Part 18

Princes Street is perhaps even more like the Brighton Front in its well-dressed crowds and fine shops. With the sea in place of the Gardens and the Castle, the resemblance would be singularly close.

As for Calton Hill, that neo-classic eminence gives form and substance to Edinburgh’s claim to be the “Modern Athens.” Learning had not been unknown in the Old Town, where Hume and Boswell wrote; but, given air and elbow-room, it expanded vastly when the New Town was planned, and with the dawn of the nineteenth century, literature flourished exceedingly. This seems to have inspired the idea of emulating the capital of Greece, to the eye as well as to the mind. Accordingly a copy of the Parthenon was begun on the crest of Calton Hill, as a monument to the Scots soldiers who fell in the campaigns against Napoleon. It cost a huge sum and has never been completed, and so it has familiarly been called “Scotland’s Folly” and “Scotland’s Shame”; but doubtless looks a great deal more impressive in its unfinished state, in the semblance of a ruin, than it would were it ever finished. A variety of other freak buildings keep it company: the Nelson Monument, memorials to Burns, to Dugald Stewart, and to Professor Playfair, together with what the many “guides,” who by some phenomenal instinct scent the stranger from afar, call an “obsairvatory.”

Coaching days at Edinburgh ceased in 1846, when that sole surviving relic of the coaches between London and the North—the Edinburgh and Berwick coach—was discontinued on the opening of the Edinburgh and Berwick Company, completing the series of lines that connect the two capitals. It is true that passengers could not yet travel through without changing, for the great bridges that cross the Tyne at Newcastle and the Tweed at Berwick were not opened until four years later; but it was possible, with these exceptions, to journey the whole distance by train. The opening of the railway meant as great a change for Edinburgh as did the beginning of the New Town seventy years before. Just what it was like then we may judge from the drawing made from the Castle by David Roberts in 1847. The point of view he has chosen is that from the Mons Meg Battery, and the direction of his glance, omitting the Old Town on the right, is to the northeast. Changes in detail have come about since then, but, as a whole, it is the Edinburgh we all know: the Calton Hill, with its cluster of weird monuments, prominent; the New Town, stretching away vaguely to the water-side; while in the distance, on the right, is seen the shore curving to Portobello; the twin masses of the Bass Rock and North Berwick Law on the horizon. Down in the New Town itself the changes are evident. Where the toy train with its old-fashioned locomotive is crawling out of the tunnel under the Mound, and where the old Waverley Station is seen, alterations have been plenty. The old North Bridge pictured here has given place to a new, spanning the ravine in three spans of steel. Beyond it are still seen the smoked-grimed modern Gothic battlements of the Calton Gaol, but the huge new hotel of the North British Railway has replaced the buildings that rose on that side of the old bridge, while the towering offices of the _Scotsman_ occupy the other, all in that florid French Renaissance that is the keynote of modern Edinburgh’s architectural style. The Scott Monument stands where it did, not, as David Roberts’s drawing shows us, among grounds but little cared for, but amid gay parterres and velvet lawns. The Bank of Scotland has been rebuilt and all the vacant sites long built upon; evidences these of half a century’s progress, the direct outcome of those railways that two generations ago wrote “Finis” to the last chapter in the romantic story of the Great North Road.

[Picture: Skyline of the Old Town]

INDEX.

