The old house of the Chieslys still exists. It is a curious old
place with small projecting towers crowned with ogee roofs; but it
is almost concealed among the humbler tenements which thickly cover
that part of the estate, and is now a training school for Scottish
Episcopalian teachers. From the Chieslys, Dalry passed to Sir
Alexander Brand, who owned the neighbouring property of Brandfield
in the district of Fountainbridge. His house there has quite
disappeared, but its name is preserved in Brandfield Place, which is
built on its site. In later times Dalry belonged to the Kirkpatricks
of Allisland, and then to the Walkers, in whose possession it is now.
WALK VI.
Warriston--Caroline Park--Muirhouse--Lauriston
Castle--Cramond--Braehead--Cammo--Barnton--Craigcrook--Ravelston.
To-day we come to our last walk, which will take us past several
curious and interesting places. There is no more imposing and
majestic way for the traveller to approach or leave Edinburgh,
than the Queensferry Road, which is our choice to-day. The broad,
well-engineered road sweeps with an easy curve over the Dean Bridge,
passes the handsome stone houses of Buckingham Terrace, and in a
few moments more emerges into open country, without any of the
intervening hovels which generally encumber the outskirts of a
great town. We diverge from the main road at Comely Bank, and then
turn due north towards Granton. To our left hand is the property
of Craigleith, on which stands the massive pile of St. Cuthbert's
Poorhouse. It is far over-topped and outshone by its neighbour on
the opposite side of the road, Fettes College, founded in 1863 in
accordance with the will of Sir William Fettes, Lord Provost of
Edinburgh, to whom the estate of Comely Bank belonged. Bryce was
the architect, and at some future period, when the surrounding
plantations have grown up, it will look very well, but its solitary
position, at the top of an exposed ridge, gives it a bare and
comfortless appearance.
No old legends linger about either of these places, but about a
mile and a half to the east of us stands a house whose history is
too noticeable to overlook, though in the course of to-day's walk
we do not actually pass it. This is Warriston House, which stands
on a gentle eminence beyond the Botanical Gardens. It belonged once
to the family of Kincaid, cadets of the Kincaids of that Ilk in
Stirlingshire, and in 1600 it was the scene of a dreadful tragedy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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