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80-648: Gaelic public worship in Edinburgh began in the early 18th century and culminated with the opening of the first Gaelic Chapel at Chapel Wynd near the Grassmarket in 1769. This was the first Gaelic-speaking congregation in the Scottish Lowlands . A second, larger chapel opened at Horse Wynd in 1813 and the two congregations united in 1815, following which the Chaepl Wynd building was sold. In 1835,

160-473: A layman , Buchanan gathered round him a Gaelic-speaking congregation which met at College Street Relief Church in the Southside . Buchanan was unable to qualify as a minister before his sudden death in 1768. At the time of Buchanan's death, plans were already underway to create a permanent Gaelic church. In 1766, some prominent Edinburgh citizens, led by burgess William Dickson, issued an appeal to create

240-534: A Category B listed building since 1966. The congregation originally possessed pewter communion cups . In 1821, the congregation purchased two silver communion cups with the effects of Sergeant John Munro of the Royal Scots and inscribed "DA CHOTHEN GHAELIC DHUNEIDIN A REIR THIOMNUIDH SHERGt. EOIN MUNRO TROIMH LAMH EOIN MUNRO A MINr. 1821." ( To the Gaelic Congregation of Edinburgh according to

320-480: A book Quines by actress Gerda Stevenson . "Hauf-hingit Maggie Deith is wappin when it comes – like birth, I ken – I hae warstled throu, an focht wi baith. She wis blue, ma bairn, blue as the breast o a brid I seen oan the banks o the Tweed thon day; then grey, aa wrang, the naelstring windit ticht aroon her neck; I ettled tae lowse it, aince, twice, but it aye slippit – ma hauns couldnae grup, ma mind skailt frae

400-545: A burgess became a title that gave social standing to the office and usually carried with it a role which involved charitable activities of their guild or livery company, as it does today. The term was also used in some of the Thirteen Colonies . In the Colony of Virginia , a "burgess" was a member of the legislative body, which was termed the " House of Burgesses ". In Connecticut , New Jersey , and Pennsylvania ,

480-474: A century. St Columba's congregation walked out in 1842, [sic] and since then there has been intermittent litigation as to the return of the funds and property. Thirty years ago we got the last of our property back. We feel we have nothing in common with the people of St Columba's. Following the General Assembly's intervention, the two congregations united on 4 July 1948. The united congregation adopted

560-464: A cuddie’s pech; ma een appen. I lift ma nieve, chap, chap oan ma mort-kist lid, chap, chap! A scraich ootbye, a craik o hinges. I heeze masel, slaw, intil ma ain wake, at the Sheep Heid Inn. Fowk heuch an flee: “A ghaist, a bogle, risin fae the deid!” I sclim oot, caum. The braw Brewster gies me a wink, hauns me a dram. I sup lang the gowd maut, syne dauner back tae life, an hame." There is now

640-425: A dowie jyle. An mercy? Nane they gied me at ma trial—the verdict: hingin. The duimster slippit the towe ower ma heid, drapt the flair – but I’d lowsed ma hauns, I gruppit thon raip, aince, twice, thrice at ma thrapple – I’d dae it this time! The duimster dunted me wi his stick, dunt, dunt, an the dirdum dinged in ma lugs, “Clure the hure! Clure the huir!” Syne aa gaed daurk. A chink o licht. The smell o wuid, warm –

720-638: A formal Gaelic chapel. Dickson raised £300 and purchased a plot of land between the Castle and the Grassmarket . This was near the White Hart Inn: a favoured meeting place of Highlanders. Building commenced in May 1767 and the chapel – a simple T-plan building with seats for 800 – opened in summer 1769. The Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge was responsible for nominating preachers while

800-594: A hollow, well below surrounding ground levels. The Grassmarket is located directly below Edinburgh Castle and forms part of one of the main east-west vehicle arteries through the city centre. It adjoins the Cowgatehead/ Cowgate and Candlemaker Row at the east end, the West Bow (the lower end of Victoria Street in the north-east corner, King's Stables Road to the north-west, and the West Port to

880-567: A lodging in the Grassmarket as the place where the Skye terrier's owner dies (depicting him as a shepherd hoping to be hired at the market rather than the real-life dog's owner, police night watchman John Gray). The meat market closed in 1911 when a new municipal slaughter house at Tollcross replaced the old "shambles" in the western half of the Grassmarket (a road beyond the open market place) which joins King's Stables Road. The association of

