User:CPClegg/Bristo

Toponymy
The name Bristo is first attested in the 16th century. An earlier name, attested from 1444 onwards, is the "Gallowgate", which William Maitland connected with the gallows on the Burgh Muir: the route to which would have passed through the gate. The name Bristo may be a corruption of "brewster" (brewer). The Society of Brewers was established in a building just north of Bristo Port in 1598. For this reason, the port was also known as the Society Port.

16th and 17th centuries
Bristo Port was one of six main ports (gates) of the Flodden Wall, completed as an extension of previous walls in 1513 and 1514. The Bristo, the street which led up to the port, was the main route into Edinburgh from the south. The construction of the Telfer Wall between 1628 and 1636 enclosed the west side of the Bristo and created a new area of open parkland within the city wall known as South Greyfriars Yard. This was enclosed to the north by the old city wall, which matched the southern boundary of Greyfriars Kirkyard, and to the west by the extension to the kirkyard now known as the Covenanters' Prison.

Inside the wall was a clearing of 12ft width and of 24ft width outside. This area was used for roads and paths and now matches modern Bristo Port, Bristo Place, and Teviot Place. Modern Bristo Port aligns with a stretch known as Thieves' Row.

From the late 16th century, the area east of Bristo Street was known as the Wester Croft of Bristo. The larger Easter Croft bordered it east of Potterrow. From xxxx, both formed part of Easter Portsburgh and, during most of the 17th and 18th centuries, superiority of the crofts was held by the powerful Touris of Innerleithen family. One of the first buildings in this area was a large house near the north west end of Lothian Street, which Alexander Walker disposed of to John Scott in 1677.

Within the angle of the wall which formed the corner of Teviot Row and Bristo Street, the city bedlam was erected in 1698. This building was also known as Darien House due to a belief that it was constructed as a headquarters for the Darien Company. The company was, however, based at Mylne Square near the Tron Kirk. In Walter Scott's The Heart of Midlothian, Madge Wildfire is confined to the bedlam. The site of Darien House is marked by a plaque at Bristo Place.

1700–1750
The Merchant Maiden Hospital, founded in the Merchant Company Hall in the Cowgate in 1694, was, by benefaction of its founder Mary Erskine, provided with a permanent school in the Bristo in 1706. This stood on Bristo Street, facing west to the city wall on the oppposite side of the street. To its rear was an expansive garden. Between the hospital and the city wall stood a coachin inn: The George. Established around the turn of the 18th century, the George was immortalised by Walter Scott as the headquarters of the title character in Guy Mannering. Scott also depicted George Roberston, real life robber and occupant of the inn, in The Heart of Midlothian. The inn ceased to operate some time between 1840 and 1845.

In 1751, a Secession congregation bought from Arthur Straiton an acre and a half of land on the east side of the Bristo to construct a new church and manse. This meeting-house was the first public place of worship to be established in the area.

In 1743, the Edinburgh Charity Workhouse opened in South Greyfriars Yard: on what is now the west side of Forrest Road. A new bedlam south of the old one opened in 1746 and a weaving school was constructed to its west in 1748. In addition to the substantial main building of the workhouse, separate east and west wings were also constructed. A pathway, in line with modern Forrest Road, ran between the adults' and children's workhouses to a postern in the city wall opposite Middle Meadow Walk. At this gate hung a donation box with the exhortation: "He that givethe to the poor lendeth to the Lord". In the new bedlam, poet Robert Fergusson died on 16 October 1774.

"Suburban village"
In the first half of the 18th century, the Bristo was, in James Thin's words: "a suburban village, composed of a few low houses on the east side of the road, while the west side was entirely open ground, only a few villas being scattered her and there between it and Bruntsfield Links. The Scottish aristocracy were clustering round this suburb." Notable inhabitants of Wester Bristo croft in the early 18th century included James Anderson; Walter Pringle, Lord Newhall; and Archibald Douglas, 1st Duke of Douglas. The asylums also incorporated a house which, in the early 18th century, had housed a prominent Quaker named Buntin. "The Earl of Rosebery’s house was in ‘Denham’s Land,’ Bristo. Around 1740, Ross House (also known as Park House) was constructed for George Ross, 13th Lord Ross. A compact, pedimented, neoclassical mansion, it stood in 24 acres of open parkland west of Bristo Street and was approached from Tevior Row via a long, tree-lined avenue.

The area just north of the southern tip of Wester Bristo Croft was, until the late 19th century, occupied by a group of 17th-century buildings known as General's Entry. Here Mrs M'Lehose, Burns' Clarinda, lived. The buildings were likely named for the residency there during the early 18th century of Major-General Joseph Wightman At the tip stood Dalrymple House, constructed in the mid-18th century for Captain Hugh Dalrymple.

Prior to the creation of Marhsall Street, the are was covered by two narrow thoroughfares: Middleton's Entry and Hamilton's Entry. Middleton's entry was begun in 1741 and soon after formed a street of well-to-do housing. Walter Scott attended the school of John Luckmore at Hamilton's Entry.