Aberford 74–76, 82

Alnwick 174, 186

“Andrew Mills’ Stob” 113

Asenby 84

Aycliffe 107

Ayton 208

* * * * *

Bagby Common 59

Bambrough Castle 190, 192

Barkston Ash 68, 71

Barwick-in-Elmete 76

Belford 189

Belhaven 216

Beltonford 216

Berwick-upon-Tweed 191, 196–202

Birdforth 58

Birtley 135

Blagdon 166

Boroughbridge 82

Bramham 79

Bramham Moor 76, 79

Brotherton 66–68, 74

Browney Bridge 116

Brownyside 189

Broxburn 212

Burnmouth 208

* * * * *

Causey Park Bridge 172

Chester-le-Street 133–135

Clifton, Yorks 52

Clifton, Northumberland 167

Coaches—

Edinburgh Mails 55, 68

Edinburgh Express 55, 83

Glasgow and Carlisle Mail 82

“High-flyer,” London, York and Edinburgh 28, 55, 68

Leeds Mail 75

Leeds and York Stage Coach 77

“Rockingham,” Leeds 75

“Union,” Leeds 75

“Wellington,” London and Newcastle 55, 62, 68

Coaching Accident 116

Coaching Notabilities:—

Alderson, Dr. 67

Holtby, Tom 98

“Nimrod” 76–79

Coatham Mundeville 107

Cockburnspath 210–212

“Conundrum” 202

Coxwold 59

Craigentinny 230

Croft 92–95

Cromwell, Oliver 107, 212

Croxdale 115

Cunecaster 133

Cuthbert, Saint 66, 119, 124, 126, 190

* * * * *

Dalton-upon-Tees 92

Darling, Grace 190

Darlington 96–107

Darrington 65

De Quincey, Thomas 104

Dintingdale 69, 70

Dishforth 84

Doncaster 62

Dunbar 212–216

Dunglass Dene 214

Durham 118–131

* * * * *

Easingwold 54–56

East Linton 216

Edinburgh 231–255

Elections 29–32

* * * * *

Fairborn 75

“Farmers’ Folly,” The, Alnwick, 174, 184, 186

Felton 172

Ferrybridge 65–67

Ferryhill 110–112

Fisherrow 228

Flemington 207

Framwellgate, Durham 130

Framwellgate Moor 131

* * * * *

Galtres, Forest of 51, 54

Gateshead 152, 154–156

Gladsmuir 222

Gosforth 166

Grant’s House 209

Great Smeaton 88

Grizzy’s Clump 191

* * * * *

Haddington 219–222

Haggerston Castle 192–195

Halidon Hill 207

Hambleton Hills 58, 59

Harlowgreen Lane 138

Heiferlaw Bank 187

Hell’s Kettles 85

High Butcher Race 115

High Entercommon 88

Highwaymen:—

Boulter, Thomas 22–24

Hazlett, Robert 154

King, Tom 16

Nevison, John 19–22

Tate, Andrew 115

Turpin, Dick 14–19

Holy Island 189–191

Hook Moor 75

Houndwood 208

* * * * *

Inns (mentioned at length):—

“Angel,” Ferrybridge 67

“Angel,” Wetherby 80

“Arabian House,” Aberford 75

“Bay Horse,” Skelton 53

“Bay Horse,” Traveller’s Rest 108

“Black Swan,” York 27, 28, 29

“Blue Bell,” Went Bridge 65

“Comet,” Croft 95

“Crown,” Boroughbridge 83

“Etteridge’s,” York 27

“George,” York 27

“Golden Lion,” Ferrybridge 68

“Golden Lion,” Northallerton 61

“Grant’s House” 210

“Gretna Green Wedding,” “Traveller’s Rest” 107

“Greyhounds,” Boroughbridge 83

“New Inn,” Allerton 82

“New Inn,” Easingwold 55

“Old Fox,” Brotherton 68

“Old Fox,” Wetherby 80

“Plough,” Alnwick 177

“Red House,” near Doncaster 63

“Rose and Crown,” Easingwold 55

“Spa Hotel,” Croft 92

“Spotted Dog,” Thornton-le-Street 59

“Swan,” Aberford 75

“Swan,” Ferrybridge 67

“Walshford Bridge Inn” 82

“Wheatsheaf,” Rushyford Bridge 109

“White Horse,” Edinburgh 234–236

“White House,” nr. Easingwold 55–58

“York Tavern,” York 27

Jock’s Lodge 230

Joppa 228

* * * * *

Kirk Deighton 82

Knavesmire, York 15, 32, 52

Kyloe 191

* * * * *

Lamberton Toll 202–207

“Lambton Worm,” The 132

Levenhall 222

Little Smeaton 89

Lovesome Hill 88

Low Butcher Race 115

* * * * *

Macmerry 222

Malcolm’s Cross 188

Martin, Jonathan 14, 42–51

Merrington 112–114

Metcalf, John 83

Micklefield 75

Morpeth 167–173

Musselburgh 227

* * * * *

Neville’s Cross, Battle of 123

Newcastle-upon-Tyne 154–166

Newsham 84

Newton-on-the-Moor 174

“Nineveh,” or Claro Hill 82

Northallerton 59–62, 84

North Charlton 189

North Otterington 84

* * * * *

Old-Time Travellers:—

Calderwood of Coltness, Mrs. 129

Defoe, Daniel 172

Derwentwater, Earl of 116

Eldon, Earl of 109, 160

Evelyn, John 63

James the First 96

Jeanie Deans 230

Johnson, Dr. 61, 202

Macready, W. J. 207

Montagu, Mrs. 187

Sterne, Rev. Laurence 59

Thoresby, Ralph 84, 116

Old-Time Travelling 77–79, 88–91, 97–103, 155, 199, 232–237

* * * * *

Partinghal 208

Penshaw Monument 131

Percys, the Dukes of Northumberland, 178–186, 138–152

Phantassie 216

Piershill 230

“Pity Me” 132

Plawsworth 132

Portobello 229

Prestonpans, Battle of 222, 224–226

* * * * *

Railways:—

Edinburgh and Berwick 104, 199, 254

Great Northern 104

North British 104, 255

North-Eastern 104, 115, 196

Stockton and Darlington 98–100

Rashelfe 58

Richardson’s Stead 195

Robin Hood’s Well 63

_Rob Roy_ 97

_Roderick Random_ 138–152

Ross 208

Runaway Marriages 203–207

Rushy Cap 172

Rushyford Bridge 109

* * * * *

Sand Hutton 84

Saxton 70, 72

Scott, Sir Walter 97, 123

Scremerston 195

Seaton Burn 166

Shaftholme Junction 104

Shipton 54

Skelton 53

“Sockburn Worm,” The 93

“Sockeld’s Leap” 116

South Otterington 84

Sunderland Bridge 115

Standard, Battle of the 87

* * * * *

Tadcaster 68, 71

Thirkleby Park 59

Thirsk 59

Thormanby 59

Thornton-le-Street 59

Tollerton Cross-Lanes 54

Topcliffe 84

Towton, Battle of 69–74

Tranent 222

Traprain Law 216

“Traveller’s Rest” 107

Turpin, Dick 15–19

Tweedmouth 196

* * * * *

Walshford Bridge 82

Warenford 189

Warrener’s House 172

Went Bridge 65

West Barns 216

West Thirston 172

Wetherby 80, 82

Wide Open 166

Woodham 108

* * * * *

York 1–52

York Bar 62