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960-414: A pediment on consoles below an architraved panel. The central bays feature three round-headed doors beneath a continuous architraved panel. The sides of them are faced in rubble while the rear incorporates a deep apse with three round-headed windows. Following its secularisation, the building was partitioned internally into three storeys with a basement. This building also featured a plaque, erected to

1040-573: A pew. In 1807, John McDonald became minister. By that year, less than a tenth of the congregation was monolingual in Gaelic. McDonald was nevertheless resistant to the introduction of English-language worship. McDonald was so popular a minister that, in 1813, his final service was held in the West Kirk , the congregation being too large for the Gaelic Chapel. Following McDonald's departure,

1120-599: A popular tourist spot. The character of the area was reflected in a number of hostels for the homeless, including that of the Salvation Army Women's Hostel (now a backpackers hostel) which existed here until the 1980s. From then on property prices started to rise sharply. The area is, and always has been, dominated by a series of public houses. In recent years many have become more family-friendly and include dining areas. The council has recently further encouraged these to spill over onto outside pavements, giving

1200-429: A pub in the Grassmarket named Maggie Dickson's near where she was hanged. In 1775, the young advocate James Boswell 's first criminal client, John Reid from Peeblesshire, was hanged in the Grassmarket for sheep-stealing. Boswell, convinced of his client's innocence and citing Maggie Dickson's miraculous recovery, hatched a plan to recover Reid's corpse immediately after execution and have it resuscitated by surgeons. He

1280-471: Is a visible face of trade; most of them have also warehouses in Leith , where they lay up the heavier goods, and bring them hither, or sell them by patterns and samples, as they have occasion." From 1800 onwards the area became a focal point for the influx of Irish immigrants and a high number of lodging houses appeared for those unable to pay a regular rent. Community views of these immigrants were polarised by

1360-402: Is derived from bourg , meaning a market town or medieval village, itself derived from Late Latin burgus , meaning " fortress " or "wall". In effect, the reference was to the north-west European medieval and renaissance merchant class which tended to set up their storefronts along the outside of the city wall, where traffic through the gates was an advantage and safety in event of an attack

1440-564: The Burke and Hare murders on Tanners Close at West Port (the west end of the Grassmarket) in 1828. From the 1840s conditions were somewhat horrendous, with up to 12 people in what would now be deemed a small double bedroom, and occupants being locked in the room overnight. Police inspections had begun in 1822 but the rules themselves caused many of the problems. A further Act of 1848 combined police surveillance with limits on occupation. In 1888

1520-477: The Castle Rock ; the design won a Civic Trust Award and Scottish Design Award in 2002. For most of its history the Grassmarket was one of the poorest areas of the city, associated in the nineteenth century with an influx of poor Irish and the infamous murderers Burke and Hare . Up until quite recently it was still to some extent associated with homelessness and drunkenness before its rapid gentrification as

1600-581: The Church of Scotland and by the Kirk's insistence from 1694 that Gaelic-speaking ministers remain with Gaelic-speaking Highland parishes unless authorised by their presbytery. The Kirk's requirement that there could be only one place of worship in each parish also complicated the establishment of an extra-parochial Gaelic chapel. The General Assembly did, however, make provision for Gaelic preaching in Edinburgh in 1704; nevertheless, this could not be effected due to

1680-513: The Dean of Guild 's court show the Horse Wynd chapel as a simple Neoclassical building. The facade of five bays consisted of two storeys separated by a simple course of moulding . The walls were capped by a simple cornice and short attic storey while a pitched roof covered the building. The windows of the upper storey were rectangular while the openings on the ground floor (windows at

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1760-651: The Highland Church , using the St Columba's buildings. Greyfriars Kirk maintains St Oran's tradition of Gaelic worship in Edinburghto the present. The first Gaelic Chapel was a simple T-plan building with seats for 800. It was demolished in the 1830s. The Horse Wynd building stood on a rectangular plan and was executed in a plain neoclassical style . It was swept away in the public improvements that created Chambers Street . The Broughton Street building –

1840-539: The Middle Ages and the early modern period, designating someone of the burgher class. It originally meant a freeman of a borough or burgh , but later came to be used mostly for office-holders in a town or one of its representatives in the House of Commons . In England, burgess meant an elected or unelected official of a borough, or the representative of one in the House of Commons of England . This use of

