Edinburgh

Thursday June 20th

We don’t have a lot of time in Edinburgh where we are staying with a friend, so we thought we’d spend some time at the National Gallery of Scotland, as we hadn’t been there for years. Somehow, I seemed to have forgotten how many wonderful paintings were to be found there, especially early ones. Several dated from the 14th century.

I particularly liked this one, The Virgin Adoring the Sleeping Christ Child, by Botticelli.

This one dates from 1485. 

There were some other lovely ones from  the 15th century, particularly one by one of my favourites, Filippino Lippo. There were also some truly beautiful ones from the 16th century. I had not realised Leonardo Da Vinci’s Madonna of the Yarnwinder was in Edinburgh. 

However, I preferred the one below.

This is by Raphael. It is called The Bridgewater Madonna, and dates from about 1508. There were several others by Raphael, but this was my favourite.

There were no fewer than 4 by Titian, of which I particularly liked the one below.

It has the snappy title Virgin and Child with John the Baptist and Another Male Saint, painted about 1518 or 1520.

As well as Titian, there were several by Tintoretto, one I liked by Paris Bourdon, and a Giorgione portrait.

Later in the 17th century, there were some by El Greco and Velazquez. This one is quite well known.

It’s by Velazquez and is called An Old Woman Cooking Eggs. It was painted in 1608.

Somewhat later, there are several by Rembrandt. I hadn’t realised this self-portrait was in Edinburgh. It was painted in 1657.


In the same room were several by Frans Hals and by Reubens, which we admired. However, I won’t post any more art, that’s probably enough. We did spend more time at the gallery looking at the later art, there being some rooms devoted to Scottish artists like Sir Henry Raeburn whom we also admired. I also spotted one by Albert Cuyp and a beautiful one by Bernardo Bellotto, nephew of Canaletto. I posted one by him that we both liked when we went to the Canaletto exhibition in Venice.

It was getting late by then, so we stopped looking at paintings - we can see the later paintings on our return to Edinburgh - and went to lunch. After that, we walked up the Mound to the Lawnmarket and went to see Gladstone’s Land. This is is a surviving 17th-century tenement house situated in The Lawnmarket at top end of The Royal Mile, near Edinburgh Castle. It has been restored and furnished by the National Trust for Scotland.

It was originally built in 1550, but was bought and redeveloped in 1617 by a prosperous Edinburgh merchant called Thomas Gledstanes or Gladstone, and his wife, Bessie. The work was completed in 1620. 

This is the view from the second floor.

It gives a good idea of what the tenements in the Old Town looked like. Land inside the city was in short supply in the 16th and 17th centuries, so the answer was to build upwards. Thomas and his wife hoped to rent the apartments to wealthy middle class people, especially the lower floors. The new apartments did indeed attract wealthy tenants including William Struther, Minister of St Giles’ Cathedral, and Lord Crichton, as well as the high-end grocer John Riddoch, who traded from the ground floor.

This is the bedroom on the floor that would have belonged to Lord Crichton. The room is furnished with 17th century furniture, hence the heavy tester bed with embroidered hangings and a heavily embroidered bedcover.

The ceiling in this room was richly painted. These original renaissance painted ceilings, dated 1620, were uncovered during restoration work.

Although this isn’t a great photo, it gives an idea of the opulence of this floor of the tenement.

Behind this bedroom is the parlour.

The table was set for tea, which was fashionable at the time, with a silver tea service. The walls are adorned with portraits of the time, and there is a collection of good china in the cupboard. There’s an expensive carpet on the floor, and, just out of my photo on the left is a fashionable and costly grandfather clock.

The kitchen next to this smart parlour is, by contrast, gloomy and dark. There are often no windows in the kitchen, the only lighting being from the fire, though rush lights might also have been used at the time. As well as the fire and the cooking utensils, there is the servant’s pallet bed on the floor.

This was quite a smart arrangement as the bed could be shut away during the day. In poorer homes, the servant just slept on the floor, wrapped in a blanket.

The other item in the kitchen was the close stool - the lavatory.



This would have been emptied every day by the simple expedient of taking out the pot inside it and flinging the contents out of the door or a window. A law was passed preventing people from doing this during the day, so they has to do it at night - if they were polite, shouting ‘gardy loo’ before they flung it. (It’s from the French - gardez l’eau’. There were close links between France and Scotland). Careful people walked down the middle of the street at night to avoid a drenching or worse!

The last room was Lord Crichton’s study, with a desk like the one he would have used - he was in Edinburgh because of being involved in various law suits. 

I liked this photo because of a couple of items most of us no longer know about. On the floor to the left of the chair was the metal foot warmer, which could contain hot coals. It was portable; it had a chain attached so you could carry it from room to room or take it out in your carriage.

In the fireplace is the metal couvre feu (more French) or fire cover. You had to cover your fire with it when you went to bed so no sparks would escape to set the house on fire. From couvre feu we get the word curfew.

After this is was getting quite late so we caught a bus back to my friend’s house.