Today’s auction house artefact is this coloured print of a late 17th century nautical chart of Leith. It’s one of the earliest accurate maps and illustrations of the town and is chock full of wonderful details of the port that are now long gone. The National Library of Scotland date the original copy of this to 1693.

The original survey and chart was made by Captain Greenvile Collins, “Hydrographer in Ordinary to the King“. Collins was an English sailor and hydrographer who made the first comprehensive and accurate survey of the coast of “Great Britain” in the 1680s. A forward thinking man, he had identified numerous shortcomings in the navigational charts of the time – how they were surveyed, produced and distributed – and had set about rectifying these them. In 1681 he was given the blessing of King Charles II to proceed. He was also a Royal Navy captain and would serve under the admiral who enabled William of Orange to land at Torbay, so would have found himself in favour with the new King. Indeed, he ended his days as master of the Royal Yachts Mary and then Fubbs.

The better details of his map of Leith are available on a digitised copy from the ever excellent National Library of Scotland Map Library site. On here we can see that the humble dedication was to the “Lord Provost of the city of Edinburgh and the rest of the Honourable Council of the said Burgh“.

Note that the herald is grasping a thistle, and the flags are Scottish saltires – although Collins was an Englishman, this is a pre-Union work and he’s playing to the audience of Edinburgh and William as King of Scotland. The cherubs on the top left of the map carry a banner displaying a simplified arms of Edinburgh; a castle with 3 towers.

The map is primarily a nautical chart of the approach to Leith, and displays details such as water depths (in fathoms – the small numbers dotted around the bottom), the low water mark, the hazards of the rocks off the port – marked by a beacon – and the approach itself, which at this time was the mouth of the river.

We also have a sketched town plan, which you can take my word for is actually quite accurate. (I’ll come back to the details later).

The fishing village of Newhaven to the west, with the spire of the sailor’s chapel (St. James’). What is interesting here is the two rings of rock, with a central channel. Some earlier maps of Newhaven suggest it was at one time a small bay, and these rocks may be the remains of the enclosing spits of land, washed by the sea.

And further still west, a solitary building is marked which must be Wardie (and the bay), as Roy’s 1750 map shows nothing else between Newhaven and the estate of Carolina Park in present-day Granton.

And as an inset, the map has a “prospect of Leith from the east“, from an illustration made by (“fecit” in Latin) Nicholas Yeates. This is a bit of a glaring error as it has clearly been made from the west!

And lastly out in Leith Roads – the anchorage independent of the tides (5 fathoms or 30 feet, marked by the anchor) between the port and the island of Inchkeith – we see a Scottish merchant ship (right) and English warship (left). The latter is flying a “Union Jack” or “King’s Colours” from the jackstaff; the flag of Great Britain at this time, with its use restricted to Royal ships.

Back to the town plan in more detail, it’s unhelpfully orientated with north to the bottom, but if you rotate it and georeference it from known features, it’s a pretty good fit, with just a little bit of bending, so it’s not just guesswork but a reasonable survey.

The main obvious feature running through Leith is the river, separating South Leith (the part to the right of the above image, or east) from the separate parish and of North Leith (the left or west). The river is tidal, and appears drawn at low tide. There is a single crossing of the river, the 15th century “Abbot’s Bridge”, and Collins correctly shows it with 3 arches. This prevented all but smaller boats passing any further upriver.

There are 3 prominent buildings marked, the South Leith Parish Kirk (St. Mary’s, at the orange arrow), the Tolbooth and/or custom house (blue arrow) and the North Leith Parish Kirk (St. Ninian’s at the green arrow). All three are shown symbolic and don’t bear too much of a good likeness to their subjects.

The “docks” themselves are not much to speak of. The quay on the South Leith bank is stone built, and there are two “peeres” of timber on the opposite North Leith side. The “notches” in the quayside, better shown in this early 18th century sketch below, allowed timber to be floated through the wall and hauled onto land.

Timber from the Baltic was an important cargo, and was stored, traded and taxed at the Timber Bush (from the French bourse for an exchange.). Its angular perimeter is the result of it being formed on a 16th century bastion built to protect the town during the Siege of 1548-60. Piles of stored timber are shown marked.