1920-632: The Royal Navy . Maggie had gone to work in an inn in the Borders, and was hanged in the Grassmarket in August 1724, at the age of 22 or 23, by hangman John Dalgliesh for murdering her illegitimate baby there by drowning it or placing it in the river Tweed at Kelso , shortly after the birth. After the hanging, a doctor declared Dickson dead, and her family argued with the medical students, who then were only allowed to dissect criminal corpses, so her body

2000-563: The United Free Church in 1900 and rejoined the Church of Scotland in 1929. In this context, the General Assembly concluded the maintenance of two small, Gaelic-speaking congregations in the city was unnecessary and, from 1930, sought to unite the charges. Attempts to unite St Oran's and St Columba's were often fraught. Members of St Oran's unsuccessfully proposed that both congregations leave their buildings and use

2080-548: The United Free Church in 1929, ownership of St Oran's transferred from the SSPCK to the Church of Scotland and the voluntary supplement was redirected in 1935. In the years prior to James Duff MacDonald's death in 1945, the church's membership had begun to tail off. The Free Gaelic congregation that had split from the established church in 1843 had, by this point, adopted the name "St Columba's" and, though denominational unions, joined

2160-511: The city walls of Edinburgh . Highlanders may have made up as much as a tenth of the parish's population at this time. McVicar was preaching in Gaelic even before the Presbytery of Edinburgh formally charged him to do so in 1710. After McVicar's death in 1747, army chaplains based at the Castle may have maintained Gaelic worship until Dugald Buchanan 's arrival in Edinburgh in 1765. Though

2240-661: The "Horse-market". Of the West Bow at the north-east corner, considerably altered in the Victorian period, he wrote, "This street, which is called the Bow, is generally full of wholesale traders, and those very considerable dealers in iron, pitch, tar, oil, hemp, flax, linseed, painters' colours, dyers, drugs and woods, and such like heavy goods, and supplies country shopkeepers, as our wholesale dealers in England do. And here I may say,

2320-499: The 1920s by the City architect Ebenezer MacRae skilfully closed many of the gaps with faux Scots Baronial blocks, ironically all built as council housing. There are several modern buildings on its southern side. Some properties were used by Heriot-Watt University, and its predecessor college, for teaching and research until the university moved fully to its new Riccarton campus (1974–92). The Mountbatten Building of Heriot-Watt University

2400-592: The Burgess, or Chief Burgess, was the executive of many colonial-era municipalities until the turn of the 20th century, and persists in some places as the highest ranking magistrate of a municipality. The word was derived in Middle English and Middle Scots from the Old French word burgeis , simply meaning "an inhabitant of a town" (cf. burgeis or burges respectively). The Old French word burgeis

2480-486: The City Public Health Department recorded seven lodging houses holding a total of an incredible 414 persons. Crombies Land at the foot of West Port held 70 people in 27 bedrooms, with no toilet provision. As a gathering point for market traders and cattle drovers, the Grassmarket was traditionally a place of taverns, hostelries and temporary lodgings, a fact still reflected in the use of some of

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2560-621: The Grassmarket". In 1736, the Grassmarket formed the backdrop to the Porteous Riots which ended in the lynching of a captain of the Town Guard. A plaque near the traditional execution site now marks the spot where an enraged mob brought Captain Porteous 's life to a brutal end. A popular story in Edinburgh is that of Margaret (or Maggie) Dickson , a fishwife from Musselburgh , whose husband left, possibly press-ganged , to join

2640-499: The Horse Wynd chapel. In 1869, the congregation received £6,000 in compensation in return for vacating their building. The congregation vacated the Horse Wynd building the following year and worshipped nearby at the Protestant Institute on George IV Bridge until 1875, when they purchased the former Catholic Apostolic church on Broughton Street . The SSPCK retained its right to nominate the church's minister even after

2720-551: The Queen Street Church or that both united with St Andrew's . Following several failed meetings, the case was referred to the General Assembly in May 1948. Summarising the contrasting histories of Edinburgh's two Gaelic congregations, J. Boog Thomson, session clerk of St Oran's, told The Scotsman at the time: We represent a minority in the Presbytery by blood and tradition, and many of us by language. We don't think

