Old Recollections of Stirling, Part 2
At the top of St John Street the tenement with the inside spiral stair, on the right hand in descending, is Bogle Hall, supposed to stand for Bothwell Hall, the lodging of the Earl of Bothwell 38. Further down the present gaol, recently converted into a military prison, was
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38 This house , the prison and the Erskine church mentioned lower down the page are all described in Gifford G and Walker F A, 2002. The Buildings of Scotland: Stirling and Central Scotland, Yale University Press, New Haven.
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constructed about the year 1845 39. Previous to that time the rear portion of the Burgh Building facing to St John Street was used for the incarceration of prisoners, the access to the prison being at the side in the Jail Wynd, with the police cells in the basement behind. Just opposite was an old house belonging to the Gibb family, tenanted by our relations the Miss Chisholmes. Opening out of one of the rooms on the upper floor of it was a small projecting turretted apartment, with a window looking to the Carse of Stirling, a view which, young as I was, at an age when children usually pay no heed to scenery, greatly impressed me with a sense of its surpassing loveliness on a fine sun-lit summer day. From the windows looking across the street to the gaol, I often watched the debtors, who were confined on the upper floor, fishing with a bag, usually a stocking, attached to a long string and let down to the pavement below to receive contributions for their comfort bestowed by their personal friends or other charitably disposed individuals, among which if there was a bottle of whisky, it was not objected to nor prohibited. In those old days, amid much harsh treatment of prisoners, now unknown, there was at the same time a good deal of laxity and even lenity in some respects. The old house was disposed of by my uncle, Mr Gibb, to the Erskine Church Congregation 40, in order to its being taken down for the purpose of widening and improving the access to the church from the street. I have been told that the site for this church known then as the Back Raw Kirk—the first church of the Secession of which Ebenezer and Ralph Erskine were the leaders—was given to them by one of my ancestors of-the Gibb family, probably my maternal great-grandfather. At the foot of St John Street, where the five-light lamp post now stands, was a flight of stairs—the Braid Stairs—that led down to the junction of the Bow and Baker Street. At the foot of the stairs was one of the public wells from which Stirling was formerly supplied with water, and in frosty, weather there was always there a notable slide that required no little courage and dexterity to venture on it, being so difficult of negotiation, owing to the rapidity of the slope on which it was made. Nearly twenty five years ago the building at the top of Baker Street called the Mint,
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39 Actually 1847.
40 This congregation built the Erskine Church (later Erskine Mary Church on the site; it is now the Youth Hostel.
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just below where the well stood, was taken down, the Braid Stairs removed, and the present slope formed.
I do not know who is answerable for having had the name The Bow 41 so aptly descriptive of the sudden bend in the main access to the upper part of the town, changed to Bow Street. I feel indignant at all such assaults on our fine old Scottish language, alas gradually decaying too rapidly. "Bow street" indeed ! Of all appellations one of the most. unhappy, suggesting comparison with the too widely known London Street reeking with all its associations of detected criminality. A similar instance of vulgarity, although not quite so offensive, presents itself in the alteration of Friars' Wynd, that so suitably represented the character of the narrow winding street, to Friars Street. Whoever made and advocated the ill - judged alterations can surely have been neither intelligent or leal.hearted Scotsmen and as surely deserve the fate apportioned by Sir Walter Scott to the man who was not imbued with right patriotic feeling of descending to his grave, "unwept, unhonoured, and unsung" 42
Before the erection of the High School 43, Spittal Square, commonly called Cowane's Yard, was an open space, with the Burgh Schoolhouse, a very plain two-storeyed building, at its western end facing to Spittal Street, and on the south side the Flesh Market. On the north side was a row of lime trees, that, schoolboy as I was, were to me in their summer beauty a source of great admiration. The remembrance of that charming row of limes is the most pleasant of my old associations of Spittal Square. Often, as I pass the spot, a picture forms itself in my mental camera of a sunny afternoon when, sitting at my task in the arithmetic and writing school, which was on the upper floor, I stole many a furtive longing glance through the windows thrown up to let in the cool air—for through the haze of years it seems to me as if all summer days were then warm—on the lovely tender green leafage as it moved to and fro in the gentle afternoon breeze. Sometime early in the '30's we had an epidemic of that now well known and justly dreaded disease,
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41 Dr Galbraith would have rejoiced to hear Bob McCucheon still calling it The Bow (which he pronounced 'Boo') about 20 years ago.
42 The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805) canto 6, st. 1.
43 The former High School (1854-6) and extended later, is now the Stirling Highland Hotel on Spittal Street/ Academy Road - again see Gifford and Walker.
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influenza, the first that I have personal experience of. When after a severe attack of it I was able again to go out of doors, my first walk, with very shaky footsteps, led me up to Cowane's Yard, and I very well remember thinking that I had never seen anything so lovely of the kind as the tender green of these lime trees, then just coming into full leaf at the call of early summer. The trees had to be sacrificed when the High School was built, and then, too ,the road to the Back Walk was considerably widened by blasting away a quantity of the rock. Before that alteration was made there stood at the corner of the Square next St John Street a building called the Reservoir, in which was stored. the water brought from the Touch Hills for distribution to the public wells, that were situated in different parts of the town. Beneath the Reservoir was a recess where the public fire-engine was kept. The stones that formed the doorway of this recess—hewn in Scottish style like those in the entrance gate of Argyle Lodging—were, when the reservoir was taken down, carefully laid aside, as I have been told, by the judicious prevision of Provost Rankin and Dr Forrest, and when the recent addition to the High School was being made the architect, the late Mr M'Laren, gladly availed himself of them for the doorway entering from Spittal Street, of which they form a peculiarly characteristic ornamentation 44. Mr Leslie Neilson informs me that he was told by his father that these same stones once formed the doorway in a wall that stood where now are the iron railing and the gateway by which access is obtained to the Guildhall and Churches from the top of St John Street. Ladies attending balls in the Guildhall complained of having there to get out of their carriages and walk the remainder of the distance; the wall was therefore removed, and the stones were transferred to the Reservoir. In a niche over. this door at the Reservoir for many years reposed the figure of the unicorn sejant that now forms the finial of the Mercate Cross, as restored on 24th May, 1891, by the munificence and public spirit of our late most capable and distinguished Provost, Robert Yellowlees, being the only portion surviving of the old original Cross, that was removed, as encumbering the Street, some time towards the end of last century, when Town Councils had less regard for the preservation of, old historic
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44 This doorway is still there.
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structures than, fortunately, they everywhere now display 45. When the Reservoir was taken down the unicorn was removed to a similar niche over the stair leading to the Court Rooms in Broad Street, and there rested till it was placed in its present appropriate position; While it remained at the Reservoir the unicorn, or "puggie," as we schoolboys called it, presented only too tempting a target for that favourite amusement of boys, stone throwing, and consequently, was constantly being pelted by them. I have no specific recollection of participating in the perpetration of this indignity to the emblem of Scottish sovereignty, but I have no doubt I must have often thus tried the accuracy of my aim with a stone. There was of course for us the palliation that we did not recognise its heraldic signification. For myself, however, it was a great gratification when, at the restoration of the Mercate Cross, I had the high distinction conferred on me, one of which I am very proud, of being selected by Provost Yellowlees, in conjunction with Mr Mouat, to unveil the Cross now surmounted by the royal unicorn, for I seemed then to be making some atonement to it for my boyish misdeeds.
On the south side of Spittal Square, as I have said, was the Flesh Market, an enclosed parallelogram with covered stalls all round. In these days there were no butchers' shops in the town, and the meat supply was provided only here on Friday, the weekly market day, by the various butchers who rented these stalls, most of them coming in from the country for the purpose 46. It was thus necessary for families to lay in a week's supply of butcher meat, a very inconvenient arrangement, looking to the impossibility of calculating what unforeseen demands might be made on it in course of the week, and in hot weather to the difficulty of keeping the meat from becoming tainted. As to the poorer classes, who could not be in circumstances to lay in a week's supply, I suppose they did very much without butcher meat.
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45 The progress of civic concern for historical integrity has been rather more erratic than Galbraith might have expected and Stirling has suffered more than its fair share of losses, which continue to occur with tedious regularity. That said, happily the unicorn ("The Puggy") is still to be found in Broad Street albeit not where it was placed in 1891.
46 The issues raised here about the supply of meat and the Fleshers monopoly are discussed by DB Morris, 1920. The Incorporation of Fleshers of Stirling, Transactions of the Stirling Field and Archaeological Society, 43, 9-44.
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Yet the men and women of that generation were capable of quite as hard work as their descendents, toiled longer hours, and appeared to be no less healthy or shorter lived. Our butchers came from Bannockburn, two brothers, who afterwards had a shop in the town when the weekly market system came to an end. The elder of the two died not so many years ago, a good while after I returned to settle down in Stirling. I have known much anxiety pervade the domestic circle on a Friday of deep snow lest the Kerrs' cart would not be able to reach the town, and, the journey being effected only with the greatest difficulty with the help of an additional horse to drag the laden vehicle through the deep snow. The first butcher who set up a shop in the town for the sale of meat on all days was John Dick. His right to do so was contested by the incorporation of Fleshers, but after being carried to the Court of Session the case was decided in Dick's favour. I believe his shop was in Friars' Wynd. Opening out .of the market was the slaughter. house, a place we boys, attending the burgh schools, were specially forbidden to visit, a prohibition which seemed to enhance our attraction to it to witness the horrors of the blood-shedding and the agonies of the slaughtered animals.
The schoolhouse which stood at the upper end of the Square, was a very plain two storey building, each floor having one large apartment lighted by windows on each side, with two small rooms—" the back rooms "—at one end. The English school was on the ground floor, taught by Mr Weir, irreverently called "Bubbly Jock, 47" a repetition now of his nickname, by which there is no probability of offence being given to any one now living, for I never heard mention made of any relations be may have had, or that he left any behind him. He was unmarried, and I rather think was one of the elders of the West Church congregation. He lived in one of the tenements of Allan Park House, at the west end of Port Street. Naturally his methods of teaching were not those of the present date. They were carried out with a very, liberal application of the tawse, in connection with which it was for us a fortunate arrangement that in the schoolroom there were iron posts supporting the floor above, to which
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47 A bubblyjock is a turkey cock and clearly describes the bubbling call of the birds.
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we used to resort after receiving our scults, clapping our hands on them to relieve the burning heat of our stinging palms by the cold of the metal pillars. How dry and dreary were our reading books in those days with their uninteresting tales, their heavy poetry, their extracts from Shakespeare, Milton, Addison, the Spectator, the Rambler, &c., little calculated to engage the attention of youthful minds, and certainly not intended to provide for them any amusement, compared to the series of appropriately illustrated volumes, with their well chosen stories,. their useful and interesting information on so many and various subjects, their tuneful poetical pieces that are in use in our elementary schools now. If no royal road to learning has been discovered, at least the path has been made smoother and more attractive, a much less dreary and rugged track than that which my youthful feet were forced to tread. I recollect a curious custom at Mr Weir's of the whole school reciting the, reading lessons in union in a loud peculiar kind of chant, whose tones, when I think of it, seem now to ring in my ears. What would a school inspector of the present regime think were he to open the door and come upon a congregation of scholars engaged in this strange performance, like the intoning of a hymn to the God of Learning or Teaching? I believe his horror-struck aspect would amply justify the appellation of "the spectre," commonly applied to him by the children. Beyond reading, I don't think I acquired very much at Mr Weir's. There were no wall maps for object lessons in that school. My acquaintance with geography was merely book learning committed to memory. As for the grammar that was then taught, I am glad it was not that unnecessarily intricate system, quite foreign to the natural simple construction of the English language, that has been elaborated by pedants to puzzle the brains of the young folk of the present generation. At the same time, I must say I did not acquire a competent knowledge of English grammar until I came to learn Latin, which is the key to it. One subject which, however, the masters did not profess to teach, I easily and unconsciously learned during my attendance at the Burgh Schools—viz., a knowledge of the vernacular Scottish language, which I was compelled to use under threat of corporal chastisement by my schoolfellows; on the other hand, at home I was reprimanded if I allowed Scotch expressions to escape my lips. I have always congratulated myself on this
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practical acquaintance with the native Doric that I thus obtained, as enabling me rightly to understand and thoroughly to enjoy our Scottish literature and Scottish humour. With the spreading invasion of the English dialect I doubt if the children now attending the High School gain any such useful familiarity with their native tongue. Boys and girls were taught during the same hours at Mr Weir's.
Above the English School was that where writing, arithmetic, book-keeping, and mathematics were taught by Mr Peter MacDougall 48, more generally known by his familiar cognomen of Patie, a man of very considerable note in his day, and a very capable teacher, whose success in sending out well trained arithmeticians and model caligraphists was made known to the farthest quarters of the globe by many of his pupils who proceeded thither for the prosecution of mercantile or professional pursuits. He was the author of a class book on arithmetic, a pretty thick octavo volume, which was a good standard work of its time. Patie was well up in years before I came under his discipline, and I believe my mother, before me may have been one of his scholars, for, as he used to tell us, he had been teaching from the time he was fourteen years of age. He was a sturdy Highlander from Hell's Glen on Loch Goil. He, too, was an elder of the West Church. His dwelling was a flat on the first floor situated in a close in St John Street, the third close on the left hand going up the street. Patie was a man of much character and marked individuality, with many peculiarities in the exercise of his functions as a schoolmaster, that, however, out of harmony with the scholastic requirements of the present time, met with no disapproval in .his day, and were not considered in any respect unbecoming his position at the head of a public school. I can picture him now, as we lingered too long at our games on the playground, standing, cane in hand, at the door of the little back court that gave access to the stair leading up to the schoolroom, watching for the first little group of boys that banded together to run the gauntlet, and striking among them without any special selection as they rushed past. Up the stair we tore at full speed, the school began to fill, and the next part of our performance was to set to screeching at the fullest pitch of our shrill voices, keeping it up until Patie, blazing with fury
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48 For Peter M'Dougal see Hutchison, 1904, 160-168.
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and breathless from his hasty ascent of the stairs, appeared at the door. Then a sudden hush, quite startling in its effect after the ear-piercing yells, fell on the whole of the school, and as if by the touch of a magician's wand every head was bowed in studious abstraction over slate and book, while Patie came swiftly up the room distributing cuts. with the cane right and left on all whom he could reach with it. That afternoon was not a happy one for us. Seated in his high armchair—the chair with its folding footstool is still preserved in the Rector's department in the High School—placed at the top of the central passage up the school, Patie sat watching us the whole afternoon, as he used to say, "like a cat watchin' a moose." Woe betide the boy who ventured to raise his head and look about him, or whispered to his neighbor, or out of tricks "dunched" him with his elbow. Patie was up in a moment, and with an activity wonderful for his years and his somewhat portly figure, swiftly pounced on the offender, and rained on his shoulders a series of rapid cuts with the never failing cane. He was ever ready to show his faith in the aphorism of sparing the rod and spoiling the child, and was not always strictly just in practical demonstration of it. Often after caning a boy he would say, "That's for yer ain sake, noo I'll gie ye anither for yer faither's sake,." Sometimes when he was in no very placid mood he would single out some boy who had been giving no apparent cause of offence, "As I was comin' to the schule this mornin' I met yer faither, and he tell't me to gie ye a guid lickin'. Come oot here and I'll dust yer jaicket for ye." I have known a boy to be thus dealt with, who had neither father nor mother alive. With all this liberal application of the rod it might be supposed that Patie was harsh and cruel in his school discipline, but we boys, who were surely good judges in the matter, did not think so. No doubt he was imperious in his rule, and we stood a good deal in awe of him. At the same time we did not hate him as a tyrannical master, on the contrary to a great extent he won our affection, we respected him, and were in a way proud of being under his sway. I must say we tried his temper by our many schoolboy tricks. One was to drop the roe of a salt herring into the fire, where its long continued crackling greatly irritated Patie, while he was powerless to put a stop to it, and unable to single out the culprit for punishment. Or, a dog would be slily introduced, and when the cry was raised, "There's a dug in the schule," "Pit him oot! Pit him
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oot !" a grand commotion was excited, with pretentious appearance of trying to expel the intruder, some boys all the while guarding the door to chase the animal back when he came too near the way of exit. And after all the pain caused by the cuts of the supple cane, modified as they were by the clothes that intervened between it and our skins, was very evanescent, and trifling in comparison with that inflicted on the bare palm by the thick, yet flexible tawse. Often, moreover, a boy, forewarned that he was to get a caning, provided for it by inserting a copy-book under his clothes over that part of his body supposed to be specially adapted for receiving the strokes of the rod, and thus protected yelled only more vigorously-as they descended on him, very soon inducing Patie. to leave off the harmless castigation. For Patie. was really a kind-hearted old man, and plied the cane from truly conscientious principles, and not merely for the sake of giving pain. Many a boy, particularly if he pleased him with his writing, received as a reward a quarter of a hundred of quills, for, of course, in those days steel pens were not yet known, and when they were beginning to come into use Patie never took to the " airn pens." . The art of making and mending a pen was therefore necessary accomplishment. I can fancy I see Patie shaping pens for the younger boys with three pairs of spectacles perched on his nose to aid his failing sight. Often he was in a genial mood, and entertained us with accounts of former pupils who had excelled as caligraphists. Two young men of the name of Forrester, specimens of whose writing he used to exhibit for our admiration, were specially held up to us as patterns to be imitated. Many of his sayings were quaint enough. "Aye! ye mind the day, but ye dinna mind the oor," as some laggard would slip in noiselessly, and take possession of the nearest vacant seat. "Aye! Mr Cummin, but ye're lang o' cumin." The girls attended at a different hour, viz., during the interval from 1 to 2 o'clock that we had from school, and thus Mr Macdougall seemed to be teaching continuously from 9 to 4, long hours for such trying work. A common punishment for a girl that misbehaved was to be kept in for a short time among the boys. She was placed at " the first table" at the head of the school, to which I had in due course been promoted. There we found the unfortunate girl with her head down on the table, her face hid by the poke bonnet that was then the female headgear. "Aye! There's a nice young gentleman, George Galbraith,
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to sit beside ye; he'll be polite to ye." I am sorry to say that our attentions were not of a very polite character, consisting mostly of attempts with our pens and slate pencils to raise the bonnet and see what face it concealed. The detention was never for any length of time, and permission being given, the strayed dove fled swiftly out of the school.
