Thursday 10 September 2009

Welcome to my blog....

This is Gladstones Land on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh (thought to have been built in the late 1500s and added to in the 1600s). It's the inspiration for my new 12th scale project and I created this blog to keep a regular diary of it's progress. I'll be posting any little finds I make, anecdotes, hiccups large and small (hopefully not too many of those!) and lots and lots of pictures.
A "tenement" was originally an area of ground and the building erected on the tenement was known as a "land". One well documented owner was Thomas Gledstane and this was how the name Gladstone's Land was derived.

Living conditions Edinburgh in the mid to late 1700s were pretty squalid due to restricted space. There were city boundaries on three sides and the Nor' Loch on the fourth. (The Nor' Loch was drained in 1759 and is now Princes Street Gardens). The only solution was to build up. The grandest residents lived on the second and third floors, there would likely be a tradesperson at the top and possibly a lawyer or some city dignitary in there as well. It is known that the owner of the shop at street level lived at the back of the building and every night he had to lock up his shop and walk out the front and round the side of the building to get to his house.

The little staircase to the left of the picture leads to the entrance of the stairway.

The original owner of this property was a Sir Robert Bannatyne. It was then purchased by Thomas Gledstane (born circa 1582 and Merchant Burgess) on 20th December 1617 and he went about extending the property forward of the orginal building. If you are interested in knowing more about the history click the picture of "Gladstone's Land" to the right.

Finding a suitable property proved tricky as it needed to be something very tall and skinny but during my trip to the Scottish Miniatura in June, I had a lengthy chat with a local dolls house builder (Ted Sills of Dolls House Concepts) who was able to supply me with just what I needed - a property approximately one foot square by just over five foot high!

2 comments:

  1. Hi,

    Great idea! Good to see an old Edinburgh building recreated as a miniature

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love history too and will be watching your building "age" with great interest. What a wonderful idea for your project and I am very impressed already with the stonework. Very realistic!!

    ReplyDelete

 

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