from the adjacent close—and these still exist, having been spared by the fire. The kitchen and servants’ rooms were below.

In the next floor above lived the Hamiltons of Pencaitland; in the next again, the Aytouns of Inchdairnie. Mrs Aytoun, who was a daughter of Lord Rollo, would sometimes come down the stair in a winter evening, lighting herself with a little wax-taper, to drink tea with Mrs Janet Threipland, for so she called herself, though unmarried. In the uppermost floor of all lived a reputable tailor and his family. All the various tenants, including the tailor, were on good neighbourly terms with each other; a pleasant thing to tell of this bit of the old world, which has left nothing of the same kind behind it in these later days, when we all live at a greater distance, physical and moral, from each other.]