Edinburgh History - Old Town - Recollections of Buccleuch Street

Recollections - Edinburgh Old Town

Buccleuch Street

Thank you to George T Smith, British Columbia, Canada, for sending me a copy of an engraving of tenement buildings, telling me how the picture reminded him of a tenement stair that collapsed in the 1930s.

George wrote:

Collapsed Stair

"Peter: You may recollect that I wrote to you about the stair which collapsed leaving the inhabitants of a tenement having to hoist their" messages" by means of a basket and clothes rope until some repair was made. I was about six when it happened, say around 1937.

Imagine how my memory was jolted when I saw this engraving of Burns' Logging, Buccleuch Pend, taken from Picturesque Old Edinburgh by R L Stevenson. It appears Burns lodged there with a master at the High School; other sources say he was Burns' publisher.

My recollection is that it was situated directly across from the east end of Buccleuch Street where my grandmother lived and I think it was in an area called Sibbald's Entry or something similar (North side of St Patrick's Square).

I gather the property was demolished and the site was vacant for many years but it was recently redeveloped as a block of 21 flats."

Thank you to Bryan Gourlay for following up George T Smith's comments above, and for sending me details of an Ordnance Survey map, 1876. I have passed on these details to George.

Bryan wrote:

"The attached extracts from the 1876 Ordnance Survey Map confirm George's excellent memory of where Buccleuch Pend was."

Bryan Gourlay, Biggar, Lanarkshire, Scotland: August 22, 2006

Buccleuch Pend was in fact a continuation of Sibbald Place to the west, under one of the buildings on the eastern side of Buccleuch Street. Sibbald Place was the street that ran approximately to the west from the NW corner of St Patrick's Square.