I was rather a favourite with Patie, chiefly because I along with another boy had gone in for learning geometry, for which I displayed rather an aptitude, readily passing over the pons asinorum 49, and being able to demonstrate the 47th Proposition of the 1st Book of Euclid without a mistake. Patie had, a good opinion of a boy who could learn "Mathematics," but what sorely tried him in my case was my crabbed handwriting "Man George Galbraith, ye can learn mathematics, but ye canna write. Ony blockhead in the kintry can learn to write, but your writin's like a man wi' a roosty nail. It's jist like a hen scartin wi' its tae." A recollection of my very poor attempts in those days compels me to admit that Patie's similes were apt enough On a Saturday he has taken my fellow geometrician and myself down to the Abbey Ferry, and there given us lessons in measuring the height of Cambuskenneth Belfry Tower on the other side of the river by the angles taken with his theodolite. Returning home he took us to his lodging, and there regaled us with cake and Alloa ale, a very potent beverage as is well known, served out to us fortunately in a moderate quantity in old-fashioned ale glasses, resembling the old champagne glasses that preceded the cup shaped vessels now used. Although I was thus in a measure a favourite with Patie, I did not escape the lash of his sarcastic remarks. One day I took up to him a sum on my slate which he pronounced to be "A' wrang," spat, on the slate, wiped it with his cuff, wrote down some figures, and told me to go and work out the sum in that way. This I did, discovering at the same time that I had been right, and that he was wrong. When I presented the slate again, not recognising his own figures blurred from having been written where the slate was still moist with his spit, he accosted me with " Whaur's my feegurs," "These are your figures, Sir," "Ye're a leein little rascal. Thae's no my feegurs. Go and sit at the Long Table," a position of disgrace
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49 Pons asinorum - Literally 'The Bridge of Asses', the phrase was applied generally to a test which divided the clever from the not so apt or, more specifically, to an ability to understand various geometrical theorems.
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in such circumstances. And then he began his tirade on me. Pacing up and down the school, and from time to time giving me a dig under, the ear with his knuckles as he passed, "I'll tell ye aboot this George Galbraith. Ae' day his faither, Captain Galbraith, a very dacent gentleman, cam to me and said, 'Mr Macdougall, I'm goin' to put my son George to your school. George is a good boy, he'll give ye no trouble.' Look at the good boy a Ieein' little rascal, that ribs oot my feegurs, pits in his am, and then tells me they're mine. There's the good boy for ye Look at him!" and so on and on. Dear old Patie I often lamented that, dying while I was abroad, I had not on my return the gratification, like many of his old scholars, of paying him my dutiful and grateful respects.
The late Mr Duncan MacDougall, mathematical master in the High School, a teacher held in high estimation and great respect, was his uncle's assistant, "helper," as we called him in my school days. When I became a member of the School Board, and was thus in a sense one of his masters, thinking of how many years had passed since I had been under his disciplinary control, and looking to my own scanty white hair, I used to marvel at the abundant raven locks without one silver thread that still graced Duncan's head. A younger nephew, Peter, also for some time assisted in the school.
In the earlier years of my school days a curious custom was observed of bringing a present of money to the masters on Candlemas Day, the 2nd of February. I recollect that my father's donation used to be half-a-crown to Patie, eighteen pence to Duncan, which I suppose was the average for persons in his position in society. One boy used to bring a sovereign for Patie, but he was looked upon as an exceptional boy in this respect. The children of poorer parents, who could not afford to make this free will offering—for there was no class division of rank in school attendance in those days—did not appear at school that day, and after the collection of the tribute, the remainder of the day was a holiday. I suppose the custom represented some old Roman Catholic Church observance.
At Patie's, our battle ground was what we called "between the twa hedges," near the Lower Walk, now represented by the little lane to the west of the Episcopal Church ground 50. Here it
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50 Now Clarendon Road, it is just below the High School down the steep slope of the Back Brae.
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was common to decide a dispute by a fight "owre a bonnet," a cap being held at arm's length by a couple of boys to prevent the combatants coming into close grips in the contest. The challenge was "I'll fecht ye atween the twa hedges," and when we were let loose from lessons at 4 o'clock, thither the whole school rushed down with whoop and halloo to witness the pugilistic duel.
The playground was the vacant space in front of the school called Cowane's Yard, extending down to Spittal Street, the flesh market wall on one side, the row of lime trees on the other. It seems to me that the games of schoolboys are not now what they were in my time. One that was common then was Scotch and English, on the principle of the modern tug-of-war—rather destructive to clothes, particularly as regarded the buttons of our jackets. I do not notice it being played now. Neither do I see the boys with peeries, which were much in vogue in my time. It was an ambition to be possessor of a peerie with a steel "shod," to be used as a weapon of offence against the other peeries 51, like the steel spur of the game cock. The games with marbles, or "bools," also are changed. Our principal one was "bool in the hole," one that required a good deal of science. I fancy I could almost yet enjoy a game of bool in the hole. We had also "winny, 52" a name that speaks for itself, but that was not so much played. The boys now appear to me to have no real game of skill with marbles, only one in which the sole object is to become possessor of the others' bools, and football and golf seem now to replace our old athletic amusements.
Still descending from the upper part of the town, Spittal Street, except for modern improvement by widening in some places, and the erection of the Industrial School now occupied by the girls, and of the very commodious Allan's School that now replaces the old structure, which had fallen entirely behind modern scholastic requirements, remains to appearance much in the same condition as it was. In those days the Roman Catholics met for worship in "an upper room " of one of the tenements on the left hand, now a workshop. Some
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51 Spinning tops.
52 win-and-loss, a game of marbles in which the winner keeps his gains and does not return them to his opponent (Dictionary of the Scottish Language).
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of the members of the congregation walked in from long distances, owing to the great paucity of Roman Catholic places of worship in the district in those days. The members of that communion in Stirling were very few, even among the lower class. A prominent member of the congregation was Mr Duncan M'Nab, writer. There was also ' Mooshy" M'Nab, as we called him, a gentleman who had been brought up and had lived in France, whence, as I understood, he had escaped during the troublous time of the great Revolution. He lodged in Queen Street, and there taught French. He was my preceptor in that language. There was, later on, also Mrs Macdonald, a widow lady, who came to reside in Stirling with two daughters. The Priest was Father Paul MacLauglan, who served at the altar in Stirling for many years, a most amiable and worthy man, and universally respected. Some twenty years ago he was removed to the charge at Doune, and died there. The chapel in Irvine Place, which owes its erection chiefly to his zealous exertions, was opened for divine service on Trinity Sunday, 1838 53. Baker Street looks also much the same. At the foot of it, on the site now occupied by the Bank of Scotland, was the Saracen's Head Inn 54, the entrance door looking up the street. Over it, or at the corner of the building—the former according to my recollection—swung a sign according with the name of the hotel in representing the half length figure of a fierce warrior in eastern costume wielding a mighty scimitar. The Post Office was on the other side of the way, where it begins to be called King Street, in very mean premises situated up a close. It is somewhat curious to note the various changes of accommodation that most useful of public departments has experienced since then 55. From the close referred to it was removed to the late Mr Shearer's shop, which was on the opposite side of King Street to that which he afterwards moved to, now occupied by his son and successor. The late Mr H. S. Shearer's uncle was then postmaster, next to the
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53 This original chapel was replaced by the modern St Mary's on Upper Bridge Street but the building survives, with many changes.
54 The south east corner at the top of Fryers Wynd, the former bank building is still there.
55 For the various moves see Clarkson, W.W., 1981, Postal History of Stirling, published by the Author, Falkirk;
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premises in Murray Place in which the grocery business of Lennox & Co. is now carried on; again, further along the street to what is now the shop.—also a grocer's—of Yates & Co. Lastly, the house was purchased at the north end of Murray Place, which after nearly 20.-years of occupation has just been pulled down to make way for the erection of a more commodious building, in which we look upon the Post Office as to be at length permanently established—a position, I must say, by no means so central or convenient for access as could be desired 56. As to the outside postal work, I think there used to be two deliveries daily, which were overtaken by the postman, David Bell, single handed, carrying the letters in a small japanned tin box under his arm. His progress in the delivery was much retarded by his having so frequently to wait to receive the postage for letters not prepaid. Here I would like to recall the fact, that, when a uniform rate of inland postage was introduced, the Government did not at once adopt Rowland Hill's proposal of penny postage; but, being no doubt timid as to the great loss of revenue which they feared would follow on such a sudden and bold reduction, fixed it at four-pence. Anyone who could have prophesied what the result was really to be would probably have been regarded as visionary, or perhaps as actually insane on that point. The fourpence rate was not long continued.
King Street did not then present the well-built aspect it now has. On the west side the ground rose up steeply from the pavement below, and a number of the tenements on that side, about the middle of the street, were only low thatched houses. I think it was in the year 1824 that a very destructive fire took place here. It broke out in Mr John King's joiner's shop, and burned the greater part of three closes. After that began an improvement in the style of building, until King Street gradually came to assume its present well-built stately appearance. The eastern portion of Port Street, "The Port," was in those days so narrow an entrance way to the town, like the neck of a bottle, that, encountering the mail coach, or other vehicle, one was fain to seek refuge in a doorway or close mouth to escape being run over, or at least well "jauped " with the. mire that particularly abounded there in moist weather. At the west end of this contracted part was a stream open to view on the right hand, passing
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56 Only in quite recent years has the site on Murray Place, near the top of Maxwell Place, been converted to a pub and the Post Office moved to a location within a shop in the Thistle Centre.
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under the street, as it still does, and re-appearing on the other side, and there stone confined in a cut channel, was made use of by a firm of dyers for washing their yarn. Here one or other of the much respected partners might any day be seen astride of the stream, with bare arms dyed to the elbow of the brightest hue, according to the colour being used, rinsing the newly dyed yarn. In the wider part of Port Street on the south side, and near the commencement of Pitt Terrace was Sawers' Inn, a hotel of some pretensions, now converted into shops and dwelling fiats, but still cognisable by a porch with a pillar on each side that formed the entrance. It was the starting place of the Defiance, a four-horse coach that ran daily to Edinburgh. This coach was for sometime horsed by Mr Ramsay of Barnton 57. On the opposite side, in one of the tenements composing Allan Park House, resided, until he built two villas in Allan Park, and went to live in one of them himself, my uncle Dr Galliers. He was a retired army surgeon, and had served in the same regiment with my father, the Royal Scots. He had seen much active service in the Peninsular war, and was present at the battle of Waterloo. My aunt accompanied him to Belgium, and I have heard her speak of her having the day after the great battle ridden over the field in search. of her husband. When George IV. visited Scotland in 1822, all over the country demonstrations with flags, floral decorations, &c., were made to testify the loyalty and joy of the people. My uncle prepared with his own hands a placard resplendent with some glittering powder adherent to it, and inscribed in large letters G.R. IV., which he displayed outside on the wall of the house. While he was watching what effect this loyal chef-d'oeuvre would produce on the passers-by, the worthy doctor was greatly disconcerted by overhearing one of the country folks, who were flocking in to view the decorations, after gazing for a little at the placard, say, with a puzzled air to his companion, .G RI V "Griv! I wunner wha's Griv!"
From this end of Allan Park out to Laurelhill there was not a house until the late Sheriff Sconce built the one now occupied by my namesake, our respected Town Clerk, and I recollect that surprise was then expressed at the Sheriff building his house so far out in the
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57 Ramsay was a well-known figure in Stirling and closely involved with the Stirling Races; Barnton Street is named for him.
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country. I believe that the oldest house in Allan Park is that which was built by Dr Dobbie, afterwards acquired by my father, the one that is seen at the top of the road looking up from the Black Boy. The one last built is the adjoining one, Mrs Ellis', erected by Mr Henderson, writer, after we came to live in Allan Park. An attempt was made to change the name from Allan Park to Wellington Place, and the latter designation was put up for a time at the Back Walk extremity of the Street, but, I believe for political reasons, "Wellington" being taken as representing Tory opinions, the alterations did not meet with sufficient favour, and the old name held its ground.
The gusset of ground enclosed with the Black Boy fountain in the centre, then a vacant space, was the mustering ground of the Stirling Troop of the Stirlingshire Yeomanry 58, where they used to assemble before proceeding to the King's Park for drill with the rest of the regiment. There were five troops, the Stirling, Falkirk, Kilsyth, Campsie, and Culcreuch troops. The ranks of the country troops were filled mainly by farmers and their stout stalwart sons, mounted on strong agricultural horses, one inducement to join the Yeomanry being that the charger was exempt from the Government tax. The members of the Stirling Troop were of various occupations and professions, several of them, as I remember, writers 59 in the town (our Town Clerk's father, and predecessor in office, was one of the, officers, and, if I mistake not, Mr David Chrystal's grandfather was a sergeant), and their horses were of a finer and lighter stamp. The uniform was a short scarlet jacket and blue overalls, with a helmet furnished with horse hair. I do not recollect how long the annual training lasted, but I think it must at one time have been over a week, as I have some recollection of seeing yeomen in uniform in church on Sunday. The annual calling up of the Yeomanry was a considerable boon to the town, as many of the men were billeted in, it, and their horses put up in the stalls of the vintners and other available stables. The time when they were out naturally provided a good deal of excitement for the boys. Apparently we did not hold them in any great respect or, awe, for we were always ready to salute them with their nick-name of "Soor Dock Geordie."
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58 The Yeomanry were volunteer cavalry regiments - as they had to provide their own horses many were farmers or small landowners, officered by wealthier men.
