Kilgraston House, Whitehouse Loan

Category

Library Item

Item no

18132

Title

Kilgraston House, Whitehouse Loan, now St Margaret's Convent

Artist / maker

Smith, John

Date

1927

Size

6.8 x 11.2 cm

Type

Photograph

Location

Edinburgh and Scottish Collection

This is a photograph from the book 'Origin, nomenclature and location of various houses and streets in Edinburgh'.

The site and buildings that form the present Gillis Centre hold a wide and varied interest forsecular, church
and architectural historians.. For over 150 years the present Gillis Centre was well known
in Edinburgh as St Margaret's Convent and School under the ministry of the Ursulines of Jesus. Then for a
brief period from 1986, the complex was renamed Gillis College and housed the senior seminary for the
Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh.

The present Whitehouse that forms the core of the present Gillis Centre dates from around 1670. In the
Whitehouse, Doctor William Robertson (1721-1793), Principal of Edinburgh University, wrote his'History
of the Reign of Charles V, and Reverend John Home (1722-1808) wrote his play 'Douglas'which was first
produced at the Canongate Theatre in 1756.Also, Reverend Hugh Blair (1718-1800), Professor at Edinburgh
University, wrote his 'Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres' while living in the Whitehouse.
By 1819 the Whitehouse belonged to Mrs Ann Grant, widow of Francis Grant of Kilgraston in Strathearn
(commemorated in Kilgraston Road and Strathearn Road). In 1834, Mrs Grant sold part of the estate
including the Whitehouse to the Church for £3,000.

The Ursulines of Jesus took up residence in the Whitehouse on 26th December 1834 with the founding of
St Margaret's Convent.

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