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The Picture
Here is an interesting
early engraving looking to the north from Bruntsfield towards
Edinburgh Castle. The steeple of
St Giles church can be seen
on the right-hand side of the picture. There appears to be a
glimpse of the Borough Loch in the foreground. The Borough
Loch was drained long ago.
The game being played
appears to be hurling, though some have thought it to be golf.
Thank you to John Burnett, author of books on early Scottish sport
who gave me the following advice:
"It is 99% likely to be
shinty. The game was certainly played by boys in Edinburgh
in the first half of the 19th century, and I think the figures are
supposed to be boys / apprentices / young men.
The lack of full teams is of
no consequence - games were often played with small
numbers until late in the century. Shinty was in fact common
in Lowland Scotland until c.1850 and I will add this.
The only minor problem is that
it's not a very good picture - in particular, only cricket was
played with bats which had long thick blades. Golf clubs sere
similar in shape (though not in materials) to modern ones, and
camans for shinty were similar but with a handle that was intended
to be held vertically.
Golfers of that period are
represented as older men, better dressed. But that leaves
the possibility that instead of being a not very good picture of
shinty, it's actually a bad picture of golf"
[John Burnett] |