2800-607: The Signet and the Corporation of Edinburgh supported its £3,000 cost. The new chapel's first minister, Charles Matheson, served for little over a year. Both Gaelic charges were now empty while the new chapel had accrued significant debts. The SSPCK transferred its interest to the new chapel and the two congregations united in 1815. That year, the Chapel Wynd building was sold; it was demolished in 1830s. The united congregation

2880-569: The abolition of patronage in the Church of Scotland in 1874. By the end of the 19th-century, the congregation appears to have been depleted. Responding to reports of the declining use of Gaelic in the worship of Highland parishes, the Gaelic church's minister, Donald Tolmie Masson, wrote to the editor of The Scotsman in April 1896: All these dreary three-and-forty years I have been preaching to my countrymen in this city in their native tongue, and my voice has been vox clamantis in sicco . Never since

2960-409: The archaeological evidence matches the historical records for the development of the Grassmarket. Candlemaker Row had activity from the 11th or 12th century onwards, possibly a farmstead, next to the confluence of two major cattle-droving routes into Edinburgh. The area was urbanized in the late 15th century, with the division of the land into burgage-plots and construction of a tenement, at the same time

3040-482: The area with the poor and homeless only began to lessen in the 1980s: with Salvation Army hostels at both ends of the Grassmarket. Closure of the female hostel at the junction of West Port and the Grassmarket around 2000 in combination with an overall gentrification, capitalising on the street's location, began to truly change the atmosphere. Closure of the public toilets at the east end (a focal point for "jakeys" - drunken-down-and-outs) and comprehensive re-landscaping in

3120-539: The beginning of the 21st century has transformed the character of the area. An inscribed flagstone in the central pavement in front of the White Hart Inn indicates the spot where a bomb exploded during a Zeppelin raid on the city on the night of 2–3 April 1916. Eleven people were killed in the raid, though none at this particular spot. Archaeological excavations in the 2000s, by Headland Archaeology , on Candlemaker Row, in advance of new development, found that

3200-399: The castle", the Grassmarket was, from 1477, one of Edinburgh's main market places , a part of which was given over to the sale of horses and cattle (the name apparently deriving from livestock grazing in pens beyond its western end). Daniel Defoe , who was sent to Edinburgh as an English government agent in 1706, reported the place being used for two open air markets: the "Grass-market" and

3280-574: The chapel came under the jurisdiction of Old Greyfriars kirk session and was managed a group of twelve deacons. As a full Gaelic Bible had not been published by the time the chapel opened, the church's reader was responsible for translating the readings into Gaelic. The chapel was the first designated Gaelic-speaking place of worship in lowland Scotland . Gaelic chapels in Glasgow (1770); Perth (1781); Dundee (1791); Greenock (1792); Paisley (1793) soon followed. A Roman Catholic Gaelic chapel

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3360-647: The chapel was raised to the status of a parish quoad sacra . The Disruption of 1843 saw all the church's office holders and almost all of its congregation depart the established church to join the Free Church , creating another Gaelic-speaking congregation in Edinburgh: the Gaelic Free Church . Civic improvements in the Old Town forced the congregation to vacate Horse Wynd in 1870. It settled in

3440-542: The city. At the Disruption of 1843 , the vast majority of the congregation, including all its office-bearers, joined the Free Church . This effectively created a new congregation: the Gaelic Free Church . The Free congregation continued to meet in the Horse Wynd building until 1844. The few congregants who had remained in the established church were not in a position to appoint a new board of trustees until 1845. The established congregation recovered somewhat and, in 1846,

3520-536: The congregation introduced an English service to supplement Gaelic worship. During McDonald's ministry, overcrowding in the chapel had remained a problem. To address this, the congregation planned a new chapel. In 1808, a site was purchased on the corner of Horse Wynd and North College Street, near what is now Chambers Street . The new chapel opened in 1813, under the name the Gaelic and English Chapel of Ease . The chapel could accommodate 1,093 worshippers. The Writers to

3600-464: The congregation that year adopted the more distinctive name of "St Oran's" . Saint Kessog and Saint Chattan were also considered as potential dedicatees. In 1916, John Campbell Macgregor, the church's minister since 1911, died of wounds sustained in the First World War and James Duff MacDonald succeeded him as minister the following year. Ahead of the union of the Church of Scotland with

3680-468: The early 18th Century and claims to be the oldest public house in Edinburgh and is said to have been visited by Robert Burns (1759–96), the Wordsworths (1803), William Burke and William Hare in the late 1820s. The City Improvement Scheme of 1868 cleared many of the slums and widened streets such as West Port, and the western group of buildings all derive from this plan. A further improvement plan in

