Page:Annals of Duddingston and Portobello.pdf/35

4 statues, rustic seats, and jessamine-covered bowers. "Here,” we are told by the Rev. Mr Bennet, the minister of the parish at the end of last century, "many opulent citizens resorted in the summer months to solace themselves on one of the ancient homely dishes of Scotland, for which the place has long been celebrated.” Nor was it lacking in Royal patronage, for before the Union of the Crowns, when Scotland’s King dwelt on the other side of the hill, in his Palace of Holyrood, it was no uncommon thing, it is said, for James VI. to be found taking refreshment under its hospitable though humble roof. In token of some such favours, tradition has it that he presented to the landlord of the “Sheephead,” in the year 1580, an embellished ram’s head and horns which long adorned its principal apartment. The ram’s head referred to was one of a dun-faced breed which, though common in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh three hundred years ago, is now, if not extinct, very scarce. This curiosity, which seems to have been adorned with gold ornaments, found its way into the collection of the late J. L. D. Stewart, Esq., of Glen Ogil, Forfarshire, and on his death was, along with his other properties, sold in Edinburgh by Messrs Dowell in 1888.

From The Witty and Entertaining Exploits of George Buchanan (commonly called the King’s Fool). . . . Sold in Niddry’s Wynd 1781, we make the following curious extracts :—

P. 42.-“In a conversation with a nobleman about towns in England and Scotland, George saya :—‘I know one town [in Scotland] where there is an hundred bone bridges in it; another town where there is fifty draw bridges in it; another town where if a man commits [any crime] if he runs to that town and gets in below a stair no law nor justice can harm him.’ [The nobleman offered to bet £100 that there were no such places in Europe besides Scotland, and two men were sent to Scotland to test the truth of the story.] ‘The first [town] was Duddingston, near Edinburgh. When they came and asked for the bone bridges there, the people showed them steps almost between every door of the skulls of sheep heads which they used as stepping stones. The second was Auchterarder, where there is a large strand which runs through the middle of the town, and almost at every door there is almost a stock or stone laid over the strand whereon they past to their opposite neighbours; and when a flood came they could lift their wooden bridges in case they would be taken away, and these they called their draw bridges. The third was a village near Camburston [sic] which they past thro’ from the one end to the other, but there was not a stair in it all. So they returned to England and told what manner of bone and draw bridges they were, and how there was not a stair in all that place, therefore no man could run in below it.” Though now the sheephead broth may not be in much demand, the “Trotters’ Club” of Edinburgh Pressmen keep up the traditions of the place by periodical visits for a friendly game at skittles.