Bowhead House and Head of the Bow

Category

Library Item

Item no

624

Title

Bowhead House and Head of the Bow

Description

A street scene of Bowhead House and the Head of the Bow, Edinburgh. The tall tenement of Bowhead House with its ground floor shops stands on the left and the Weigh House with its arched entrance on the right. A man with a hat is unloading goods from a cart whilst two men on horseback gallop by. Washing is hanging from a tenement window and smoke is rising from the chimney stacks.

Artist / maker

Skene, James

Date

1817

Size

20 x 22 cm

Type

Watercolour

Location

Edinburgh and Scottish Collection

Edinburgh's West Bow was zig-zagging street which led from the Grassmarket to the Lawnmarket. Its upper half was destroyed by the construction of Victoria Street and Terrace. Bowhead House stood at the junction of the West Bow and the Lawnmarket. This upper section of the West Bow was also known as the 'Bowhead' or 'Bowheid'. The house was demolished in the 1870's and rebuilt in a similar style a few years later.

Originally the street was filled with a quirky assortment of 17th-century tenements, with crow- stepped gables, flight-holes for doves, towers and merchants shops.

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Related subjects

Business > Service industry > Shops

Homes > Residential buildings > Houses

Homes > Residential buildings > Tenements

Places > Scotland > Edinburgh

Transport > Land > Horse and carts

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