3760-408: The eastern end of the Grassmarket. This ill-omened apparition was of great height, with a scaffold surrounding it, and a double ladder placed against it, for the ascent of the unhappy criminal and the executioner. As this apparatus was always arranged before dawn, it seemed as if the gallows had grown out of the earth in the course of one night, like the production of some foul demon; and I well remember

3840-442: The former Catholic Apostolic Church on Broughton Street in 1875. In 1900, the congregation adopted the name "St Oran's" . The former Gaelic Free Church – by then known as "St Columba's" – had rejoined the Church of Scotland in 1929 due to denominational unions. The General Assembly concluded the maintenance of two small Gaelic-speaking congregations in Edinburgh was unnecessary and, in 1948, St Oran's and St Columba's united to form

3920-631: The fright with which the schoolboys, when I was one of their number, used to regard these ominous signs of deadly preparation. On the night after the execution the gallows again disappeared, and was conveyed in silence and darkness to the place where it was usually deposited, which was one of the vaults under the Parliament House , or courts of justice." The old market area is surrounded by pubs, restaurants, clubs, local retail shops, and two large Apex Hotels . The building dates range from 17th century to 21st century. The White Hart Inn dates from

4000-498: The jizzen fecht, ma mooth steekit: no tae scraich, no tae scraich, let nane hear… I stottered oot, doon tae the watter, thocht tae douk her in its cauld jaups, but ower late. I laid her quate in lang reeds, achin tae hae a bit basket tae float her oot like Moses, aa the wey tae England an the sea, gie her a deep grave, ayont kennin; but they fund her, still as a stane whaur she lay; an syne me, wannert gyte agate Kelso toun. “Murther!” they yaldered, “Murther!” like dugs. Embro Tolbooth’s

4080-458: The lack of a Gaelic-speaking minister. Gaelic worship began after the appointment of Neil McVicar as minister of the West Kirk in 1707. McVicar was a Highlander fluent in Gaelic and English. The Presbytery of Argyll approved McVicar's move to Edinburgh on the basis that there were three to four hundred monolingual Gaelic-speakers in the West Kirk's parish, which covered a large area outside

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4160-545: The latter congregation has held a weekly Gaelic service, maintaining St Oran's tradition of Gaelic worship in Edinburgh. The following ministers served the Gaelic Chapel (1769–1815); the Gaelic and English Chapel of Ease (1813–1815); the New Gaelic Chapel (1815–1835); the Gaelic Church (1835–1900); and St Oran's Church (1900–1948): † Minister of the Gaelic and English Chapel of Ease The original chapel

4240-521: The line of the Flodden Wall at the western end delineated by a strip of lighter paving from the Vennel on the south side to the newly created Granny's Green Steps on the north side. 55°56′51″N 3°11′46″W  /  55.94750°N 3.19611°W  / 55.94750; -3.19611 Burgess (title) A burgess was the holder of a certain status in an English or Scottish borough in

4320-424: The market place was established in Grassmarket. In 1654, the magistrates designated the street for candle-making, thus how it got its name. The late 18th and early 19th centuries saw the redevelopment of the site and evidence for the use of the area as a brass foundry, in line with the Grassmarket being used as a slum at that time. The Grassmarket was also a traditional place of public executions . A memorial near

4400-486: The memory of John Campbell MacGregor after his death in 1916. In 1921, the congregation unveiled a brass memorial plaque, listing the names of 18 members of the congregation who died in the First World War . This is now housed in Greyfriars Kirk . In 1930, the church was renovated, including the repair of the external steps and the installation of an Estey organ. The former St Oran's Church has been protected as

4480-479: The move to Broughton Street had affected its congregation. The correspondent nevertheless attributed the bulk of the congregation's decline to Masson's "dry manner and cold reserve". Masson wrote two further letters to The Scotsman to defend himself against these accusations and against another correspondent named "Highland Churchman". Likely motivated by the union of the Free and United Presbyterian churches in 1900,

4560-560: The name " Highland Church " and used the St Columba's buildings. The St Oran's building was sold to Messrs. Nairn for commercial use in 1950. The building is now a clinical science research facility. To mark the bicentenary of the Gaelic Chapel in 1969, a service was held at the site of the first chapel and a commemorative plaque unveiled. The Highland Church united with Tolbooth St John's in 1956 to form Highland, Tolbooth, St John's, which continued to hold Gaelic services. Since Highland, Tolbooth, St John's united with Greyfriars Kirk in 1979,

