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Queen Mary's gardener's house
Skene, James, 1819, Watercolour
Queen Mary's gardener's house
Queen Mary's gardener's house
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Item no
1111
Title
Queen Mary's gardener's house
Artist / maker
Skene, James
Date
1819
Size
22 x 15 cm.
Type
Watercolour
Location
Edinburgh and Scottish Collection
This sixteenth century pavilion, known variously as Queen Mary's Gardener's House and Queen Mary's Bathhouse, stands in Abbey Hill on the north-western perimeter of Holyrood Palace. An ancient tradition, later recalled in 18th century verse, suggests it was here that Mary Queen of Scots "bathed in white wine to entertain her loveliness"(1) :
That chamber where the queen, whose charms devine
Made wondering nations own the power of love,
Oft bathed her snowy limbs in sparkling wine,
Now proves a lonely refuge for the dove(2) .
In 1789, during the construction of an adjoining building, an ornamental dagger was discovered in a turret staircase which was being demolished. A perhaps fanciful story associates the dagger with the murder of David Rizzio, private secretary and favourite of Queen Mary, and suggests that the weapon was discarded by one of Rizzio's murderers as he was making a hasty escape through the royal gardens. The neighbouring building, plainly visible in James Skene's watercolour, was demolished in 1852, and the "Bath House" partially restored.
(1) Stevenson, R.L., Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh, First Published 1878, Barnes and Noble 1993, 86
(2) Craigmillar (anon), c 1770, part of a poem reproduced in Grant, James, Old and New Edinburgh, 1882, Vol II, 41
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