59 Here used as the Scots term for what is now called a solicitor.
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This by no means complimentary epithet referred to the habit these rustic cavalry men had, on being dismissed from their morning drill, of making for the milk carts, then busy in the streets distributing the morning supply, and indulging in copious draughts of buttermilk; or "soor dook," to cool their heated frames 60. The regiment, during its existence, had the rare experience (for auxiliary troops) of a kind of active service, for it was called out to assist in putting down the Radical rising that took place in 1822 61, What active part these Yeomanry took in the conflict at Bonnymuir I never heard, but they were employed in escorting to the gaol in Stirling those who were made prisoners on that occasion. It is not uncommon now to hear those, who were tried and sentenced for their participation in this seditious abortive insurrection, spoken of as martyrs who were harshly dealt with for giving utterance to political opinions that are now widely entertained, and openly proclaimed without any restraint or fear of punitive consequences, some of the changes then demanded having indeed been since legalised by Parliamentary enactment. But this seems to me to be a misapprehension of the facts, for these misguided men were tried and awarded various degrees of punishment, not on account of their Political tenets, but for the illegal action they resorted to for giving effect to them 62. Apart from the beheading, which is not in accord with the more humane sentiments of the present age, no Government, whatever might be its political complexion, could with safety have shunned the duty incumbent on it of sternly repressing the ill-judged and mischievous rising, and bringing to justice the foolish men who were so endangering the maintenance of public peace and order by congregating in arms—even such wretched and contemptible arms as they were—against the constituted
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60 Sour dook was butter milk; the Dictionary of the Scots Language gives other examples of the phrase being used to tease the yeomanry.
61 The correct date is 1820. Baird and Hardy, mentioned above, were executed in Stirling for this role in the 'Bonnymuir Rising' (see eg Mair, C., 1990. Stirling; The Royal Burgh, John Donald, Edinburgh, 189-192. The yeomanry, particularly the lairdly component, were very active in the repression.
62 Baird and Hardy in Stirling (and others elsewhere) were executed and their corpses decapitated; others were transported to Australia. Lord Cockburn, the eminent mid 19th century Scots judge, commented that, of course it was treason - but so was an old woman charging at a cavalry regiment.
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authorities of the realm. I cannot tell when the regiment was disembodied, but it must have been before the Queen's first visit to Scotland in 1842, for some former members of the corps, as I am told, turned out on the occasion of her coming to Stirling—when my father, as Provost, along with his Council, awaited her arrival at the Bridge, and presented to her the keys of the town—to form a guard of honour to Her Majesty, but without uniform or accoutrements. The annual period of training wound up, as is usual in such cases, with the Yeomanry Races held in the King's Park.
Older, I believe, than the Yeomanry Races were the Chapmen's Races, which came off once a year, also in the King's Park, the chapmen being a society composed chiefly of merchant traders of the town. In olden times, as I understand, these Chapmen were the pedlars who travelled through the country districts when communication with the towns, owing to bad roads, was rough and tedious, in order to bring their wares to the doors of the scattered rural population. A chief event in the Chapmen's Races was riding at the ring, in which the competitors, furnished with a long rod, riding at a certain speed, tried with it to carry off a small gold ring lightly suspended above from a sort of arch, so as to be easily detached. The winner held possession of. the ring for a year, when it was again competed for. A very successful jockey at these races was named Dobbie, and in our schoolboy play each of us was ambitious to represent "Dabbie." In the old days the course followed the edge of the high ground above Pock's and Garrow's Wood 63, a track well calculated to put the wind as well as the speed of the horses to the test. A new course, keeping on the flat, having been made, the Stirling Race Meeting was instituted, and was continued for a number of years, until, owing to growing opposition to them on the part of the inhabitants—stirred up very much, it was said, by the zeal and activity of the late Mr Peter Drummond—these races were put down, a consummation that must be approved by all who reflect on the evil adjuncts that seem to be inseparable from a race meeting.
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63 Pocks Wood is the one on the cliff face between Kings Park Farm and Homesteads; Garrows Wood on the south side of the park, behind Douglas Terrace and St Thomas Cemetery, again to Homesteads.
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There was formerly—and indeed when I left Stirling in 1841—no Murray Place issuing from the foot of King Street, although, besides by the way of King Street and Friars Wynd, the lower end of the Wynd could be reached by passing through the coach yard of the Golden Lion Hotel, by "Gibb's Entry," as it was called, the site of which is now occupied by Mr Shearer's shop. The hotel was more commonly, from the name of the landlord, called Gibb's Inn. Mr Gibb was a remarkably quiet looking man of spare habit, who passed most of his time working in a garden at the lower end of the Back Walk, the ground on which Allan Park Church has since been built and did not appear to concern himself about the management of the hotel. That was very efficiently attended to by Mrs. Gibb, who, with her portly figure, blooming countenance and active bustling manner, presented the beau ideal of a most capable landlady. Through the coach yard access was obtained to a lane through garden ground, part of which bore the name of Spring. Garden, that followed the course of Murray Place as it now is. One could also get to this lane from the foot of King Street by the way of the Dirtin Tide, a collection of the sewage that came down the surface sewers, or "sivers" from the upper part of the town, gathered there, and gradually found its way to the adjacent Burgh Mill dam 64. This unsavoury malodorous "stank" —suggestive word—occupied what is now Orchard Place. I do not know when the Mill Dam—fed chiefly by the Town Burn coming from the direction of Easter Livilands, and crossing the lower part of the Craigs—was filled in. The site of it is now chiefly occupied by the vinegar work. The mill still stands, and the upper portion of it has been utilised as a smithy for the Gas Work. The coach route passing through Stirling to the North was in some parts very narrow and tortuous, viz., by Port Street as I have described it, up King Street, down Friars Wynd, along Viewfield Street to Cowane Street,, and so on to the Old Bridge, which with its high centre
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64 Long known as the Dirt Raw, this street (and area) had been the conduit for the town's sewage for centuries; the dirtiness certainly contributed to the fact that, until the late eighteenth century spread into the suburbs, better-off people favoured the upper part of the town. See Harrison, J G., 1999, Public Hygiene and Drainage in Stirling and other Early Modern Scottish Towns, Review of Scottish Culture 11, 67-77.
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arches and very limited width was itself a danger for any fast travelling vehicle. The New Bridge 65, after being about a couple of years or three in constructing, was opened for traffic, I think in 1831 . Much as it was needed to facilitate intercourse between the north and the south, Stirling being the first point from the Firth upwards where the Forth was bridged, the erection of this new bridge was at first strenuously opposed by the County gentlemen of the neighbouring districts, some of whom to avoid the expense of a new bridge would have preferred some scheme for improving the old bridge. When we lived in Queen Street it was one of our common evening amusements during the construction of the bridge to walk down to the scene of the operations and watch the process of driving the piles within the area of the large coffer dam. This pile driving was done tediously by manual labour. Now, of course, it is effected with marvellous rapidity with the help of powerful mechanical arrangements. I recollect the laying of the foundation stone with pompous, masonic ceremonial, on which occasion there was an imposing procession of public bodies and societies of the town and neighbourhood. The schools took part in it, and I well recollect, as a small boy, one of Mr Weir's scholars, marching with a small tin medal suspended by a blue silk ribbon round my neck. It seems to me as if the masonic tune of "The Merry Masons," as we styled it, played by so many successive bands on that day, never afterwards entirely ceased to vibrate in my brain.
Viewfield Place was a nursery garden cultivated by Mr Peter Runciman, who lived in the old-fashioned house at the east end of it. He had a seed shop at the foot of Broad Street. He was one of those who were distinguished by a nickname, being called Paiddle Runciman, from a peculiarity in his gait owing to his having rather large splay feet. After his death Viewfield House was occupied by his brother Dr Runciman, a retired naval surgeon.
Before the formation of the road from York Place to the new bridge, the Cow Park extended from behind Cowane Street down to the river. Since then it has been so cut up and altered by
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65 The New Bridge is the Stevenson Bridge, still the main link from central Stirling to the north side of the Forth and areas such as Causewayhead and Bridge of Allan. The Stevenson Bridge was completed in 1833 (Mair, Royal Burgh, p. 168-9).
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railways and roads and buildings that its very name has fallen into abeyance, and I suppose most of the present generation would be puzzled if asked to say where the Cow Park is. The name indicates the use to which it was put, viz., for pasturing the cattle belonging to the town, and especially the cows that furnished the milk supply. The park was a very pretty and attractive place, intersected by a number of tall hawthorn hedges, useful to the cattle as a shelter from sun and rain, separating it into different divisions with free access from one to the other. Often have I in the summer school holidays rambled there through its grassy glades. Up to the time of my leaving Stirling, Queen Street was only very partially built. On the east there were several gaps, and on the opposite side the only houses were four or five at the foot of the street. Above them was a whinstone quarry, and the rest of the ground was used for vegetable gardens, one of which was cultivated by my father when he occupied the house at the top of the street on the other side.
St Mary's Wynd—(when is it to be called St Mary's Street ?)—is not much altered. A few better tenements have replaced thatched cottages at the foot of the street. The Marykirk is quite a modern addition 66. The upper part of Queen Mary's Lodging 67—so called, for I do not know that there is any record of its having been occupied by Mary—was taken down when, through age, it had become unsafe. My recollection is that over one of the windows were initial letters and a date of the 17th century. The Episcopal Schoolmaster's house belonged to my ancestors, the Gibbs, and in it my father and mother were married. In my younger days it was occupied by Mr Robert Campbell, grandfather of our townsman, Mr James Campbell, banker. At the top of the wynd, on the right hand, just before emerging into Broad Street, a doorway looking down the wynd, with a few steps in front, gives access to a stair that led up to the premises of the old Stirling Bank, an institution that collapsed in the year 1826 68.
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66 The Mary Kirk stood on what is now a small public garden space above Cowane's House. See Elsdon, S.M., 2004, Christian Maclagan, Stirling’s formidable lady antiquary, Pinkfoot, Balgavies, 13-14.
67 Better and more correctly, Cowane's House; see Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, 1963, Stirlingshire, 298-300. It was only partially demolished and now survives as a stabilised ruin.
68 This building, one of Stirling 's saddest losses, had been the Forrester of Logie Lodging. The door and stair mentioned, at the foot of a square tower, had originally given access to a substantial 'great hall' of sixteenth century date. It is briefly described (with photographs) by several of the antiquarian writers; see also Harrison, J. G., 2000. Building and re-building the urban scene in early modern Stirling, Scottish Local History, 48 13-16.
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Upper Bridge street, with the exception of some little addition at its lower end, is also just as it was. The Right Rev. Dr George Gleig, Bishop of Brechin, and incumbent of the Episcopal Chapel in Viewfield Street, lived in one of the houses on the south side of the street, a very modest mansion for a Bishop's palace, although perhaps not altogether out of keeping with the humble ecclesiastical position occupied by the Episcopal community in Stirling when their first church was built a hundred years ago.
I am old enough to remember very well when the Streets were lit with oil lamps, and a familiar object, as evening drew on, was the "leerie" hurrying along with his ladder and flaming torch to set them alight. The rhyme with which we children greeted him still adheres to my memory, "Leerie, leerie, licht the lamps; lang legs and crookit shanks." The amount of illumination these lamps shed around was faint indeed, not sufficient to disclose the irregularities and puddles of the roadway between each. They did not serve much more than to guide passengers on their way, as the lighthouses that stud our coasts enable the mariner by the bearings he takes of them to steer his course up or down the channel in a dark night. The illuminant was train oil 69, then greatly more abundant than it is now that the cetaceous tribe in Arctic seas have been so sadly decimated by the whalers. It was used also in kitchens to burn in very small lamps, whose feeble glimmer must have sorely tried the eyesight of those who ventured with its aid to engage in sewing work; but I think the servants then were more given in their spare time to ply the spinning wheel than the needle. In the dining-room and parlour, candles were burned—of tallow for common use—requiring constant attention to snuffing, an art one had to make some study of to acquire the requisite dexterity. How vastly more favourably are we situated now where gas is not available, with paraffin oil and candles to resort to, so cleanly to handle, and so brilliant in the light they afford, compared to the dim illumination of the rancid train oil and greasy "mutton fats" of former days. A story was current while oil lamps were in use for street lighting, that the sailors of Russian ships that came to Leith used when on shore to climb the lamp-post, blow out the light and suck up the
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69 Obtained from whales and seals.
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oil as a delicious dainty that they were accustomed to in their own northern country. Gas was introduced into Stirling in 1826. I recollect the first night the town was lit with it. People were out in the streets as they would be now at an illumination. I remember one or two of the fancy devices of lighting in some of the shop windows to attract attention—for instance, in a shoemaker's at the foot of Baker Street, the gas jet issuing from a spur on the heel of a boot, and in a tobacconist's in King Street—I think it must have been Snuff Wricht's—the bust of a negro with a cigar in the mouth, the jet of gas from which alternately shortened and lengthened to suggest the act of smoking. Many people were timid at first about introducing the gas into their houses, being apprehensive of its reputed highly explosive qualities. My father, who for many years took a very active part in the management of the gas company—services which the shareholders recognised by presenting him with a handsome silver salver—was one of the first to take the gas into the house. The price of the gas was at first fixed at 15 shillings per 1000 ft., just four times what we are now paying.
I have already incidentally alluded to the water supply of the town as being furnished by the water being first conducted from the Touch Hills to the Reservoir in St John Street, thence to the public wells that were distributed in the streets in what were supposed to be the most convenient positions for the inhabitants. I think there were not more than half-a dozen of them in all, if so many. There was no domestic supply to houses, such as we now have, and for which, I believe, we are mainly indebted to the zealous and persevering exertions of the late Dr Forrest 70. There were private wells attached to some of the dwellings in the lower parts of the town. I know there was a pump well in our garden in Allan Park that yielded a plentiful supply of clear sparkling water, also a small stream at the foot of the garden, in which we used to catch minnows. That was before the formation of a regular system of drainage for sewage, when such purling streams were utilised as sewers, and the wells became polluted through soakage. The-inhabitants in general were obliged to store in their houses the water drawn from the street wells, usually in stoups--a deep wooden vessel, narrower towards the
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70 Forrest was, indeed, keenly involved in public health issues; for an obituary see Stirling Observer, 27 March 1879.
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top, which was crossed by a wooden handle. In carrying a couple of these stoops a hoop, or "girr," was commonly made use of to keep the stoops away from the limbs. Two stoupfuls being thus carried at once were. called "a gang" of water. In summer, when frequently the supply ran short, the water was let into the wells at a certain hour for a limited time, and it was necessary then to procure a supply that would last for twenty-four hours. Naturally there was a rush of the housewives and servants to the wells at the hour the water was let on, and even before in anticipation of it. The attendance on these occasions was regulated in an orderly and methodical manner, each expectant taking her place as she came in the long queue (as our French neighbours call it), that extended many yards down the street, and gradually advancing to the well until it came to her turn to fill her stoups. There was thus no undue crowding, or jostling, or wrangling; except, perhaps, in the rare case of some tricky lass who would take advantage of the inadvertence of one who had left her stoups unwatched for a little, and, shifting them to her own less forward position, would substitute her own in their place. The servant lasses did not altogether dislike these drawings of water, or object to their time being expended on them when it might have been usefully employed at home in other household duties, as it afforded them good opportunities of exchanging the clash of the day with those congregated there.
The conditions of domestic service were in those days very different from what they now are. In the first place, servants, once they were settled in a situation, did not readily think of making a change, unless, perhaps, it was a matrimonial one, but remained for years in the same place, even assuming the name of the family with whom they lived, and dropping their own, so that Kirsty M'Gregor, Janet M'Niven, Bell Black, Annie Stevenson, were better known as Kirsty Sutherland, Janet Galbraith, Bell Boyd, Annie Lucas, &o. How different now, when the restlessness of our domestics incites them to such frequent changes that they remind one of the shifting of the slides at an exhibition of views with the lime light. With this fixity of tenure the relationship between mistress and maid was naturally of a much more cordial and kindly character than what now obtains. At the same time it did not give rise to
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any undue familiarity, the former retaining her legitimate authority, and the maid not presuming on her mistress's condescension, nor lifted up with the notion that some of the girls seem now to entertain that Jane is good as her mistress. This showed itself in the style of dressing. The ordinary dress of the kitchen lass was the shortgown—a body, I believe, it would now be called—without skirt, and woollen petticoats; while the cap, or mutch, was a more capacious, but less ornamental, headdress than the badge of her honourable occupation now worn by the domestic servant. For best clothes there was no attempt, by a study of the fashions of the day, to imitate those above them in social position. Neither, of course, did they claim the title of that much misused word "lady." In these respects I think the old ways were better than the new. Women of the lowest class are now-a-days—at least by their fellows—styled ladies, and I think we should, for distinction's sake, resort to the good old English appellation of "gentlewoman" for those entitled to it. Wages were of course much lower, perhaps about a third of what we give now. At the same time the work was more exacting; yet I think not less willingly and cheerfully performed, perhaps even more so. I remember a curious task that used to be laid on the servants, one that the girls would now very properly scorn to execute. There were in those days of free beggary, and absence of a Poor Law system, a number of cripples, at least of self-called cripples, who travelled over the country in hand barrows, and the servants were expected as I have often seen them do, to pass them on from door to door in their quest of alms, the servants in adjoining houses helping each other, if need were, in carrying the barrow a stage further along the pavement. Thinking of this curious phase of mendicancy, I am puzzled as to how his progress was continued when the cripple arrived at the extremity of a town or village with a stretch of road destitute of houses. I was too thoughtless in my young days to think of this difficulty. Possibly he just took up his barrow and carried it on himself.