4640-482: The only building occupied by the Gaelic congregation that still stands – is a neoclassical, temple-like building of 1843–1844, attributed to John Dick Peddie . It is now in commercial use. By the late 17th century, the number of Gaelic -speaking migrants from the Highlands in Edinburgh had grown significantly. Attempts to provide a place of worship for them were stymied by the paucity of Gaelic-speaking ministers in

4720-414: The outer and central bays with doors in between) were segmental-arched . The central bay was slightly advanced with an advanced central panel in its attic sotrey. The plan shows the flank of the building as consisting of a simple wall of four bays and two storeys with segmental-arched windows. The chapel could seat 1,000 and the plans for the interior show with a bowed gallery. The Broughton Street building

4800-473: The place a more Continental atmosphere. The Grassmarket was subject to a streetscape improvement scheme carried out 2009–10 at a cost of £5 million. Measures aimed at making the area more pedestrian-friendly included the extension of pavement café areas and the creation of an "events zone". The "shadow" of a gibbet was added in dark paving on the former gallows site (next to the Covenanters' Monument) and

4880-421: The roof. Internally, the church seated 800 on wooden benches. It was paved with flagstones, including one separating the reader's desk from the communion table . The pulpit and reader's desk were covered in green cloth with a bracket for the baptismal bowl in the upper part of the pulpit. Later additions included a chandelier in 1782, a stove, an hour-glass, communion plate, and a money box. Plans submitted to

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4960-492: The same. Our outlook is different. St Columba's are not only mainly representative of the Free Church, but were drawn and recruited from Ross and Cromarty and the fringe of Inverness . They were Mackenzies , MacLeods , and Macdonalds . St Oran's were recruited mainly from Argyll , with a large predominance of Campbells , Shaws , and Macdougals . The struggle between the two congregations has been going on for at least

5040-543: The site once occupied by the gibbet was created by public subscription in 1937. It commemorates over 100 Covenanters who died on the gallows between 1661 and 1688 during the period known as The Killing Time . Their names, where known, are recorded on a nearby plaque. One obdurate prisoner's refusal to escape death by swearing loyalty to the Crown prompted the snide remark by the Duke of Rothes that he had chosen to "glorify God in

5120-550: The surrounding buildings. In the late 18th century the fly coach to London, via Dumfries and Carlisle, set out from an inn at the Cowgate Head at the eastern end of the market place. In 1803 William and Dorothy Wordsworth took rooms at the White Hart Inn, where the poet Robert Burns had stayed during his last visit to Edinburgh in 1791. In her account of the visit Dorothy described it as "not noisy, and tolerably cheap". In his 1961 film Greyfriars Bobby Walt Disney chose

5200-623: The west. Leading off from the south-west corner is the Vennel , on the east side of which can still be seen some of the best surviving parts of the Flodden and Telfer town walls. The view to the north, dominated by the castle, has long been a favourite subject of painters and photographers, making it one of the iconic views of the city. First mentioned in the Registrum Magni Sigilii Regum Scotorum (1363) as "the street called Newbygging [new buildings] under

5280-557: The whole body of the people, with their minister and elders, left the Old Gaelic Church in Argyle Square for the Free Church, now known as St Columba's , leaving not a hoof behind, has the work of my church been other than most depressing. So was it with all my predecessors. In response, another correspondent, writing under the name "Argyle Square", noted that, though the church had been well-attended forty years prior,

5360-416: The will of Sergt. John Munro, by the hand of John Munro, the minister. 1821.) The Free congregation retained these cups and a baptismal basin until the established congregation successfully petitioned for their return in 1854. Grassmarket The Grassmarket is a historic market place , street and event space in the Old Town of Edinburgh , Scotland. In relation to the rest of the city it lies in

5440-512: The word burgess has since disappeared. Burgesses as freemen had the sole right to vote in municipal or parliamentary elections. However, in Britain and Ireland these special privileges were removed by the Reform Act 1832 . Burgesses were originally freeman inhabitants of a city in which they owned land and who contributed to the running of the town and its taxation. The title of burgess

