Queen Mary's Oratory, Castle Hill

Category

Library Item

Item no

631

Title

Queen Mary's Oratory, Castle Hill

Description

An image of Queen Mary's Oratory at Castle Hill, Edinburgh. The niche is arched with ornamental carving. A pillar stands to one side and a doorway on the other.

Artist / maker

Skene, James

Date

1820

Size

22 x 14 cm.

Type

Watercolour

Location

Edinburgh and Scottish Collection

The inside of Mary of Guise's Oratory on Castle Hill, Edinburgh.

Mary of Guise (1515-1560), consort of James V of Scotland and mother of Mary Queen of Scots, is thought to have lived in a large house off the Lawnmarket, known as Mary of Guise's Palace. The reputed site is now occupied by the General Assembly Hall of the Church of Scotland. According to tradition, the Palace was occupied by Mary of Guise during the minority of her daughter, but there is little hard evidence to support the story. Later accounts speak of "lofty apartments" and&."ornate ceilings decorated with fleur de lys and other devices, armorials and initials". As John Geddie (1) points out" the sculptured stonework, in the lintels, attest &&that this has been the residence of a family of taste as well as rank and position". James Skene, who was clearly drawn to some of the ornamental detail, describes how crowded the palace had become by the 1830s: "There is a maze of tortuous and sometimes lofty apartments in which a numerous nest of poor people have established themselves having each a sort of separate abode, but so encumbered as to make a matter of much difficulty to get sight of the original walls"(2). The Palace, at the foot of Blythes's Close was demolished in 1845, to make way for the new Assembly Hall, but not before the antiquarian Charles Kirkpatrick Sharp (3) had collected a number of painted panels and examples of carved stone work, including two Gothic niches, one of which, described as being "in the richest style of ornamental Gothic"(4), is thought to be the subject of Skene's water colour drawing. These now form part of the collection of the National Museums of Scotland. Examples both from the Palace, said to be occupied by Mary of Guise, and the nearby house of Edward House, are currently on display in the Burgh section of the National Museum of Scotland.
(1) Geddie, John, The Sculptured Stones of the Royal Mile, Book of the Old Edinburgh Club, Edinburgh, 1925
(2) Skene, James, Reekiana, 1836, Edinburgh Central Library Archive,67,68
(3) Wilson, Sir Daniel, Memorials of Edinburgh in Olden Times, 2nd ed. Edinburgh 1891, Vol. 1, 191
(4) Wilson, Memorials, 1, 154

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Related subjects

Architecture > Architectural features > Stone carvings

Places > Scotland > Edinburgh

Religion > Religious facilities > Chapels

Religion > Religious facilities > Oratories

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