In those days of no proper police organisation every town had several daft creatures who roamed about the streets, most of them harmless imbeciles some viciously inclined and dangerous at times, tolerated by the inhabitants as objects of compassion, too often teased and irritated by the boys. Stirling had its quota of these characters. Fumler Lawrence, who was
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minus a leg, belonged to the more dangerous class, as he would sometimes, poising himself on his remaining limb, administer with his single crutch, or "stult," a vicious blow to some unoffending passer-by. He would also burst into a kitchen and terrify the maids. Daft Pate, a little stooping man, whose prognathous countenance favoured the Darwinian theory of descent from a sirnious ancestor, was a harmless creature, attired in a soldier's castoff red coatee. He attended all funerals. His favourite haunt was about the Apothecary's Hall in Baker Street, then kept by Mr Kirkwood, where on a fine day he would be seen stretched at length on the pavement basking in the sun. He had no turn for any active occupation, and when roused from his dose and asked to do some light job, his reply was—" Oh I Am thrang i' noo." Before the formation of the railway system, which by presenting facilities for easy and rapid inter-communication has revolutionised the civilized world, and is now extending its influence even over regions deemed to be entirely without the pale of civilisation, the modes of travel on land were in comparison slow, irksome, and expensive. For journeys of any considerable length there was the four-horse coach, carrying four inside passengers and about a dozen or fourteen on the top. The smartly appointed four-in-hand, with its amateur driver and guard and passengers, which occasionally passes through the town on a summer day, serves to keep up a remembrance of the old stage coach. Along the mail routes from London there was the royal mail also available, with the guard and the driver attired in royal scarlet, carrying in like manner four inside, but, on account of the guard who sat on a seat alone, fewer outside, all at a higher rate than by the ordinary stage coach. The accommodation being limited, it was customary, in order to avoid disappointment, to book places at the coach office one or more days before that of the intended journey, thus securing the right to a seat. Hence the name of booking office has been transferred to the place where tickets are taken at the railway station, although, of course, there is no hooking of places there, the choice of seats in the carriage being arranged according to the rule of first come, first served. I have known instances of Colonial friends, who had gone abroad before railways had become common, and had come home for a visit to "the old country," when about to take a railway journey, propose going to
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the station the day before to take out tickets and so secure their seats. The title of guard, applied to the conductor of the railway train, is also taken from that of the official whose duty was originally to act as a protector against highway robbers. Another instance of association between coaching days and railway travelling might be noted in the form of the first class carriages, which at first were fashioned on the pattern of the stage coach. I recollect such was the case on the London and North Western Railway when I made my first journey to London in 1840, and even within the last twenty years, I have at times, on country branches, seen some of these antiquated coaches form a component part of a train, when, I suppose, there was a deficiency of respectable looking carriages available. The fares by the stage coach and the mail were considerably in excess of the rates at which one now travels by train in circumstances so much superior as regards both speed and comfort and what added to the expense was the fee that had to be handed over to the driver, and to the guard, when there was one. A remains of this objectionable exaction may be found in the coaching portions of the circular routes arranged by railway companies. Besides, the mail there were at least two stage coaches that passed through Stirling—" The Fair Maid" from Glasgow to Perth, which changed horses at Gibb's Inn; "The Soho," and after it "The Defiance" from Sawers' inn, which connected Stirling with Edinburgh, and I am told also with Perth, although my memory does not serve me for that. Miserable enough it was in bad, and especially in severe winter weather, travelling outside, making futile attempts to stimulate the circulation of the feet by continual stamping with them, to the great annoyance of the inside passengers in the compartment below. I can think now, on the occasion of coming home from the Edinburgh classes at the Christmas recess, of the clambering down with difficulty from the top of the Defiance, and, on attaining to the ground, being scarcely able at first to support myself on my temporarily paralysed limbs.
Instead of going all the way by road to Glasgow, a route commonly taken advantage of was by coach to Lock 16, near Castlecary, thence by canal to Port Dundas, its termination in Glasgow. My earliest recollection of the canal boat is of a large decked craft which was tugged along by a couple of horses at a rate of between three and four miles an hour. One left
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Stirling early in the morning and reached Glasgow some time in the afternoon. That would scarcely accord with our present notions of travel. The heavier boat was supplanted by a long, low, narrow boat with an arched roof, or tilt, of painted canvas, just high enough for one to stand upright under it, and a low seat on each side all along. In the centre of the boat was an uncovered space for luggage, that also made the division between the cabin and steerage passengers. These "fly-boats," being so long, light, low, and narrow, were drawn by the horses at a much accelerated speed, and it was considered quite rapid travelling. I recollect on my first journey to London I set out at 7 a.m., reached Glasgow, by the canal in due course, spent the rest of the day there, at night went on board a steamer for Liverpool, whence next morning I continued my journey by the London and North-Western Railway, and finally arrived at Euston at 4 p.m... I considered it a matter for boasting to say that I had breakfasted in Stirling the previous morning. What a change to the facilities of the present day, when at far less cost. in a comfortable, almost luxuriously fitted compartment, with infinitely less fatigue, one can accomplish the same journey in nine or ten hours without even a change of seat.
The favourite route to Edinburgh up to the time of my leaving Stirling was by steamer down the river. There must be a good many yet alive who remember Captain Gentles, the genial skipper of the "Lady of the Lake." As now, it was necessary then to study the tide for access to Stirling shore, but when it was not full tide the steamer often anchored in the reach on the other side of Cambuskenneth—" the back of the Abbey," as we called it —to receive and disembark passengers, who were conveyed from, or to the shore in a large boat towed by men walking along the river bank. This was not an agreeable part of the passage, particularly after arrival at the back of the Abbey in the darkness of night. The voyage in the steamer was usually greatly enjoyed. Being performed in a leisurely manner, opportunity was afforded for partaking of the good substantial meals that were provided on board, to which the fresh air on the river gave zest. I have a lively recollection of the savoury cutlets of kippered salmon that often appeared at the breakfast meal. The landing place was the Chain Pier at Newhaven. This was before the formation of the dock at Granton, the opening of which I remember, in 1838, when I was still attending the classes at Edinburgh. The pier, with its wooden stair slippery
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with marine ooze, was a risky place to disembark at after dark, with the aid of a lantern or two, that rather confused than enlightened, and especially for the passengers who had partaken of dinner and other refreshments by the way. I never knew, of an accident there, but I have seen one or, two hats floating at the pier, the temporary loss of which was apt to be associated with some unsteadiness in the heads they had lately been covering.
Speaking of the Stirling steamer reminds me how differently on one's return to home after visiting foreign climes, one sometimes regards objects and scenes around which one had been brought up. While waiting for admission into the Army Medical Service, I made a voyage to Madras as surgeon of an East Indian trader. The ship—a sailing one, of course—was of respectable size, for those days, although very insignificant in comparison with the leviathans that now traverse the seas. The Captain having been an officer in the old Company's marine, she was handled somewhat in man-of-war fashion, the orders in working the ship being executed to the sound of the bo'sen's pipe. When I again stepped on board the steamer at Granton I was surprised to see what a very small craft she was, and in pacing the deck to find it was just, as the sailors say, "three steps and overboard." But the climax came in the style of making sail, when the Captain —not Captain Gentles by the way—called out to one of the hands, "Hay! Wullie, rin and lowse the jub." In like manner, returning from long residence in Australian colonies, where eucalypti and other forest trees attain gigantic proportions, growing to a height of 300 and even 400 feet, I got quite a shock in again looking at the fine elms and ashes that enhance the beauty of the western approaches to our town, and involuntary exclaimed, "Trees ! Why these are but bushes." I am glad to say that in the time that has since elapsed I have learned once more to admire, and justly to appreciate the fine proportions of these noble trees with their luxuriance of leafage, and varieties of tints, charms in which the Australian trees are deficient. For the smaller towns within shorter distance of Stirling, such as Dunblane and Falkirk, there was a public vehicle called a noddy. My recollection of its construction is not very clear and I cannot find anyone who can help me in it, but I believe the noddy was just a square box on wheels, made chiefly of leather for lightness, entered from behind as in the bus although I
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think there must have been some variations of structure, for according to my memory the Falkirk noddy had two compartments, the posterior of which was called the basket. It seemed to me that the noddy owed its name to its lively action on the springs when in motion. I recollect an Irish friend, who paid a short visit to Stirling, saying that the items in his hotel bill that particularly attracted his attention were "noddy" and "toddy "—I rather think a good many repetitions of the latter.
For a trip to the country in far back times a cart provided with sacks and stuffed with straw for seats was a mode of conveyance by no means despised by our simple seniors. In my days of juvenility for a country excursion a very favourite vehicle—one that seems now to have entirely gone out of existence—was the drosky, a kind of double gig, seated for four. Many a well remembered pleasant day have I had with a happy party in a drosky. In my young days old Scottish annual observances were kept up that are now mostly entirely disregarded. Hallowe'en was a festive occasion universally observed, with pulling of kail stocks, dookin' for apples, burning of nuts, &e., and we boys always managed to have a turnip abstracted from a field, to be hollowed out, a face shaped on it, and lighted with a bit of candle inside. Hogmanay gave us much excitement on account of the guisers, who went from house to house giving representations of the quaint play in which "Goloshens 71" was a principal character. We had the rhymes by heart, and often did my brothers and I rehearse the piece among ourselves. These guisers were well grown young fellows, and generally dressed suitably for the parts they were to play. On my return from abroad I found the old custom in a state of decadence, and it gradually dwindled until a couple of urchins with blackened faces, and a night shirt over their ordinary clothes, offering "to sing ye a sang for a penny," came to represent the troupe of guisers. Even this miserable ghost of the old custom has apparently retired into the land of oblivion. Christmas Day, now coming to be so much observed in Scotland, was taken no notice of, except in a few families, of which ours was one. New Year's Day, the great Scottish festival,
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71 Versions of the simple playlet Galoshans are recorded from many parts of Scotland including Stirling and Kippen.
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still holds its ground. Amid the different opinions as to drinking habits now and in former times, my impression is that there used to be more drunkenness then than mow, and that it was more lightly regarded. First. footing was common in the better class of society, and I recollect my father sallying out at midnight with a silver kettle charged with "het pint," a beverage compounded, I believe, of beer, whisky, hot water, oatmeal, and spices, to be first-foot to some of our old female relatives. Hansel Monday was a holiday greatly observed among the rural population. The favourite amusement was shooting at a mark, and I believe the orthodox object of aim was a cock tethered to a stake. I distinctly remember the frequent reports of the fowling pieces to be heard on that day all round the town.
Valentine Day, the 14th of February, was everywhere celebrated, and for a month before its advent there was in the stationers' windows, and also in those of shops whose goods were of a miscellaneous character, a great display of the valentines, amatory, and comic, that the young people were in the custom of sending to one another. This long established custom has of late years entirely fallen into desuetude, seemingly. replaced by the so rapidly extending and more kindly and friendly interchange by cards of Christmas and New Year greetings.
Before railways had tended to equalise over the country, the cost of the necessaries of life, Stirling was rather a cheap place to live in, and this, together with its many amenities, attracted to it a good many who were not engaged in business, notably officers retired from the public services, with incomes that just enabled them to live moderately, but comfortably.
With so many families of this class resident in Stirling, society was of a very pleasant character. Being, as in other provincial towns, then isolated from the rest of the world by reason of more tedious and less frequent intercommunications, the residents were more drawn together among themselves, and there was more heartiness and true friendliness in their social intercourse. Everyone was acquainted with everyone else, and they were truly sympathetic in each other's sorrows and joys. They had plenty of leisure time at their command, and the gentlemen were fond of meeting in Provost Forman's shop, as I have before said, and of
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72 Handsel Monday was originally the first Monday of the New Year when servants had, traditionally, been given presents; after the change from the Julian to the Gregorian Calendar in 1752, the 'old' date was observed, 11 days later than the first Monday.
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resorting to the Reading Room, to talk over the news of the day, and exchange their simple harmless jokes with each other. I think life in the old Royal Burgh was more enjoyable and more satisfying than now. The current was slower, but the stream was more limpid and less troubled. These, our ancestors, resided within the town, or clung closely, to its skirts. Now there is a suburban population, in great measure strangers to each other, more widely scattered in the villas that look so pretty to the eye, with their oriel windows, however, badly adapted for our rigorous northern climate, far less cosy than the older fashioned houses. Many of these residents, engaged in business in Glasgow, rush off by train after a hurried breakfast, returning only in the evening. Naturally they cannot take much interest in the affairs of the town, nor in their neighbours' welfare, such as the old people took.
There was a great deal of hospitality in the way of dinners and tea-drinkings of a more homely character than now. For their dinner parties the hosts did not go beyond the resources of their own establishments, except that a woman might be brought in to help with the cooking, but there were few 'made dishes," and no hired waiters with white ties. The white tie as an essential of evening attire had not then been introduced, nor indeed was the black dress suit de rigueur for full dress. The fare provided wag good if somewhat plainer than now, and only a little more varied and more abundant than what usually appeared on the family dinner table. Champagne, now a sine qua non at dinners and many other social entertainments, was seldom seen at the ordinary dinner party. I recollect that my father having at a special family gathering produced this wine, now so common, almost to vulgarity, there were present old female relations who had never before seen it, much less tasted it. One of them, after taking her first draught of the effervescing liquor, exclaimed—" Man, Provost, that's fine ginger beer!"
I admit that there was a good deal more strong drink taken at these dinner parties than might now be considered seemly. During dinner sherry, of which on account of the old fashion of the guests "having," as it was called, "the pleasure of taking a glass of wine" with each other in succession, many more glasses were drank than are handed round now by the attendants—a dram, or two, that is after the fish and after the pudding—and strong ale or
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porter. After dinner, port and sherry—claret was then an expensive wine, rarely seen on the table. When the ladies left there was immediately a call for the hot water, while the host pressed his guests first to take some more wine. The toddy, however, was more attractive. The regular allowance of this seductive beverage was two tumblers, made with a glass and a half of whisky in each. These being disposed of, the proposal was made to "join the ladies." The host begged his guests to brew another tumbler. This was strenuously declined, but when an "eke" was suggested it always met with a willing acceptance. The eke differed from the orthodox tumbler in that it was made with only one full glass of whisky. With so much more liberal consumption of liquor there was naturally more noisy hilarity than at the more staid dinners of the present day. Although no one then would have thought of suggesting that' in such joviality the bounds of moderation were in any way, exceeded, it might be noticed that some at least of the party had a somewhat dazed look when they entered the drawing-room.
But I must draw my Old Recollections to a close. In doing so, I would fain hope that the same ambiguous kind of verdict may not be passed on them as that awarded to a clergyman, who, after preaching an assize sermon, ventured—no doubt fishing for a compliment—to say to the judge before whom he had delivered it, "I hope your Lordship did not think the sermon was too long." "Oh, no," replied the judge, "it was not very long." "I am glad you did not find me tedious." "I did not say that," rejoined his Lordship, "I didn't say you were not tedious" I have had a certain enjoyment in the recalling of my old recollections. If the narration of them will have imparted any like pleasure to those who, approximating to my own time of life, can to some extent participate in them, and if it will have interested and mayhap entertained those who have as yet no such reminiscences to fall back upon. I shall consider myself well repaid for any trouble I have taken in committing them to writing Some of them may perhaps be considered too trivial to be recorded. To use the words of -Byron in his ending of Childe Harold, "What is writ is writ, would it were worthier."
