Discovering Edinburgh...

By Bob McCulloch ©

The Grassmarket

Today the Grassmarket is a vibrant lively place popular with tourists and late night revellers who frequent the many bars, restaurants and boutique shops, but it has a dark side to its history as it has been the scene of many murders and executions.



notorious murderers found many of their sixteen victims.

At the west end is Kings Stables Road so named because this was where the King stabled his horses. Among the many pubs is one of the oldest in the city dating



Hart is a former coaching inn frequented



Wordsworth. Also there is the Last Drop



taken for a drink before being executed, a case of taking the last drop before taking the last drop... so to speak.

Memorial beside which stood the public gallows. One hundred people were executed here in the name of religious



their names are listed on a plaque erected



Association and the Scottish Reformation Society in 1988. The memorial lists those executed in or near Edinburgh in the





the Episcopalian form of worship on the



common people they signed the National

 

to disband rather than merge with another regiment. Their belief was that when you





captured at the battles of Rullion Green



Kirkyard where they were imprisoned for up to six months in an open air prison, which can still be seen to this day, before being tried before Lord Advocate George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh who was known

 

he would send them “To glorify God in the

 

periods in Scottish history.



would obey him as King they had the right to choose their own religion. The



in 1477 gave permission for a market to be held there where cattle, horses, meal, corn and grain were sold until 1911 when it was moved to Saughton. The area is frequented by many of the city’s urban nomads, alcoholics and homeless people who in day’s gone bye could get a bed, with a clean sheet if they were lucky in



mission. The Grassmarket is a street where many historical events have taken place and which was the site of many public executions. At the east end junction

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30

 

ministers were evicted from their churches they took to the Pentland Hills to practice their religion away from Government view. To ensure that the worshippers were not disturbed at prayer, Richard



as sentries during the service, these men



by Government Troops and would later

  

They were the only regiment allowed to

 

was involved in from their inception to

 

1724. At that time the law stated that the bodies of executed criminals be taken to the Medical School for dissection, but some of her friends brought a cart and a



the hangman cut her down medical students attempted to take the body to the medical school and a battle ensued

Two of the most infamous executions which took place in the Grassmarket involved Maggie Dickson and John Porteous. Public execution in the Grassmarket ceased in 1784. Maggie Dickson sold kale from a stall outside St. Giles. When her husband left her in1723, Maggie decided to visit relatives in Newcastle; she stopped enroute in Kelso where she befriended a woman who kept a lodging house. She decided to stay and in exchange for board and lodgings she worked in the boarding house. She had an affair with her landlady’s son, William



attempts to conceal her condition led to the baby being born premature and he died a few days later. Maggie decided to get rid of the body in the River Tweed but instead hid it in the long grass at the river’s edge

 

who soon traced Maggie. She was arrested and charged, not with murder but



Act and sent to Edinburgh for trial where she was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. Maggie had been a very popular person and a huge crowd turned out for her execution on September

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