1750–1818
By the latter part of the 18th century, the aristocratic and suburban character of Bristo had declined. The the Merchant Maiden Hospital was now surrounded tall tenements and small-scale industry. One example from the early 19th century was the linen manufactury owned by Neil McVicar namesake and relative of the famed minister of St Cuthbert's.

In 1761, James Brown purchased the southern part of Park House's grounds to develop George Square south of Bristo. Brown left a gap in the northern side of the square to create an opening between the square and the house, allowing the house to retain its views of the Meadows. Latterly, the house was occupied by the generals James Lockhart (in 1787) and Alexander Mackay. In the 1790s, Park Place was developed to the west of the house and and Park Street. Around the same time, Park Street was developed to the house's north, creating a route between the house and the junction of Bristo Street and Teviot Row. the streets were developed with tall houses for wealthy residents. Lord Succoth, lord president of the Court of Session lived here next door to his daughter Susan and his son-in-law Craufurd Tait. The couple's son, Archibald Campbell Tait, who went on to become archbishop of Canterbury, was born at the house in 1811. Archibald Constable, Walter Scott's publisher, lived in Park Place at the end of his life. The maternity ward of the Royal Infirmary, founded by Thomas Young in 1755, relocated, under Young's successor Alexander Hamilton, to the house in 1793. There it was known as the Edinburgh General Lying-In Hospital.

In this period, the southern stretch of Bristo Street, around Charles Street, was, in the words of of Margaret Tait and William Forbes Gray, "dismal in the extreme". Thomas Carlyle lodged in this part of the street as a student while Francis Jeffrey was born in Charles Street. Walter Scott's greant aunt, Margaret Swinton, lived on Charles Street, where she was murdered by her maid during Scott's childhood.

By the late 18th century, the town council was taking an interest in improvements in Bristo. In 1785, a street roughly in line with the later Lothian Street was proposed; while, in 1793, the council discussed the widening of Bristo Street. By 1804, the north side of Lothian Street was comprehensively developed with the south side devloped by 1820. The girls of the Merchant Maiden hospital moved to a new school building in Lauriston in 1818.

1835–xxxx
The widening of Tevior Row in 1836 necessitated the demolition of part of the bedlam. Displaced inmates moved to the children's hospital while the cildren of the hospital moved to the former orphan hospital near the North Bridge. A lunatic asylum had opened at Morningside in 1813. This asylum was initially a private enterprise but an accommodation with the city allowed all poor lunatics to be transferred there from the Bristo by 1844. The bedlam was demolished around this time. By 1842, the house had to be sold. Black FIND IT ONLINE James Young Simspon kept it going through eight changes of location between 1844 and 1879, when it settled in Lauriston. It was named the Edinburgh Royal Maternity Hospital in 1846. Black FIND IT ONLINE

Forrest Road was laid out in the 1840s and named for James Forrest, lord provost of Edinburgh. In 1845, the town council took control of the workhouse from the board of managers only for it to be transferred to a new body, the parochial board, the same year. It was thereafter known as Edinburgh Poorhouse. With the construction of a new poorhouse at Craiglockhart, the Bristo site was vacated in 1870 and most of the buildings demolished the following year to make way for the drill hall at Forrest Hill. Only part of the East Wing, accessible from Forrest Hill, remains. The asylum was demolished along with Darien House in 1871. During excavations, workers found an ancient cemetery.

Park Place was demolished with the construction of the Reid School of Music to a design of David Cousin in 1858. Further encroachment came with the construction fo the Medical School (1880-1886) and McEwan Hall (1886-1897) to designs of Robert Rowand Anderson and Teviot Row Students Union (1887-1888, extended 1902-1905) by Sydney Mitchell and Wilson.

Migration from Ireland saw Edinburgh’s Roman Catholic population rise sharply in the early 19th century. To accommodate this, St Patrick’s Church on Lothian Street was constructed, opening on New Year’s Day 1835. After St Mary's Chapel, it was the second purpose-built Roman Catholic place of worship in the city since the Reformation. In 1845, a school for boys was established in the large schoolroom below. This moved to 25 Market Street (now the site of the Scotsman Steps). In 1873, the school, run by the sisters of mercy, moved to 260 Cowgate. From the opening of St Patrick’s in the Cowgate in 1856, the church was used solely as a school. After its period as a boys' school, the building was occupied by a girls' school, St Mary's, which united with St Ann’s and occupied the former United Industrial School on the Cowgate from 1903.

In 1835, a Baptist Congregation, which had previously met at a meeting-house on the corner of the Pleasance and Arthur Street, moved to a new chapel on Bristo Place. In 1846, a Congregationalist congregation purchased the Brighton Street Chapel, having been formed at the Roxburgh Street Chapel in the Southside two years prior. Though informally recognised as part of the recently formed Evangelical Union from its foundation, this status was not formalised until 1862. Under its first minister, John Kirk, the church became a prominent centre of the British temperance movement. By the 1890s, the congregation was finding the Brighton Street church inconvenient and began to seek a new home. The congregation purchased the church in Bristo Place during the ministry of Robert Craig (1885-1906).