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END OF PART 2 | GO BACK TO PART 1| Dr G. T. Galbraith
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38 This house , the prison and the Erskine church mentioned lower down the page are all described in Gifford G and Walker F A, 2002. The Buildings of Scotland: Stirling and Central Scotland, Yale University Press, New Haven.
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constructed about the year 1845 39. Previous to that time the rear portion of the Burgh Building facing to St John Street was used for the incarceration of prisoners, the access to the prison being at the side in the Jail Wynd, with the police cells in the basement behind. Just opposite was an old house belonging to the Gibb family, tenanted by our relations the Miss Chisholmes. Opening out of one of the rooms on the upper floor of it was a small projecting turretted apartment, with a window looking to the Carse of Stirling, a view which, young as I was, at an age when children usually pay no heed to scenery, greatly impressed me with a sense of its surpassing loveliness on a fine sun-lit summer day. From the windows looking across the street to the gaol, I often watched the debtors, who were confined on the upper floor, fishing with a bag, usually a stocking, attached to a long string and let down to the pavement below to receive contributions for their comfort bestowed by their personal friends or other charitably disposed individuals, among which if there was a bottle of whisky, it was not objected to nor prohibited. In those old days, amid much harsh treatment of prisoners, now unknown, there was at the same time a good deal of laxity and even lenity in some respects. The old house was disposed of by my uncle, Mr Gibb, to the Erskine Church Congregation 40, in order to its being taken down for the purpose of widening and improving the access to the church from the street. I have been told that the site for this church known then as the Back Raw Kirk—the first church of the Secession of which Ebenezer and Ralph Erskine were the leaders—was given to them by one of my ancestors of-the Gibb family, probably my maternal great-grandfather. At the foot of St John Street, where the five-light lamp post now stands, was a flight of stairs—the Braid Stairs—that led down to the junction of the Bow and Baker Street. At the foot of the stairs was one of the public wells from which Stirling was formerly supplied with water, and in frosty, weather there was always there a notable slide that required no little courage and dexterity to venture on it, being so difficult of negotiation, owing to the rapidity of the slope on which it was made. Nearly twenty five years ago the building at the top of Baker Street called the Mint,
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39 Actually 1847.
40 This congregation built the Erskine Church (later Erskine Mary Church on the site; it is now the Youth Hostel.
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just below where the well stood, was taken down, the Braid Stairs removed, and the present slope formed.
I do not know who is answerable for having had the name The Bow 41 so aptly descriptive of the sudden bend in the main access to the upper part of the town, changed to Bow Street. I feel indignant at all such assaults on our fine old Scottish language, alas gradually decaying too rapidly. "Bow street" indeed ! Of all appellations one of the most. unhappy, suggesting comparison with the too widely known London Street reeking with all its associations of detected criminality. A similar instance of vulgarity, although not quite so offensive, presents itself in the alteration of Friars' Wynd, that so suitably represented the character of the narrow winding street, to Friars Street. Whoever made and advocated the ill - judged alterations can surely have been neither intelligent or leal.hearted Scotsmen and as surely deserve the fate apportioned by Sir Walter Scott to the man who was not imbued with right patriotic feeling of descending to his grave, "unwept, unhonoured, and unsung" 42
Before the erection of the High School 43, Spittal Square, commonly called Cowane's Yard, was an open space, with the Burgh Schoolhouse, a very plain two-storeyed building, at its western end facing to Spittal Street, and on the south side the Flesh Market. On the north side was a row of lime trees, that, schoolboy as I was, were to me in their summer beauty a source of great admiration. The remembrance of that charming row of limes is the most pleasant of my old associations of Spittal Square. Often, as I pass the spot, a picture forms itself in my mental camera of a sunny afternoon when, sitting at my task in the arithmetic and writing school, which was on the upper floor, I stole many a furtive longing glance through the windows thrown up to let in the cool air—for through the haze of years it seems to me as if all summer days were then warm—on the lovely tender green leafage as it moved to and fro in the gentle afternoon breeze. Sometime early in the '30's we had an epidemic of that now well known and justly dreaded disease,
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41 Dr Galbraith would have rejoiced to hear Bob McCucheon still calling it The Bow (which he pronounced 'Boo') about 20 years ago.
42 The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805) canto 6, st. 1.
43 The former High School (1854-6) and extended later, is now the Stirling Highland Hotel on Spittal Street/ Academy Road - again see Gifford and Walker.
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influenza, the first that I have personal experience of. When after a severe attack of it I was able again to go out of doors, my first walk, with very shaky footsteps, led me up to Cowane's Yard, and I very well remember thinking that I had never seen anything so lovely of the kind as the tender green of these lime trees, then just coming into full leaf at the call of early summer. The trees had to be sacrificed when the High School was built, and then, too ,the road to the Back Walk was considerably widened by blasting away a quantity of the rock. Before that alteration was made there stood at the corner of the Square next St John Street a building called the Reservoir, in which was stored. the water brought from the Touch Hills for distribution to the public wells, that were situated in different parts of the town. Beneath the Reservoir was a recess where the public fire-engine was kept. The stones that formed the doorway of this recess—hewn in Scottish style like those in the entrance gate of Argyle Lodging—were, when the reservoir was taken down, carefully laid aside, as I have been told, by the judicious prevision of Provost Rankin and Dr Forrest, and when the recent addition to the High School was being made the architect, the late Mr M'Laren, gladly availed himself of them for the doorway entering from Spittal Street, of which they form a peculiarly characteristic ornamentation 44. Mr Leslie Neilson informs me that he was told by his father that these same stones once formed the doorway in a wall that stood where now are the iron railing and the gateway by which access is obtained to the Guildhall and Churches from the top of St John Street. Ladies attending balls in the Guildhall complained of having there to get out of their carriages and walk the remainder of the distance; the wall was therefore removed, and the stones were transferred to the Reservoir. In a niche over. this door at the Reservoir for many years reposed the figure of the unicorn sejant that now forms the finial of the Mercate Cross, as restored on 24th May, 1891, by the munificence and public spirit of our late most capable and distinguished Provost, Robert Yellowlees, being the only portion surviving of the old original Cross, that was removed, as encumbering the Street, some time towards the end of last century, when Town Councils had less regard for the preservation of, old historic
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44 This doorway is still there.
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structures than, fortunately, they everywhere now display 45. When the Reservoir was taken down the unicorn was removed to a similar niche over the stair leading to the Court Rooms in Broad Street, and there rested till it was placed in its present appropriate position; While it remained at the Reservoir the unicorn, or "puggie," as we schoolboys called it, presented only too tempting a target for that favourite amusement of boys, stone throwing, and consequently, was constantly being pelted by them. I have no specific recollection of participating in the perpetration of this indignity to the emblem of Scottish sovereignty, but I have no doubt I must have often thus tried the accuracy of my aim with a stone. There was of course for us the palliation that we did not recognise its heraldic signification. For myself, however, it was a great gratification when, at the restoration of the Mercate Cross, I had the high distinction conferred on me, one of which I am very proud, of being selected by Provost Yellowlees, in conjunction with Mr Mouat, to unveil the Cross now surmounted by the royal unicorn, for I seemed then to be making some atonement to it for my boyish misdeeds.
On the south side of Spittal Square, as I have said, was the Flesh Market, an enclosed parallelogram with covered stalls all round. In these days there were no butchers' shops in the town, and the meat supply was provided only here on Friday, the weekly market day, by the various butchers who rented these stalls, most of them coming in from the country for the purpose 46. It was thus necessary for families to lay in a week's supply of butcher meat, a very inconvenient arrangement, looking to the impossibility of calculating what unforeseen demands might be made on it in course of the week, and in hot weather to the difficulty of keeping the meat from becoming tainted. As to the poorer classes, who could not be in circumstances to lay in a week's supply, I suppose they did very much without butcher meat.
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45 The progress of civic concern for historical integrity has been rather more erratic than Galbraith might have expected and Stirling has suffered more than its fair share of losses, which continue to occur with tedious regularity. That said, happily the unicorn ("The Puggy") is still to be found in Broad Street albeit not where it was placed in 1891.
46 The issues raised here about the supply of meat and the Fleshers monopoly are discussed by DB Morris, 1920. The Incorporation of Fleshers of Stirling, Transactions of the Stirling Field and Archaeological Society, 43, 9-44.
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Yet the men and women of that generation were capable of quite as hard work as their descendents, toiled longer hours, and appeared to be no less healthy or shorter lived. Our butchers came from Bannockburn, two brothers, who afterwards had a shop in the town when the weekly market system came to an end. The elder of the two died not so many years ago, a good while after I returned to settle down in Stirling. I have known much anxiety pervade the domestic circle on a Friday of deep snow lest the Kerrs' cart would not be able to reach the town, and, the journey being effected only with the greatest difficulty with the help of an additional horse to drag the laden vehicle through the deep snow. The first butcher who set up a shop in the town for the sale of meat on all days was John Dick. His right to do so was contested by the incorporation of Fleshers, but after being carried to the Court of Session the case was decided in Dick's favour. I believe his shop was in Friars' Wynd. Opening out .of the market was the slaughter. house, a place we boys, attending the burgh schools, were specially forbidden to visit, a prohibition which seemed to enhance our attraction to it to witness the horrors of the blood-shedding and the agonies of the slaughtered animals.
The schoolhouse which stood at the upper end of the Square, was a very plain two storey building, each floor having one large apartment lighted by windows on each side, with two small rooms—" the back rooms "—at one end. The English school was on the ground floor, taught by Mr Weir, irreverently called "Bubbly Jock, 47" a repetition now of his nickname, by which there is no probability of offence being given to any one now living, for I never heard mention made of any relations be may have had, or that he left any behind him. He was unmarried, and I rather think was one of the elders of the West Church congregation. He lived in one of the tenements of Allan Park House, at the west end of Port Street. Naturally his methods of teaching were not those of the present date. They were carried out with a very, liberal application of the tawse, in connection with which it was for us a fortunate arrangement that in the schoolroom there were iron posts supporting the floor above, to which
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47 A bubblyjock is a turkey cock and clearly describes the bubbling call of the birds.
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we used to resort after receiving our scults, clapping our hands on them to relieve the burning heat of our stinging palms by the cold of the metal pillars. How dry and dreary were our reading books in those days with their uninteresting tales, their heavy poetry, their extracts from Shakespeare, Milton, Addison, the Spectator, the Rambler, &c., little calculated to engage the attention of youthful minds, and certainly not intended to provide for them any amusement, compared to the series of appropriately illustrated volumes, with their well chosen stories,. their useful and interesting information on so many and various subjects, their tuneful poetical pieces that are in use in our elementary schools now. If no royal road to learning has been discovered, at least the path has been made smoother and more attractive, a much less dreary and rugged track than that which my youthful feet were forced to tread. I recollect a curious custom at Mr Weir's of the whole school reciting the, reading lessons in union in a loud peculiar kind of chant, whose tones, when I think of it, seem now to ring in my ears. What would a school inspector of the present regime think were he to open the door and come upon a congregation of scholars engaged in this strange performance, like the intoning of a hymn to the God of Learning or Teaching? I believe his horror-struck aspect would amply justify the appellation of "the spectre," commonly applied to him by the children. Beyond reading, I don't think I acquired very much at Mr Weir's. There were no wall maps for object lessons in that school. My acquaintance with geography was merely book learning committed to memory. As for the grammar that was then taught, I am glad it was not that unnecessarily intricate system, quite foreign to the natural simple construction of the English language, that has been elaborated by pedants to puzzle the brains of the young folk of the present generation. At the same time, I must say I did not acquire a competent knowledge of English grammar until I came to learn Latin, which is the key to it. One subject which, however, the masters did not profess to teach, I easily and unconsciously learned during my attendance at the Burgh Schools—viz., a knowledge of the vernacular Scottish language, which I was compelled to use under threat of corporal chastisement by my schoolfellows; on the other hand, at home I was reprimanded if I allowed Scotch expressions to escape my lips. I have always congratulated myself on this
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practical acquaintance with the native Doric that I thus obtained, as enabling me rightly to understand and thoroughly to enjoy our Scottish literature and Scottish humour. With the spreading invasion of the English dialect I doubt if the children now attending the High School gain any such useful familiarity with their native tongue. Boys and girls were taught during the same hours at Mr Weir's.
Above the English School was that where writing, arithmetic, book-keeping, and mathematics were taught by Mr Peter MacDougall 48, more generally known by his familiar cognomen of Patie, a man of very considerable note in his day, and a very capable teacher, whose success in sending out well trained arithmeticians and model caligraphists was made known to the farthest quarters of the globe by many of his pupils who proceeded thither for the prosecution of mercantile or professional pursuits. He was the author of a class book on arithmetic, a pretty thick octavo volume, which was a good standard work of its time. Patie was well up in years before I came under his discipline, and I believe my mother, before me may have been one of his scholars, for, as he used to tell us, he had been teaching from the time he was fourteen years of age. He was a sturdy Highlander from Hell's Glen on Loch Goil. He, too, was an elder of the West Church. His dwelling was a flat on the first floor situated in a close in St John Street, the third close on the left hand going up the street. Patie was a man of much character and marked individuality, with many peculiarities in the exercise of his functions as a schoolmaster, that, however, out of harmony with the scholastic requirements of the present time, met with no disapproval in .his day, and were not considered in any respect unbecoming his position at the head of a public school. I can picture him now, as we lingered too long at our games on the playground, standing, cane in hand, at the door of the little back court that gave access to the stair leading up to the schoolroom, watching for the first little group of boys that banded together to run the gauntlet, and striking among them without any special selection as they rushed past. Up the stair we tore at full speed, the school began to fill, and the next part of our performance was to set to screeching at the fullest pitch of our shrill voices, keeping it up until Patie, blazing with fury
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48 For Peter M'Dougal see Hutchison, 1904, 160-168.
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and breathless from his hasty ascent of the stairs, appeared at the door. Then a sudden hush, quite startling in its effect after the ear-piercing yells, fell on the whole of the school, and as if by the touch of a magician's wand every head was bowed in studious abstraction over slate and book, while Patie came swiftly up the room distributing cuts. with the cane right and left on all whom he could reach with it. That afternoon was not a happy one for us. Seated in his high armchair—the chair with its folding footstool is still preserved in the Rector's department in the High School—placed at the top of the central passage up the school, Patie sat watching us the whole afternoon, as he used to say, "like a cat watchin' a moose." Woe betide the boy who ventured to raise his head and look about him, or whispered to his neighbor, or out of tricks "dunched" him with his elbow. Patie was up in a moment, and with an activity wonderful for his years and his somewhat portly figure, swiftly pounced on the offender, and rained on his shoulders a series of rapid cuts with the never failing cane. He was ever ready to show his faith in the aphorism of sparing the rod and spoiling the child, and was not always strictly just in practical demonstration of it. Often after caning a boy he would say, "That's for yer ain sake, noo I'll gie ye anither for yer faither's sake,." Sometimes when he was in no very placid mood he would single out some boy who had been giving no apparent cause of offence, "As I was comin' to the schule this mornin' I met yer faither, and he tell't me to gie ye a guid lickin'. Come oot here and I'll dust yer jaicket for ye." I have known a boy to be thus dealt with, who had neither father nor mother alive. With all this liberal application of the rod it might be supposed that Patie was harsh and cruel in his school discipline, but we boys, who were surely good judges in the matter, did not think so. No doubt he was imperious in his rule, and we stood a good deal in awe of him. At the same time we did not hate him as a tyrannical master, on the contrary to a great extent he won our affection, we respected him, and were in a way proud of being under his sway. I must say we tried his temper by our many schoolboy tricks. One was to drop the roe of a salt herring into the fire, where its long continued crackling greatly irritated Patie, while he was powerless to put a stop to it, and unable to single out the culprit for punishment. Or, a dog would be slily introduced, and when the cry was raised, "There's a dug in the schule," "Pit him oot! Pit him
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oot !" a grand commotion was excited, with pretentious appearance of trying to expel the intruder, some boys all the while guarding the door to chase the animal back when he came too near the way of exit. And after all the pain caused by the cuts of the supple cane, modified as they were by the clothes that intervened between it and our skins, was very evanescent, and trifling in comparison with that inflicted on the bare palm by the thick, yet flexible tawse. Often, moreover, a boy, forewarned that he was to get a caning, provided for it by inserting a copy-book under his clothes over that part of his body supposed to be specially adapted for receiving the strokes of the rod, and thus protected yelled only more vigorously-as they descended on him, very soon inducing Patie. to leave off the harmless castigation. For Patie. was really a kind-hearted old man, and plied the cane from truly conscientious principles, and not merely for the sake of giving pain. Many a boy, particularly if he pleased him with his writing, received as a reward a quarter of a hundred of quills, for, of course, in those days steel pens were not yet known, and when they were beginning to come into use Patie never took to the " airn pens." . The art of making and mending a pen was therefore necessary accomplishment. I can fancy I see Patie shaping pens for the younger boys with three pairs of spectacles perched on his nose to aid his failing sight. Often he was in a genial mood, and entertained us with accounts of former pupils who had excelled as caligraphists. Two young men of the name of Forrester, specimens of whose writing he used to exhibit for our admiration, were specially held up to us as patterns to be imitated. Many of his sayings were quaint enough. "Aye! ye mind the day, but ye dinna mind the oor," as some laggard would slip in noiselessly, and take possession of the nearest vacant seat. "Aye! Mr Cummin, but ye're lang o' cumin." The girls attended at a different hour, viz., during the interval from 1 to 2 o'clock that we had from school, and thus Mr Macdougall seemed to be teaching continuously from 9 to 4, long hours for such trying work. A common punishment for a girl that misbehaved was to be kept in for a short time among the boys. She was placed at " the first table" at the head of the school, to which I had in due course been promoted. There we found the unfortunate girl with her head down on the table, her face hid by the poke bonnet that was then the female headgear. "Aye! There's a nice young gentleman, George Galbraith,
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to sit beside ye; he'll be polite to ye." I am sorry to say that our attentions were not of a very polite character, consisting mostly of attempts with our pens and slate pencils to raise the bonnet and see what face it concealed. The detention was never for any length of time, and permission being given, the strayed dove fled swiftly out of the school.
