2121
Left, Belford Road,
photographed in 1902
Below, a 1932 portrait of
architect Sir George
Washington Browne by
Alfred Edward BorthwickThe house was built in 1891 as Lynedoch
House, by the architect Sir George
Washington Browne, who would go on
to design Edinburgh’s Caledonian Hotel
took up with another woman of that name, the
Irish actress Mary Gertrude Cranfield. Mary
refused to reconcile with either her husband or
her wealthy parents back in America and took
up the name Jones to try her hand as an actress.
Her family continued to give her an allowance of
£240 a year (about £40,000 today) which she
spent on drink, and what the newspapers called
“stimulants”, being reported as being depressed.
The death of her second child, the breakdown
of her marriage, the loss of custody of her first
child, her abandonment by Courtice Pounds and
the schism with her parents must have all been
heartbreaking for her. While touring with the
play How London Lives in Burnley, she drank
herself to death on Thursday 6 October 1898,
aged just 27.DRUMSHEUGH TOLL
Lynedoch House clearly had a very short and
unhappy life as a matrimonial home, but all is
not quite what it seems with the place. Within its
walls is an earlier and smaller house, the 1820s
Drumsheugh Toll, which enforced the turnpike
road tolls of the Cramond District. The roads
from the city leading to the Cramond Brig and
onwards to the west. The Trustees of the
Turnpike roads did not employ toll keepers,
rather they built a tollhouse and then let it out to
the highest bidder, who made their income from
enforcing and collecting the tolls.
For every coach, berlin, landau chariot, chaise
or calash, drawn by six horses, the levy was 2s,
but a one-horse chaise paid only 3d. Waggons,
wains or carts paid charges graded from 6s, if
pulled by six horses, to 3d if pulled by one only.
a single horse, unyoked, incurred a charge of
3/4d; oxen, 7 1/2d per score, and sheep 3 3/4 d
per score.”
When the Dean Bridge opened in 1831, the
Queensferry Road was relocated across it,
meaning that it could no longer control the
traffic passing this way as it had been bypassed.
Previously all traffic heading in this direction
would cross the Water of Leith down in the
Village of Water of Leith (“Dean Village”) and
therefore had to pass the Drumsheugh Toll.
A further toll house, the fourth, therefore had
to be opened opened on the Queensferry Road
at the head of Orchard Brae; the Dean Check
Toll. The city moved all its toll bars to its
boundary in 1854, making both of these
redundant, and a new toll was opened where
Queensferry Road meets Queensferry Terrace -
the Dean Park Toll.KIRKBRAE HOUSE
The Drumsheugh Toll cottage was disposed of as
a residence. The building of Kirkbrae House is
frequently mistaken for the old toll house given
its prominent location at the end of the Dean
Bridge, however this was the home and business
premises of Cabbie Stewart, a local personality
and horse cab proprietor who accumulated some
considerable wealth and built himself this
rambling Scottish Baronial pile, incorporating
many old decorative stones from theneighbourhood. Cabbie Stewart’s stables formed
the basement level of Lynedoch House to the
rear on Bell’s Brae.
It is the projecting window of the toll house,
which would have allowed the keeper a clear
view up and down the road that they controlled,
and the front door which is the point of constant
reference here. A further clue to Lynedoch
House’s predecessor is the name painted above
the door.
Charles Hardie remarried in 1899, to Margaret
Sommerville Smart and kept his studio here, but
the building was split and the house was
occupied by the Misses Boyd. The “Norman”
church behind the house is the Dean Free
Church, built in the 1840s. It removed itself to
the other end of Belford Road to a much larger
and grander building to better serve its parish in
1888, the old building becoming another artists
studio; the Dean Studio. The lower part, formerly
the Free Church school, became the Edinburgh
Arts & Crafts Club, the upper levels which had
been the church were occupied by a variety of
artists. The 1905 postal directory lists: William
Grant Stevenson, RSA, (Sculptor and Painter),
Joseph Hayes (Sculptor), Miss Meta Napier
Brown (an arts and crafts silversmith) and
Thomas Beattie (Sculptor).20TH CENTURY
In 1906, Charles Hardie stood in the City
Corporation elections as a Unionist candidate,
putting his address as Lynedoch Studio. He was
soundly beaten by the incumbent. In 1912, he
was still based there for work, although he was
by resident in North Queensferry.
At this time the Misses Boyd were still in the
house at no. 2, the Edinburgh Arts & Crafts
Club and the Dean Studio still in the church at
no. 4. Hardie died in 1916 aged 58 after a heart
attack. His obituary did not mention his first
marriage and divorce. After this, the former
studio at 1 Belford Road was occupied by R. S.
Kennedy, a dealer in Austin cars, who remained
here until 1939.
In 1934 the former main hall of the old Free
Church was converted into a theatre by the
author and playwright, Christine Orr, who had
100 seats installed in front of a stage and based
her theatre company – The Makars – here.
It was taken over during WW2 as an ARP (Air
Raid Precautions) and First Aid post. Christine
was unable to return after the war and instead it
was taken over by ornamental woodworkers
Robert Laurie & Son., who were based here
when it burned down in 1954.
Lynedoch House was split into three private
residences at some point before 1940. It was
category B listed in December 1970. The
ground floor had by this time became occupied
by the Waddel School of Music and the upper
floors by the Edinburgh Society of Musicians,
who have a recital room and practice rooms
there to this day.If you liked this story then do buy Andy a coffee
on his KO-FI page http://www.ko-fi.com/andyarthur