Burgh Muir - Clearing The Land

Clearing The Land

The feuing of the Muir led to the rapid clearing of the remaining woodland on the muir, to dispose of which more easily the Council granted anyone fronting their tenement with wood the liberty of extending the front by seven feet into the street. The resulting timber frontages were followed by wooden fore-stairs which reduced the width of the street even more (until banned by the Council in 1674. A later parliamentary act of 1727 forbade stone-built stairs). According to the 18th-century historian Maitland, "...the buildings which before had stonern fronts were now converted into wood, and the Burgh into a wooden city". An English visitor William Brereton, commented in 1635 on what he perceived as the hideous effect of these wooden frontages,

Here they usually walk in the middle of the street, which is a fair, spacious, and capacious walk. This street is the glory and beauty of this city: it is the broadest street (except in the Low Countries, where there is a navigable channel in middle of the street) and the longest street I have seen, which begins at the palace, the gate whereof enters straight into the suburbs, and is placed at the lower end of the same. The suburbs make an handsome street; and indeed the street, if the houses, which are very high, and substantially built of stone (some five, some six stories high), were not lined to the outside and faced with boards, it were the most stately and graceful street that ever I saw in my life; but this face of boards, which is towards the street, doth much blemish it, and derogate from glory and beauty; as also the want of fair glass windows, whereof few or none are to be discerned towards the street, which is the more complete, because it is as straight as may be. This lining with boards (wherein are round holes shaped to the proportion of men's heads), and this encroachment into the street about two yards, is a mighty disgrace unto it, for the walls (which were the outside) are stone; so, as if this outside facing of boards were removed, and the houses built uniform all of the same height, it were the most complete street in Christendom.

One of the last timber-fronted houses at the corner of the West Bow and the Lawnmarket was demolished as late as 1878 as part of city improvement measures.