I was rather a favourite with Patie, chiefly because I along with another boy had gone in for learning geometry, for which I displayed rather an aptitude, readily passing over the pons asinorum 49, and being able to demonstrate the 47th Proposition of the 1st Book of Euclid without a mistake. Patie had, a good opinion of a boy who could learn "Mathematics," but what sorely tried him in my case was my crabbed handwriting "Man George Galbraith, ye can learn mathematics, but ye canna write. Ony blockhead in the kintry can learn to write, but your writin's like a man wi' a roosty nail. It's jist like a hen scartin wi' its tae." A recollection of my very poor attempts in those days compels me to admit that Patie's similes were apt enough On a Saturday he has taken my fellow geometrician and myself down to the Abbey Ferry, and there given us lessons in measuring the height of Cambuskenneth Belfry Tower on the other side of the river by the angles taken with his theodolite. Returning home he took us to his lodging, and there regaled us with cake and Alloa ale, a very potent beverage as is well known, served out to us fortunately in a moderate quantity in old-fashioned ale glasses, resembling the old champagne glasses that preceded the cup shaped vessels now used. Although I was thus in a measure a favourite with Patie, I did not escape the lash of his sarcastic remarks. One day I took up to him a sum on my slate which he pronounced to be "A' wrang," spat, on the slate, wiped it with his cuff, wrote down some figures, and told me to go and work out the sum in that way. This I did, discovering at the same time that I had been right, and that he was wrong. When I presented the slate again, not recognising his own figures blurred from having been written where the slate was still moist with his spit, he accosted me with " Whaur's my feegurs," "These are your figures, Sir," "Ye're a leein little rascal. Thae's no my feegurs. Go and sit at the Long Table," a position of disgrace
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49 Pons asinorum - Literally 'The Bridge of Asses', the phrase was applied generally to a test which divided the clever from the not so apt or, more specifically, to an ability to understand various geometrical theorems.
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in such circumstances. And then he began his tirade on me. Pacing up and down the school, and from time to time giving me a dig under, the ear with his knuckles as he passed, "I'll tell ye aboot this George Galbraith. Ae' day his faither, Captain Galbraith, a very dacent gentleman, cam to me and said, 'Mr Macdougall, I'm goin' to put my son George to your school. George is a good boy, he'll give ye no trouble.' Look at the good boy a Ieein' little rascal, that ribs oot my feegurs, pits in his am, and then tells me they're mine. There's the good boy for ye Look at him!" and so on and on. Dear old Patie I often lamented that, dying while I was abroad, I had not on my return the gratification, like many of his old scholars, of paying him my dutiful and grateful respects.
The late Mr Duncan MacDougall, mathematical master in the High School, a teacher held in high estimation and great respect, was his uncle's assistant, "helper," as we called him in my school days. When I became a member of the School Board, and was thus in a sense one of his masters, thinking of how many years had passed since I had been under his disciplinary control, and looking to my own scanty white hair, I used to marvel at the abundant raven locks without one silver thread that still graced Duncan's head. A younger nephew, Peter, also for some time assisted in the school.
In the earlier years of my school days a curious custom was observed of bringing a present of money to the masters on Candlemas Day, the 2nd of February. I recollect that my father's donation used to be half-a-crown to Patie, eighteen pence to Duncan, which I suppose was the average for persons in his position in society. One boy used to bring a sovereign for Patie, but he was looked upon as an exceptional boy in this respect. The children of poorer parents, who could not afford to make this free will offering—for there was no class division of rank in school attendance in those days—did not appear at school that day, and after the collection of the tribute, the remainder of the day was a holiday. I suppose the custom represented some old Roman Catholic Church observance.
At Patie's, our battle ground was what we called "between the twa hedges," near the Lower Walk, now represented by the little lane to the west of the Episcopal Church ground 50. Here it
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50 Now Clarendon Road, it is just below the High School down the steep slope of the Back Brae.
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was common to decide a dispute by a fight "owre a bonnet," a cap being held at arm's length by a couple of boys to prevent the combatants coming into close grips in the contest. The challenge was "I'll fecht ye atween the twa hedges," and when we were let loose from lessons at 4 o'clock, thither the whole school rushed down with whoop and halloo to witness the pugilistic duel.
The playground was the vacant space in front of the school called Cowane's Yard, extending down to Spittal Street, the flesh market wall on one side, the row of lime trees on the other. It seems to me that the games of schoolboys are not now what they were in my time. One that was common then was Scotch and English, on the principle of the modern tug-of-war—rather destructive to clothes, particularly as regarded the buttons of our jackets. I do not notice it being played now. Neither do I see the boys with peeries, which were much in vogue in my time. It was an ambition to be possessor of a peerie with a steel "shod," to be used as a weapon of offence against the other peeries 51, like the steel spur of the game cock. The games with marbles, or "bools," also are changed. Our principal one was "bool in the hole," one that required a good deal of science. I fancy I could almost yet enjoy a game of bool in the hole. We had also "winny, 52" a name that speaks for itself, but that was not so much played. The boys now appear to me to have no real game of skill with marbles, only one in which the sole object is to become possessor of the others' bools, and football and golf seem now to replace our old athletic amusements.
Still descending from the upper part of the town, Spittal Street, except for modern improvement by widening in some places, and the erection of the Industrial School now occupied by the girls, and of the very commodious Allan's School that now replaces the old structure, which had fallen entirely behind modern scholastic requirements, remains to appearance much in the same condition as it was. In those days the Roman Catholics met for worship in "an upper room " of one of the tenements on the left hand, now a workshop. Some
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51 Spinning tops.
52 win-and-loss, a game of marbles in which the winner keeps his gains and does not return them to his opponent (Dictionary of the Scottish Language).
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of the members of the congregation walked in from long distances, owing to the great paucity of Roman Catholic places of worship in the district in those days. The members of that communion in Stirling were very few, even among the lower class. A prominent member of the congregation was Mr Duncan M'Nab, writer. There was also ' Mooshy" M'Nab, as we called him, a gentleman who had been brought up and had lived in France, whence, as I understood, he had escaped during the troublous time of the great Revolution. He lodged in Queen Street, and there taught French. He was my preceptor in that language. There was, later on, also Mrs Macdonald, a widow lady, who came to reside in Stirling with two daughters. The Priest was Father Paul MacLauglan, who served at the altar in Stirling for many years, a most amiable and worthy man, and universally respected. Some twenty years ago he was removed to the charge at Doune, and died there. The chapel in Irvine Place, which owes its erection chiefly to his zealous exertions, was opened for divine service on Trinity Sunday, 1838 53. Baker Street looks also much the same. At the foot of it, on the site now occupied by the Bank of Scotland, was the Saracen's Head Inn 54, the entrance door looking up the street. Over it, or at the corner of the building—the former according to my recollection—swung a sign according with the name of the hotel in representing the half length figure of a fierce warrior in eastern costume wielding a mighty scimitar. The Post Office was on the other side of the way, where it begins to be called King Street, in very mean premises situated up a close. It is somewhat curious to note the various changes of accommodation that most useful of public departments has experienced since then 55. From the close referred to it was removed to the late Mr Shearer's shop, which was on the opposite side of King Street to that which he afterwards moved to, now occupied by his son and successor. The late Mr H. S. Shearer's uncle was then postmaster, next to the
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53 This original chapel was replaced by the modern St Mary's on Upper Bridge Street but the building survives, with many changes.
54 The south east corner at the top of Fryers Wynd, the former bank building is still there.
55 For the various moves see Clarkson, W.W., 1981, Postal History of Stirling, published by the Author, Falkirk;
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premises in Murray Place in which the grocery business of Lennox & Co. is now carried on; again, further along the street to what is now the shop.—also a grocer's—of Yates & Co. Lastly, the house was purchased at the north end of Murray Place, which after nearly 20.-years of occupation has just been pulled down to make way for the erection of a more commodious building, in which we look upon the Post Office as to be at length permanently established—a position, I must say, by no means so central or convenient for access as could be desired 56. As to the outside postal work, I think there used to be two deliveries daily, which were overtaken by the postman, David Bell, single handed, carrying the letters in a small japanned tin box under his arm. His progress in the delivery was much retarded by his having so frequently to wait to receive the postage for letters not prepaid. Here I would like to recall the fact, that, when a uniform rate of inland postage was introduced, the Government did not at once adopt Rowland Hill's proposal of penny postage; but, being no doubt timid as to the great loss of revenue which they feared would follow on such a sudden and bold reduction, fixed it at four-pence. Anyone who could have prophesied what the result was really to be would probably have been regarded as visionary, or perhaps as actually insane on that point. The fourpence rate was not long continued.
King Street did not then present the well-built aspect it now has. On the west side the ground rose up steeply from the pavement below, and a number of the tenements on that side, about the middle of the street, were only low thatched houses. I think it was in the year 1824 that a very destructive fire took place here. It broke out in Mr John King's joiner's shop, and burned the greater part of three closes. After that began an improvement in the style of building, until King Street gradually came to assume its present well-built stately appearance. The eastern portion of Port Street, "The Port," was in those days so narrow an entrance way to the town, like the neck of a bottle, that, encountering the mail coach, or other vehicle, one was fain to seek refuge in a doorway or close mouth to escape being run over, or at least well "jauped " with the. mire that particularly abounded there in moist weather. At the west end of this contracted part was a stream open to view on the right hand, passing
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56 Only in quite recent years has the site on Murray Place, near the top of Maxwell Place, been converted to a pub and the Post Office moved to a location within a shop in the Thistle Centre.
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under the street, as it still does, and re-appearing on the other side, and there stone confined in a cut channel, was made use of by a firm of dyers for washing their yarn. Here one or other of the much respected partners might any day be seen astride of the stream, with bare arms dyed to the elbow of the brightest hue, according to the colour being used, rinsing the newly dyed yarn. In the wider part of Port Street on the south side, and near the commencement of Pitt Terrace was Sawers' Inn, a hotel of some pretensions, now converted into shops and dwelling fiats, but still cognisable by a porch with a pillar on each side that formed the entrance. It was the starting place of the Defiance, a four-horse coach that ran daily to Edinburgh. This coach was for sometime horsed by Mr Ramsay of Barnton 57. On the opposite side, in one of the tenements composing Allan Park House, resided, until he built two villas in Allan Park, and went to live in one of them himself, my uncle Dr Galliers. He was a retired army surgeon, and had served in the same regiment with my father, the Royal Scots. He had seen much active service in the Peninsular war, and was present at the battle of Waterloo. My aunt accompanied him to Belgium, and I have heard her speak of her having the day after the great battle ridden over the field in search. of her husband. When George IV. visited Scotland in 1822, all over the country demonstrations with flags, floral decorations, &c., were made to testify the loyalty and joy of the people. My uncle prepared with his own hands a placard resplendent with some glittering powder adherent to it, and inscribed in large letters G.R. IV., which he displayed outside on the wall of the house. While he was watching what effect this loyal chef-d'oeuvre would produce on the passers-by, the worthy doctor was greatly disconcerted by overhearing one of the country folks, who were flocking in to view the decorations, after gazing for a little at the placard, say, with a puzzled air to his companion, .G RI V "Griv! I wunner wha's Griv!"
From this end of Allan Park out to Laurelhill there was not a house until the late Sheriff Sconce built the one now occupied by my namesake, our respected Town Clerk, and I recollect that surprise was then expressed at the Sheriff building his house so far out in the
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57 Ramsay was a well-known figure in Stirling and closely involved with the Stirling Races; Barnton Street is named for him.
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country. I believe that the oldest house in Allan Park is that which was built by Dr Dobbie, afterwards acquired by my father, the one that is seen at the top of the road looking up from the Black Boy. The one last built is the adjoining one, Mrs Ellis', erected by Mr Henderson, writer, after we came to live in Allan Park. An attempt was made to change the name from Allan Park to Wellington Place, and the latter designation was put up for a time at the Back Walk extremity of the Street, but, I believe for political reasons, "Wellington" being taken as representing Tory opinions, the alterations did not meet with sufficient favour, and the old name held its ground.
The gusset of ground enclosed with the Black Boy fountain in the centre, then a vacant space, was the mustering ground of the Stirling Troop of the Stirlingshire Yeomanry 58, where they used to assemble before proceeding to the King's Park for drill with the rest of the regiment. There were five troops, the Stirling, Falkirk, Kilsyth, Campsie, and Culcreuch troops. The ranks of the country troops were filled mainly by farmers and their stout stalwart sons, mounted on strong agricultural horses, one inducement to join the Yeomanry being that the charger was exempt from the Government tax. The members of the Stirling Troop were of various occupations and professions, several of them, as I remember, writers 59 in the town (our Town Clerk's father, and predecessor in office, was one of the, officers, and, if I mistake not, Mr David Chrystal's grandfather was a sergeant), and their horses were of a finer and lighter stamp. The uniform was a short scarlet jacket and blue overalls, with a helmet furnished with horse hair. I do not recollect how long the annual training lasted, but I think it must at one time have been over a week, as I have some recollection of seeing yeomen in uniform in church on Sunday. The annual calling up of the Yeomanry was a considerable boon to the town, as many of the men were billeted in, it, and their horses put up in the stalls of the vintners and other available stables. The time when they were out naturally provided a good deal of excitement for the boys. Apparently we did not hold them in any great respect or, awe, for we were always ready to salute them with their nick-name of "Soor Dock Geordie."
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58 The Yeomanry were volunteer cavalry regiments - as they had to provide their own horses many were farmers or small landowners, officered by wealthier men.