20th century
In 1926, the building was given to the Franciscans as the church of a new parish, St Francis’. Bristo School replaced Potterrow School in 1877. It closed in 1934 and was demolished in the 1960s.

In 1927, the congregation changed its name from the “Scotch Baptist Church” to “Bristo Place Baptist Church”. In 1935, the congregation moved a new church on Queensferry Road at the Dean while retaining the Bristo name. A further Baptist churh opened at Marshall Street in 1877. Bristo Congregational Church united with Augustine United Church on George IV Bridge in 1940 with union coming into effect from 1 January 1941. On 7 November 1937, the last service was held at Bristo Church and the congregation was dissolved.

University development
In 1931, architect and planner Frank Mears reported to the university with proposals for a major realignment of the Southside to create space for new university buildings. Bristo Street would be retained, becoming the western terminus of the “College Mile”: a wide, avenue with central gardens aligned eas-west with Nicolson Square and stretching to a new Heriot Watt College on the Pleasance. Mears proposed the area immediately north of this and between Lothian Street, Potterrow, and Bristo Street would become the site of a large university library building.

With the second world war, the university moved away from considering development east of Old College and instead supported a more concentrated site. Following a series of “town and gown” meetings with the city council in 1945, the university instructed the city engineer to suggest a site for development. The proposed site included the north side of George Square at its southern limit with Potterrow and Middle Meadow Walk forming its eastern and western boundaries respectively. At its northern point, the area included the site at the corner of George IV Bridge and Chambers Street. As such, the proposed area almost entirely covered the Bristo.

In 1946, a further plan by Charles Holden proposed the comprehensive development of this site and George Square for the university. On the advice of Patrick Abercrombie, the proposals included the complete shutting off and removal of Bristo Street.

In 1966, the council marked the site between Crichton Street, Charles Street, Marshall Street, and Potterrow – bisected by Bristo Street – for clearance and zoned it for educational and cultural use. The university intended to use the area as a car park until a student centre and square could be built here. In 1969, Alistair Rowan, a lecturer in the university’s Fine Art Department, and his colleague Duncan Macmillan. Though the council’s demolition of the site proceeded, Clive Fenton notes the opposition as the beginning of an “ideological shift” in the university’s development in the area, concluding with the abandonmen, by the end of the 1970s, of further demolitions of old buildings.

With the demolition of much of the Bristo area in the 1960s, the population of St Francis’ parish was reduced by two thirds, from 750 in 1960 to 230 in 1970. In 1988, St Francis’ was absorbed into St Patrick’s, Cowgate. The building was then occupied by the Jericho Benedictines, who converted the upper sotries of the building into a hostel for the homeless known as Jericho House. This closed in October 2015.

In December 2008, the Hotel du Vin opened on Bristo Place. Brian Ferguson Scotsman 11 December 2008 Hotel du Vin cleared for GBP 10m St Andrews plan The Hotel du Vin occupies buildings used by the City Parochial Boards. After the parochial boards' supercession by parish councils, the city council sold the buildings to the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh in 1895 for use as laboratories.

Oddfellows Hall restored by Lee Boyd architects in 2006.

Park House: A two-storey, ashlar-faced villa of around 1740 with a central, projecting, pedimented entrance of three bays. Henry Mackenzie attributed the design to John Adam, who owned the house between 1756 and 1765; though it may have been designed by his father William.

Stephanie Black A Tradition of Excellence Robert Craig Brighton Street Church: History and Jubilee (1894) J. B. Fairgrieve Lord Cullen The Walls of Edinburgh: A Short Guide The Cockburn Association 1988 0950515914 Michael Henesy St Patrick’s, Edinburgh: 150 Years: A Celebration in Pictures (2006) St Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church, Edinburgh Charles Hope (dedicatee) An Historical Account of the Orphan Hospital of Edinburgh (1833) J. and C. Muirhead Jamieson, James H. Some Inns of the Eighteenth Century 121-146 BOEC XIV 1925 W.B.J. Martin Augustine-Bristo Congregational Church, George IV Bridge, Edinburgh: Triple-Jubilee Celebrations: 1802-1952 (1952) David MacDonald Margaret I. Smith Bristo Baptist Church Bicentenary: 1965 David Watt & Sons Simpsn, A. D. C. James Hamilton's 'Lying-in' Hospital at Park House and the Status of Midwifery Instruction in the Edinburgh Medical School BOEC 1994 3.131-141 Mary C. Parnaby The History of Augustine Church (1877-1941) and of Augustine-Bristo Church (1941-1977) Jonah Davidson Richardson Jubilee Handbook: Marshall Street Baptist Church, Edinburgh: 1896 (1896) T. Adams Lydia Skinner A Family Unbroken: 1694-1994: The Mary Erskine School Tercentenary History The Mary Erskine School 1898410607 John Watts A Tender Watering: Franciscans in Scotland from the 13th to the 21st Century Franciscan International Study Centre 2011 ISBN 9780954927271