5520-405: Was a friend of MacGregor's and a regular worshipper at the chapel. As early as 1787, members of the congregation were raising concerns over the state and capacity of the chapel. That year, Sir John Macgregor Murray gave £50 for the chapel to be enlarged on the condition that the front pew be reserved for him, his family, and, in their absence, any members of his clan who could not afford to rent

5600-473: Was a plain T-plan building with a sloping, red-tiled roof and seating for 800. It had two entrances, both facing onto Castle Wynd. Another pathway connected the chapel to the Castle esplanade . There were four windows on the chapel's east side, glazed with lozenge panes in the bottom and with shutters for ventilation at the top. Similar skylights ventilated the roof of the building. In 1782, gutters were added to

5680-405: Was able to appoint a new minister, Alexander MacKellar. During the ministry of Donald Tolmie Masson between 1862 and 1897, the wider life of the congregation grew stronger: monthly Gaelic evening services began in 1856, a Sabbath School in 1863, and a congregational choir in 1864. The Edinburgh Improvement Act of 1867 provided for the creation of Chambers Street , which required the demolition of

5760-430: Was also established in Edinburgh in 1776 and burnt in anti-Catholic rioting in 1779. The first minister was Joseph Robertson, who had assisted Buchanan at College Street. A member of Clan Gregor , Robertson re-adopted the surname MacGregor after the clan's legal suppression was ended in 1774. During MacGregor's enthusiastic ministry, Edinburgh's Gaelic community became renowned for its probity. The poet Duncan Ban MacIntyre

5840-660: Was also to some extent seen as divine intervention , and so she was allowed to go free. In later life (and legend), she was referred to as "hauf-hingit Maggie" and attracted curiosity as she was seen back in the Grass-market in October 1724, with an item about a crowd forming to see her in the Scots Magazine . She remarried her husband (as ‘death’ had parted them) and lived another 40 years. A poem in Scots appears in

5920-559: Was built in 1968) for the departments of electrical engineering, management and languages. The Mountbatten building was converted and reopened as the Apex International Hotel in 1996. An example of 21st century architecture is Dance Base (2001) by Malcolm Fraser Architects, the Scottish National Centre for Dance, which runs back from a traditional frontage to a multi-level design on the slopes of

6000-618: Was constructed between 1843 and 1844 for a congregation of the Catholic Apostolic Church . The design is attributed to John Dick Peddie ; if this is correct, it would be his earliest completed design. The building is in the Neoclassical style with a facade of five bays under an unadorned pediment . The three central bays are recessed and divided by Ionic pillars. The outer bays are framed by Doric pilasters . Each outer bay features an architraved window with

6080-517: Was easily accessible. The right to seek shelter within a burg was known as the right of burgess . The term was close in meaning to the Germanic term burgher , a formally defined class in medieval German cities ( Middle Dutch burgher , Dutch burger and German Bürger ). It is also linguistically close to the French term bourgeois , which evolved from burgeis . The original version of

6160-419: Was finally dissuaded from this course of action by a friend who warned him that the condemned man had become resigned to his fate and might well curse Boswell for bringing him back to life. Sir Walter Scott described his memory of the Grassmarket gibbet in his novel The Heart of Midlothian published in 1818. The fatal day was announced to the public, by the appearance of a huge black gallows-tree towards

6240-612: Was known as the New Gaelic Chapel . In 1835, the Gaelic Chapel became a parish quoad sacra with a ministry to all Gaelic speakers in Edinburgh rather than to a geographic parish . In 1850, the Court of Teinds supported the congregation's status as the Gaelic parish church for the city and designated it the Gaelic Church and Parish of Edinburgh with no territorial parish but a responsibility to all Gaelic speakers in

6320-475: Was later restricted to merchants and craftsmen, so that only burgesses could enjoy the privileges of trading or practising a craft in the city through belonging to a guild (by holding a guild ticket) or were able to own companies trading in their guild's craft. One example are the Burgesses of Edinburgh . The burgesses' ancient exclusive trading rights through their Guilds were abolished in 1846. Thereafter

6400-436: Was taken back to Musselburgh on a cart. However, on the way there, the story was that her family went for a wake at an inn (possibly Sheep's Heid Inn, Duddingston ) when they heard noises from the coffin as she awoke. Under Scots Law, her punishment had been carried out, so she could not be executed for a second time for the same crime (only later were the words "until dead" added to the sentence of hanging). Her "resurrection"

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