59 Here used as the Scots term for what is now called a solicitor.
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This by no means complimentary epithet referred to the habit these rustic cavalry men had, on being dismissed from their morning drill, of making for the milk carts, then busy in the streets distributing the morning supply, and indulging in copious draughts of buttermilk; or "soor dook," to cool their heated frames 60. The regiment, during its existence, had the rare experience (for auxiliary troops) of a kind of active service, for it was called out to assist in putting down the Radical rising that took place in 1822 61, What active part these Yeomanry took in the conflict at Bonnymuir I never heard, but they were employed in escorting to the gaol in Stirling those who were made prisoners on that occasion. It is not uncommon now to hear those, who were tried and sentenced for their participation in this seditious abortive insurrection, spoken of as martyrs who were harshly dealt with for giving utterance to political opinions that are now widely entertained, and openly proclaimed without any restraint or fear of punitive consequences, some of the changes then demanded having indeed been since legalised by Parliamentary enactment. But this seems to me to be a misapprehension of the facts, for these misguided men were tried and awarded various degrees of punishment, not on account of their Political tenets, but for the illegal action they resorted to for giving effect to them 62. Apart from the beheading, which is not in accord with the more humane sentiments of the present age, no Government, whatever might be its political complexion, could with safety have shunned the duty incumbent on it of sternly repressing the ill-judged and mischievous rising, and bringing to justice the foolish men who were so endangering the maintenance of public peace and order by congregating in arms—even such wretched and contemptible arms as they were—against the constituted
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60 Sour dook was butter milk; the Dictionary of the Scots Language gives other examples of the phrase being used to tease the yeomanry.
61 The correct date is 1820. Baird and Hardy, mentioned above, were executed in Stirling for this role in the 'Bonnymuir Rising' (see eg Mair, C., 1990. Stirling; The Royal Burgh, John Donald, Edinburgh, 189-192. The yeomanry, particularly the lairdly component, were very active in the repression.
62 Baird and Hardy in Stirling (and others elsewhere) were executed and their corpses decapitated; others were transported to Australia. Lord Cockburn, the eminent mid 19th century Scots judge, commented that, of course it was treason - but so was an old woman charging at a cavalry regiment.
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authorities of the realm. I cannot tell when the regiment was disembodied, but it must have been before the Queen's first visit to Scotland in 1842, for some former members of the corps, as I am told, turned out on the occasion of her coming to Stirling—when my father, as Provost, along with his Council, awaited her arrival at the Bridge, and presented to her the keys of the town—to form a guard of honour to Her Majesty, but without uniform or accoutrements. The annual period of training wound up, as is usual in such cases, with the Yeomanry Races held in the King's Park.
Older, I believe, than the Yeomanry Races were the Chapmen's Races, which came off once a year, also in the King's Park, the chapmen being a society composed chiefly of merchant traders of the town. In olden times, as I understand, these Chapmen were the pedlars who travelled through the country districts when communication with the towns, owing to bad roads, was rough and tedious, in order to bring their wares to the doors of the scattered rural population. A chief event in the Chapmen's Races was riding at the ring, in which the competitors, furnished with a long rod, riding at a certain speed, tried with it to carry off a small gold ring lightly suspended above from a sort of arch, so as to be easily detached. The winner held possession of. the ring for a year, when it was again competed for. A very successful jockey at these races was named Dobbie, and in our schoolboy play each of us was ambitious to represent "Dabbie." In the old days the course followed the edge of the high ground above Pock's and Garrow's Wood 63, a track well calculated to put the wind as well as the speed of the horses to the test. A new course, keeping on the flat, having been made, the Stirling Race Meeting was instituted, and was continued for a number of years, until, owing to growing opposition to them on the part of the inhabitants—stirred up very much, it was said, by the zeal and activity of the late Mr Peter Drummond—these races were put down, a consummation that must be approved by all who reflect on the evil adjuncts that seem to be inseparable from a race meeting.
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63 Pocks Wood is the one on the cliff face between Kings Park Farm and Homesteads; Garrows Wood on the south side of the park, behind Douglas Terrace and St Thomas Cemetery, again to Homesteads.
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There was formerly—and indeed when I left Stirling in 1841—no Murray Place issuing from the foot of King Street, although, besides by the way of King Street and Friars Wynd, the lower end of the Wynd could be reached by passing through the coach yard of the Golden Lion Hotel, by "Gibb's Entry," as it was called, the site of which is now occupied by Mr Shearer's shop. The hotel was more commonly, from the name of the landlord, called Gibb's Inn. Mr Gibb was a remarkably quiet looking man of spare habit, who passed most of his time working in a garden at the lower end of the Back Walk, the ground on which Allan Park Church has since been built and did not appear to concern himself about the management of the hotel. That was very efficiently attended to by Mrs. Gibb, who, with her portly figure, blooming countenance and active bustling manner, presented the beau ideal of a most capable landlady. Through the coach yard access was obtained to a lane through garden ground, part of which bore the name of Spring. Garden, that followed the course of Murray Place as it now is. One could also get to this lane from the foot of King Street by the way of the Dirtin Tide, a collection of the sewage that came down the surface sewers, or "sivers" from the upper part of the town, gathered there, and gradually found its way to the adjacent Burgh Mill dam 64. This unsavoury malodorous "stank" —suggestive word—occupied what is now Orchard Place. I do not know when the Mill Dam—fed chiefly by the Town Burn coming from the direction of Easter Livilands, and crossing the lower part of the Craigs—was filled in. The site of it is now chiefly occupied by the vinegar work. The mill still stands, and the upper portion of it has been utilised as a smithy for the Gas Work. The coach route passing through Stirling to the North was in some parts very narrow and tortuous, viz., by Port Street as I have described it, up King Street, down Friars Wynd, along Viewfield Street to Cowane Street,, and so on to the Old Bridge, which with its high centre
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64 Long known as the Dirt Raw, this street (and area) had been the conduit for the town's sewage for centuries; the dirtiness certainly contributed to the fact that, until the late eighteenth century spread into the suburbs, better-off people favoured the upper part of the town. See Harrison, J G., 1999, Public Hygiene and Drainage in Stirling and other Early Modern Scottish Towns, Review of Scottish Culture 11, 67-77.
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arches and very limited width was itself a danger for any fast travelling vehicle. The New Bridge 65, after being about a couple of years or three in constructing, was opened for traffic, I think in 1831 . Much as it was needed to facilitate intercourse between the north and the south, Stirling being the first point from the Firth upwards where the Forth was bridged, the erection of this new bridge was at first strenuously opposed by the County gentlemen of the neighbouring districts, some of whom to avoid the expense of a new bridge would have preferred some scheme for improving the old bridge. When we lived in Queen Street it was one of our common evening amusements during the construction of the bridge to walk down to the scene of the operations and watch the process of driving the piles within the area of the large coffer dam. This pile driving was done tediously by manual labour. Now, of course, it is effected with marvellous rapidity with the help of powerful mechanical arrangements. I recollect the laying of the foundation stone with pompous, masonic ceremonial, on which occasion there was an imposing procession of public bodies and societies of the town and neighbourhood. The schools took part in it, and I well recollect, as a small boy, one of Mr Weir's scholars, marching with a small tin medal suspended by a blue silk ribbon round my neck. It seems to me as if the masonic tune of "The Merry Masons," as we styled it, played by so many successive bands on that day, never afterwards entirely ceased to vibrate in my brain.
Viewfield Place was a nursery garden cultivated by Mr Peter Runciman, who lived in the old-fashioned house at the east end of it. He had a seed shop at the foot of Broad Street. He was one of those who were distinguished by a nickname, being called Paiddle Runciman, from a peculiarity in his gait owing to his having rather large splay feet. After his death Viewfield House was occupied by his brother Dr Runciman, a retired naval surgeon.
Before the formation of the road from York Place to the new bridge, the Cow Park extended from behind Cowane Street down to the river. Since then it has been so cut up and altered by
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65 The New Bridge is the Stevenson Bridge, still the main link from central Stirling to the north side of the Forth and areas such as Causewayhead and Bridge of Allan. The Stevenson Bridge was completed in 1833 (Mair, Royal Burgh, p. 168-9).
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railways and roads and buildings that its very name has fallen into abeyance, and I suppose most of the present generation would be puzzled if asked to say where the Cow Park is. The name indicates the use to which it was put, viz., for pasturing the cattle belonging to the town, and especially the cows that furnished the milk supply. The park was a very pretty and attractive place, intersected by a number of tall hawthorn hedges, useful to the cattle as a shelter from sun and rain, separating it into different divisions with free access from one to the other. Often have I in the summer school holidays rambled there through its grassy glades. Up to the time of my leaving Stirling, Queen Street was only very partially built. On the east there were several gaps, and on the opposite side the only houses were four or five at the foot of the street. Above them was a whinstone quarry, and the rest of the ground was used for vegetable gardens, one of which was cultivated by my father when he occupied the house at the top of the street on the other side.
St Mary's Wynd—(when is it to be called St Mary's Street ?)—is not much altered. A few better tenements have replaced thatched cottages at the foot of the street. The Marykirk is quite a modern addition 66. The upper part of Queen Mary's Lodging 67—so called, for I do not know that there is any record of its having been occupied by Mary—was taken down when, through age, it had become unsafe. My recollection is that over one of the windows were initial letters and a date of the 17th century. The Episcopal Schoolmaster's house belonged to my ancestors, the Gibbs, and in it my father and mother were married. In my younger days it was occupied by Mr Robert Campbell, grandfather of our townsman, Mr James Campbell, banker. At the top of the wynd, on the right hand, just before emerging into Broad Street, a doorway looking down the wynd, with a few steps in front, gives access to a stair that led up to the premises of the old Stirling Bank, an institution that collapsed in the year 1826 68.
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66 The Mary Kirk stood on what is now a small public garden space above Cowane's House. See Elsdon, S.M., 2004, Christian Maclagan, Stirling’s formidable lady antiquary, Pinkfoot, Balgavies, 13-14.
67 Better and more correctly, Cowane's House; see Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, 1963, Stirlingshire, 298-300. It was only partially demolished and now survives as a stabilised ruin.
68 This building, one of Stirling 's saddest losses, had been the Forrester of Logie Lodging. The door and stair mentioned, at the foot of a square tower, had originally given access to a substantial 'great hall' of sixteenth century date. It is briefly described (with photographs) by several of the antiquarian writers; see also Harrison, J. G., 2000. Building and re-building the urban scene in early modern Stirling, Scottish Local History, 48 13-16.
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Upper Bridge street, with the exception of some little addition at its lower end, is also just as it was. The Right Rev. Dr George Gleig, Bishop of Brechin, and incumbent of the Episcopal Chapel in Viewfield Street, lived in one of the houses on the south side of the street, a very modest mansion for a Bishop's palace, although perhaps not altogether out of keeping with the humble ecclesiastical position occupied by the Episcopal community in Stirling when their first church was built a hundred years ago.
I am old enough to remember very well when the Streets were lit with oil lamps, and a familiar object, as evening drew on, was the "leerie" hurrying along with his ladder and flaming torch to set them alight. The rhyme with which we children greeted him still adheres to my memory, "Leerie, leerie, licht the lamps; lang legs and crookit shanks." The amount of illumination these lamps shed around was faint indeed, not sufficient to disclose the irregularities and puddles of the roadway between each. They did not serve much more than to guide passengers on their way, as the lighthouses that stud our coasts enable the mariner by the bearings he takes of them to steer his course up or down the channel in a dark night. The illuminant was train oil 69, then greatly more abundant than it is now that the cetaceous tribe in Arctic seas have been so sadly decimated by the whalers. It was used also in kitchens to burn in very small lamps, whose feeble glimmer must have sorely tried the eyesight of those who ventured with its aid to engage in sewing work; but I think the servants then were more given in their spare time to ply the spinning wheel than the needle. In the dining-room and parlour, candles were burned—of tallow for common use—requiring constant attention to snuffing, an art one had to make some study of to acquire the requisite dexterity. How vastly more favourably are we situated now where gas is not available, with paraffin oil and candles to resort to, so cleanly to handle, and so brilliant in the light they afford, compared to the dim illumination of the rancid train oil and greasy "mutton fats" of former days. A story was current while oil lamps were in use for street lighting, that the sailors of Russian ships that came to Leith used when on shore to climb the lamp-post, blow out the light and suck up the
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69 Obtained from whales and seals.
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oil as a delicious dainty that they were accustomed to in their own northern country. Gas was introduced into Stirling in 1826. I recollect the first night the town was lit with it. People were out in the streets as they would be now at an illumination. I remember one or two of the fancy devices of lighting in some of the shop windows to attract attention—for instance, in a shoemaker's at the foot of Baker Street, the gas jet issuing from a spur on the heel of a boot, and in a tobacconist's in King Street—I think it must have been Snuff Wricht's—the bust of a negro with a cigar in the mouth, the jet of gas from which alternately shortened and lengthened to suggest the act of smoking. Many people were timid at first about introducing the gas into their houses, being apprehensive of its reputed highly explosive qualities. My father, who for many years took a very active part in the management of the gas company—services which the shareholders recognised by presenting him with a handsome silver salver—was one of the first to take the gas into the house. The price of the gas was at first fixed at 15 shillings per 1000 ft., just four times what we are now paying.
I have already incidentally alluded to the water supply of the town as being furnished by the water being first conducted from the Touch Hills to the Reservoir in St John Street, thence to the public wells that were distributed in the streets in what were supposed to be the most convenient positions for the inhabitants. I think there were not more than half-a dozen of them in all, if so many. There was no domestic supply to houses, such as we now have, and for which, I believe, we are mainly indebted to the zealous and persevering exertions of the late Dr Forrest 70. There were private wells attached to some of the dwellings in the lower parts of the town. I know there was a pump well in our garden in Allan Park that yielded a plentiful supply of clear sparkling water, also a small stream at the foot of the garden, in which we used to catch minnows. That was before the formation of a regular system of drainage for sewage, when such purling streams were utilised as sewers, and the wells became polluted through soakage. The-inhabitants in general were obliged to store in their houses the water drawn from the street wells, usually in stoups--a deep wooden vessel, narrower towards the
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70 Forrest was, indeed, keenly involved in public health issues; for an obituary see Stirling Observer, 27 March 1879.
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top, which was crossed by a wooden handle. In carrying a couple of these stoops a hoop, or "girr," was commonly made use of to keep the stoops away from the limbs. Two stoupfuls being thus carried at once were. called "a gang" of water. In summer, when frequently the supply ran short, the water was let into the wells at a certain hour for a limited time, and it was necessary then to procure a supply that would last for twenty-four hours. Naturally there was a rush of the housewives and servants to the wells at the hour the water was let on, and even before in anticipation of it. The attendance on these occasions was regulated in an orderly and methodical manner, each expectant taking her place as she came in the long queue (as our French neighbours call it), that extended many yards down the street, and gradually advancing to the well until it came to her turn to fill her stoups. There was thus no undue crowding, or jostling, or wrangling; except, perhaps, in the rare case of some tricky lass who would take advantage of the inadvertence of one who had left her stoups unwatched for a little, and, shifting them to her own less forward position, would substitute her own in their place. The servant lasses did not altogether dislike these drawings of water, or object to their time being expended on them when it might have been usefully employed at home in other household duties, as it afforded them good opportunities of exchanging the clash of the day with those congregated there.
The conditions of domestic service were in those days very different from what they now are. In the first place, servants, once they were settled in a situation, did not readily think of making a change, unless, perhaps, it was a matrimonial one, but remained for years in the same place, even assuming the name of the family with whom they lived, and dropping their own, so that Kirsty M'Gregor, Janet M'Niven, Bell Black, Annie Stevenson, were better known as Kirsty Sutherland, Janet Galbraith, Bell Boyd, Annie Lucas, &o. How different now, when the restlessness of our domestics incites them to such frequent changes that they remind one of the shifting of the slides at an exhibition of views with the lime light. With this fixity of tenure the relationship between mistress and maid was naturally of a much more cordial and kindly character than what now obtains. At the same time it did not give rise to
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any undue familiarity, the former retaining her legitimate authority, and the maid not presuming on her mistress's condescension, nor lifted up with the notion that some of the girls seem now to entertain that Jane is good as her mistress. This showed itself in the style of dressing. The ordinary dress of the kitchen lass was the shortgown—a body, I believe, it would now be called—without skirt, and woollen petticoats; while the cap, or mutch, was a more capacious, but less ornamental, headdress than the badge of her honourable occupation now worn by the domestic servant. For best clothes there was no attempt, by a study of the fashions of the day, to imitate those above them in social position. Neither, of course, did they claim the title of that much misused word "lady." In these respects I think the old ways were better than the new. Women of the lowest class are now-a-days—at least by their fellows—styled ladies, and I think we should, for distinction's sake, resort to the good old English appellation of "gentlewoman" for those entitled to it. Wages were of course much lower, perhaps about a third of what we give now. At the same time the work was more exacting; yet I think not less willingly and cheerfully performed, perhaps even more so. I remember a curious task that used to be laid on the servants, one that the girls would now very properly scorn to execute. There were in those days of free beggary, and absence of a Poor Law system, a number of cripples, at least of self-called cripples, who travelled over the country in hand barrows, and the servants were expected as I have often seen them do, to pass them on from door to door in their quest of alms, the servants in adjoining houses helping each other, if need were, in carrying the barrow a stage further along the pavement. Thinking of this curious phase of mendicancy, I am puzzled as to how his progress was continued when the cripple arrived at the extremity of a town or village with a stretch of road destitute of houses. I was too thoughtless in my young days to think of this difficulty. Possibly he just took up his barrow and carried it on himself.
In those days of no proper police organisation every town had several daft creatures who roamed about the streets, most of them harmless imbeciles some viciously inclined and dangerous at times, tolerated by the inhabitants as objects of compassion, too often teased and irritated by the boys. Stirling had its quota of these characters. Fumler Lawrence, who was
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minus a leg, belonged to the more dangerous class, as he would sometimes, poising himself on his remaining limb, administer with his single crutch, or "stult," a vicious blow to some unoffending passer-by. He would also burst into a kitchen and terrify the maids. Daft Pate, a little stooping man, whose prognathous countenance favoured the Darwinian theory of descent from a sirnious ancestor, was a harmless creature, attired in a soldier's castoff red coatee. He attended all funerals. His favourite haunt was about the Apothecary's Hall in Baker Street, then kept by Mr Kirkwood, where on a fine day he would be seen stretched at length on the pavement basking in the sun. He had no turn for any active occupation, and when roused from his dose and asked to do some light job, his reply was—" Oh I Am thrang i' noo." Before the formation of the railway system, which by presenting facilities for easy and rapid inter-communication has revolutionised the civilized world, and is now extending its influence even over regions deemed to be entirely without the pale of civilisation, the modes of travel on land were in comparison slow, irksome, and expensive. For journeys of any considerable length there was the four-horse coach, carrying four inside passengers and about a dozen or fourteen on the top. The smartly appointed four-in-hand, with its amateur driver and guard and passengers, which occasionally passes through the town on a summer day, serves to keep up a remembrance of the old stage coach. Along the mail routes from London there was the royal mail also available, with the guard and the driver attired in royal scarlet, carrying in like manner four inside, but, on account of the guard who sat on a seat alone, fewer outside, all at a higher rate than by the ordinary stage coach. The accommodation being limited, it was customary, in order to avoid disappointment, to book places at the coach office one or more days before that of the intended journey, thus securing the right to a seat. Hence the name of booking office has been transferred to the place where tickets are taken at the railway station, although, of course, there is no hooking of places there, the choice of seats in the carriage being arranged according to the rule of first come, first served. I have known instances of Colonial friends, who had gone abroad before railways had become common, and had come home for a visit to "the old country," when about to take a railway journey, propose going to
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the station the day before to take out tickets and so secure their seats. The title of guard, applied to the conductor of the railway train, is also taken from that of the official whose duty was originally to act as a protector against highway robbers. Another instance of association between coaching days and railway travelling might be noted in the form of the first class carriages, which at first were fashioned on the pattern of the stage coach. I recollect such was the case on the London and North Western Railway when I made my first journey to London in 1840, and even within the last twenty years, I have at times, on country branches, seen some of these antiquated coaches form a component part of a train, when, I suppose, there was a deficiency of respectable looking carriages available. The fares by the stage coach and the mail were considerably in excess of the rates at which one now travels by train in circumstances so much superior as regards both speed and comfort and what added to the expense was the fee that had to be handed over to the driver, and to the guard, when there was one. A remains of this objectionable exaction may be found in the coaching portions of the circular routes arranged by railway companies. Besides, the mail there were at least two stage coaches that passed through Stirling—" The Fair Maid" from Glasgow to Perth, which changed horses at Gibb's Inn; "The Soho," and after it "The Defiance" from Sawers' inn, which connected Stirling with Edinburgh, and I am told also with Perth, although my memory does not serve me for that. Miserable enough it was in bad, and especially in severe winter weather, travelling outside, making futile attempts to stimulate the circulation of the feet by continual stamping with them, to the great annoyance of the inside passengers in the compartment below. I can think now, on the occasion of coming home from the Edinburgh classes at the Christmas recess, of the clambering down with difficulty from the top of the Defiance, and, on attaining to the ground, being scarcely able at first to support myself on my temporarily paralysed limbs.
Instead of going all the way by road to Glasgow, a route commonly taken advantage of was by coach to Lock 16, near Castlecary, thence by canal to Port Dundas, its termination in Glasgow. My earliest recollection of the canal boat is of a large decked craft which was tugged along by a couple of horses at a rate of between three and four miles an hour. One left
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Stirling early in the morning and reached Glasgow some time in the afternoon. That would scarcely accord with our present notions of travel. The heavier boat was supplanted by a long, low, narrow boat with an arched roof, or tilt, of painted canvas, just high enough for one to stand upright under it, and a low seat on each side all along. In the centre of the boat was an uncovered space for luggage, that also made the division between the cabin and steerage passengers. These "fly-boats," being so long, light, low, and narrow, were drawn by the horses at a much accelerated speed, and it was considered quite rapid travelling. I recollect on my first journey to London I set out at 7 a.m., reached Glasgow, by the canal in due course, spent the rest of the day there, at night went on board a steamer for Liverpool, whence next morning I continued my journey by the London and North-Western Railway, and finally arrived at Euston at 4 p.m... I considered it a matter for boasting to say that I had breakfasted in Stirling the previous morning. What a change to the facilities of the present day, when at far less cost. in a comfortable, almost luxuriously fitted compartment, with infinitely less fatigue, one can accomplish the same journey in nine or ten hours without even a change of seat.
The favourite route to Edinburgh up to the time of my leaving Stirling was by steamer down the river. There must be a good many yet alive who remember Captain Gentles, the genial skipper of the "Lady of the Lake." As now, it was necessary then to study the tide for access to Stirling shore, but when it was not full tide the steamer often anchored in the reach on the other side of Cambuskenneth—" the back of the Abbey," as we called it —to receive and disembark passengers, who were conveyed from, or to the shore in a large boat towed by men walking along the river bank. This was not an agreeable part of the passage, particularly after arrival at the back of the Abbey in the darkness of night. The voyage in the steamer was usually greatly enjoyed. Being performed in a leisurely manner, opportunity was afforded for partaking of the good substantial meals that were provided on board, to which the fresh air on the river gave zest. I have a lively recollection of the savoury cutlets of kippered salmon that often appeared at the breakfast meal. The landing place was the Chain Pier at Newhaven. This was before the formation of the dock at Granton, the opening of which I remember, in 1838, when I was still attending the classes at Edinburgh. The pier, with its wooden stair slippery
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with marine ooze, was a risky place to disembark at after dark, with the aid of a lantern or two, that rather confused than enlightened, and especially for the passengers who had partaken of dinner and other refreshments by the way. I never knew, of an accident there, but I have seen one or, two hats floating at the pier, the temporary loss of which was apt to be associated with some unsteadiness in the heads they had lately been covering.
Speaking of the Stirling steamer reminds me how differently on one's return to home after visiting foreign climes, one sometimes regards objects and scenes around which one had been brought up. While waiting for admission into the Army Medical Service, I made a voyage to Madras as surgeon of an East Indian trader. The ship—a sailing one, of course—was of respectable size, for those days, although very insignificant in comparison with the leviathans that now traverse the seas. The Captain having been an officer in the old Company's marine, she was handled somewhat in man-of-war fashion, the orders in working the ship being executed to the sound of the bo'sen's pipe. When I again stepped on board the steamer at Granton I was surprised to see what a very small craft she was, and in pacing the deck to find it was just, as the sailors say, "three steps and overboard." But the climax came in the style of making sail, when the Captain —not Captain Gentles by the way—called out to one of the hands, "Hay! Wullie, rin and lowse the jub." In like manner, returning from long residence in Australian colonies, where eucalypti and other forest trees attain gigantic proportions, growing to a height of 300 and even 400 feet, I got quite a shock in again looking at the fine elms and ashes that enhance the beauty of the western approaches to our town, and involuntary exclaimed, "Trees ! Why these are but bushes." I am glad to say that in the time that has since elapsed I have learned once more to admire, and justly to appreciate the fine proportions of these noble trees with their luxuriance of leafage, and varieties of tints, charms in which the Australian trees are deficient. For the smaller towns within shorter distance of Stirling, such as Dunblane and Falkirk, there was a public vehicle called a noddy. My recollection of its construction is not very clear and I cannot find anyone who can help me in it, but I believe the noddy was just a square box on wheels, made chiefly of leather for lightness, entered from behind as in the bus although I
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think there must have been some variations of structure, for according to my memory the Falkirk noddy had two compartments, the posterior of which was called the basket. It seemed to me that the noddy owed its name to its lively action on the springs when in motion. I recollect an Irish friend, who paid a short visit to Stirling, saying that the items in his hotel bill that particularly attracted his attention were "noddy" and "toddy "—I rather think a good many repetitions of the latter.
For a trip to the country in far back times a cart provided with sacks and stuffed with straw for seats was a mode of conveyance by no means despised by our simple seniors. In my days of juvenility for a country excursion a very favourite vehicle—one that seems now to have entirely gone out of existence—was the drosky, a kind of double gig, seated for four. Many a well remembered pleasant day have I had with a happy party in a drosky. In my young days old Scottish annual observances were kept up that are now mostly entirely disregarded. Hallowe'en was a festive occasion universally observed, with pulling of kail stocks, dookin' for apples, burning of nuts, &e., and we boys always managed to have a turnip abstracted from a field, to be hollowed out, a face shaped on it, and lighted with a bit of candle inside. Hogmanay gave us much excitement on account of the guisers, who went from house to house giving representations of the quaint play in which "Goloshens 71" was a principal character. We had the rhymes by heart, and often did my brothers and I rehearse the piece among ourselves. These guisers were well grown young fellows, and generally dressed suitably for the parts they were to play. On my return from abroad I found the old custom in a state of decadence, and it gradually dwindled until a couple of urchins with blackened faces, and a night shirt over their ordinary clothes, offering "to sing ye a sang for a penny," came to represent the troupe of guisers. Even this miserable ghost of the old custom has apparently retired into the land of oblivion. Christmas Day, now coming to be so much observed in Scotland, was taken no notice of, except in a few families, of which ours was one. New Year's Day, the great Scottish festival,
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71 Versions of the simple playlet Galoshans are recorded from many parts of Scotland including Stirling and Kippen.
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still holds its ground. Amid the different opinions as to drinking habits now and in former times, my impression is that there used to be more drunkenness then than mow, and that it was more lightly regarded. First. footing was common in the better class of society, and I recollect my father sallying out at midnight with a silver kettle charged with "het pint," a beverage compounded, I believe, of beer, whisky, hot water, oatmeal, and spices, to be first-foot to some of our old female relatives. Hansel Monday was a holiday greatly observed among the rural population. The favourite amusement was shooting at a mark, and I believe the orthodox object of aim was a cock tethered to a stake. I distinctly remember the frequent reports of the fowling pieces to be heard on that day all round the town.
Valentine Day, the 14th of February, was everywhere celebrated, and for a month before its advent there was in the stationers' windows, and also in those of shops whose goods were of a miscellaneous character, a great display of the valentines, amatory, and comic, that the young people were in the custom of sending to one another. This long established custom has of late years entirely fallen into desuetude, seemingly. replaced by the so rapidly extending and more kindly and friendly interchange by cards of Christmas and New Year greetings.
Before railways had tended to equalise over the country, the cost of the necessaries of life, Stirling was rather a cheap place to live in, and this, together with its many amenities, attracted to it a good many who were not engaged in business, notably officers retired from the public services, with incomes that just enabled them to live moderately, but comfortably.
With so many families of this class resident in Stirling, society was of a very pleasant character. Being, as in other provincial towns, then isolated from the rest of the world by reason of more tedious and less frequent intercommunications, the residents were more drawn together among themselves, and there was more heartiness and true friendliness in their social intercourse. Everyone was acquainted with everyone else, and they were truly sympathetic in each other's sorrows and joys. They had plenty of leisure time at their command, and the gentlemen were fond of meeting in Provost Forman's shop, as I have before said, and of
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72 Handsel Monday was originally the first Monday of the New Year when servants had, traditionally, been given presents; after the change from the Julian to the Gregorian Calendar in 1752, the 'old' date was observed, 11 days later than the first Monday.
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resorting to the Reading Room, to talk over the news of the day, and exchange their simple harmless jokes with each other. I think life in the old Royal Burgh was more enjoyable and more satisfying than now. The current was slower, but the stream was more limpid and less troubled. These, our ancestors, resided within the town, or clung closely, to its skirts. Now there is a suburban population, in great measure strangers to each other, more widely scattered in the villas that look so pretty to the eye, with their oriel windows, however, badly adapted for our rigorous northern climate, far less cosy than the older fashioned houses. Many of these residents, engaged in business in Glasgow, rush off by train after a hurried breakfast, returning only in the evening. Naturally they cannot take much interest in the affairs of the town, nor in their neighbours' welfare, such as the old people took.
There was a great deal of hospitality in the way of dinners and tea-drinkings of a more homely character than now. For their dinner parties the hosts did not go beyond the resources of their own establishments, except that a woman might be brought in to help with the cooking, but there were few 'made dishes," and no hired waiters with white ties. The white tie as an essential of evening attire had not then been introduced, nor indeed was the black dress suit de rigueur for full dress. The fare provided wag good if somewhat plainer than now, and only a little more varied and more abundant than what usually appeared on the family dinner table. Champagne, now a sine qua non at dinners and many other social entertainments, was seldom seen at the ordinary dinner party. I recollect that my father having at a special family gathering produced this wine, now so common, almost to vulgarity, there were present old female relations who had never before seen it, much less tasted it. One of them, after taking her first draught of the effervescing liquor, exclaimed—" Man, Provost, that's fine ginger beer!"
I admit that there was a good deal more strong drink taken at these dinner parties than might now be considered seemly. During dinner sherry, of which on account of the old fashion of the guests "having," as it was called, "the pleasure of taking a glass of wine" with each other in succession, many more glasses were drank than are handed round now by the attendants—a dram, or two, that is after the fish and after the pudding—and strong ale or
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porter. After dinner, port and sherry—claret was then an expensive wine, rarely seen on the table. When the ladies left there was immediately a call for the hot water, while the host pressed his guests first to take some more wine. The toddy, however, was more attractive. The regular allowance of this seductive beverage was two tumblers, made with a glass and a half of whisky in each. These being disposed of, the proposal was made to "join the ladies." The host begged his guests to brew another tumbler. This was strenuously declined, but when an "eke" was suggested it always met with a willing acceptance. The eke differed from the orthodox tumbler in that it was made with only one full glass of whisky. With so much more liberal consumption of liquor there was naturally more noisy hilarity than at the more staid dinners of the present day. Although no one then would have thought of suggesting that' in such joviality the bounds of moderation were in any way, exceeded, it might be noticed that some at least of the party had a somewhat dazed look when they entered the drawing-room.
But I must draw my Old Recollections to a close. In doing so, I would fain hope that the same ambiguous kind of verdict may not be passed on them as that awarded to a clergyman, who, after preaching an assize sermon, ventured—no doubt fishing for a compliment—to say to the judge before whom he had delivered it, "I hope your Lordship did not think the sermon was too long." "Oh, no," replied the judge, "it was not very long." "I am glad you did not find me tedious." "I did not say that," rejoined his Lordship, "I didn't say you were not tedious" I have had a certain enjoyment in the recalling of my old recollections. If the narration of them will have imparted any like pleasure to those who, approximating to my own time of life, can to some extent participate in them, and if it will have interested and mayhap entertained those who have as yet no such reminiscences to fall back upon. I shall consider myself well repaid for any trouble I have taken in committing them to writing Some of them may perhaps be considered too trivial to be recorded. To use the words of -Byron in his ending of Childe Harold, "What is writ is writ, would it were worthier."
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END OF PART 2 | GO BACK TO PART 1| Dr G. T. Galbraith