And speaking of the Siege of Leith, we see that despite repeated orders to the contrary, the defensive walls and bastions on the east flank of the town are still very much in evidence; that’s because the Covenanter Army under Alexander Leslie rebuilt them in 1650. These would persist in an ever more decayed state until well into the 18th century.

“Leith Walk” seems clearly marked, in fact it was little more than a pair of footpaths; what is marked is a ridge that was the remains of a defensive barricade thrown up by the Covenanter General Leslie in 1650 to defend Edinburgh and Leith from Cromwell. The main route to and from Leith for horses and carts was the Easter Road – through the gate in the wall at the green arrow. Leith Walk was a convenient and shorter route for foot traffic.

Moving across the river to North Leith, it was at this time little more than a single late medieval street with lanes and closes off it, with quays along the river. The pier was used for handling ballast. Fishing boats and shipbuilding took place on the upper beach, the “Sandport”.

This thing is Leith Citadel, ordered to be built by Oliver Cromwell as one of a series of fortifications to control Scotland in the Commonwealth. The north/seaward side and 5th corner bastion is “missing”. My guess is it was already washed away by storms at this time and no effort was made to repair the damage. The array of buildings around the parade ground however were prized dwellings, and the well to do of Leith, in particular English artisans who had been established here during the Commonwealth, made it their base. Glassmaking and newspaper printing industries started off in Scotland from within its walls.

South Leith also had a fundamentally medieval town layout, a few principal streets and wynds, few off which were “causeyed” (paved) and a veritable warren of closes – mostly little more than narrow, muddy footpaths. Yellow is the Kirkgate, green is Tolbooth Wynd, blue is St Andrew Street, pink is Giles Street, orange is Yardheads and purple the Coalhill and Sherriff Brae.

Continuing, Blue is Quality Street (although it was probably not called this at the time), yellow is Coatfield Lane, green “the Links”, pink is Rotten Row, purple is Broad Wynd and orange is the Shore.

The principal street (indeed, pretty much the only thing you could call such) in North Leith was known as the “Hiegate”, or “High Street”. The accuracy and faithfulness of this map can be corroborated by the 1709 plan of Leith made by John Naish, the first *properly* accurate survey and plan of the town.

Lastly we get to Yeates’ inset illustration. I get the impression he was probably more interested in drawing ships than buildings, as a lot more effort and detail goes into the former. But we can see good features. The northern end of the quay shows the signal house (which indicated the state of the tide) and that it is constructed of wooden pilings.

Most of the quay is stone, but he omits to include the ways through to the Timber Bush. The “ballast quay” on the North Leith bank is wooden pilings again.

The curious tower at the right hand side is the King’s Wark (wark = a work = building), a 15th century fortification built by James I that acted as a royal arsenal and storehouse. It was burnt out around this time so I wonder if that’s why it’s shown without its roof?

Although John Slezer’s beautiful sketch made from the other side, confirms the basic form but the details differ. Made around the same time, it clearly shows it with a roof and also a spire which has been omitted by Yeates.

Yeates hasn’t included the windmill built by Robert Mylne (now “the Tower”, the defining old landmark of this end of Leith), which is usually dated to 1686. However Slezer’s sketch also doesn’t include it so it may be either it was only partially complete, or our dates for it are wrong. The row of tenements he includes is very faithful to later illustrations made in 1822 for the arrival of George IV in Leith.

This chart was produced at the same time as a general navigational chart of the “Edinburgh Firth” (our Firth of Forth) by Collins. Note the discrepancy of Lieth in this broader chart vs. Leith in the first. The sketch of Leith in this is fairly faithful to the more detailed survey, and it is interesting to note that about half of Leith has been erased; it looks like the artist made it too large in comparison to Edinburgh and had to correct their error.

And now let’s have a look at those boats. This is obviously an English vessel; it’s carrying the King’s Flag at the front, it’s gaily ornamented and has distinctive round gunports and portholes. It could be that this is the Royal Yacht “Fubbs“, Collins’ later command; other ships he is known to have used for the survey are the Merlin and Monmouth, and he later had command of the Mary, all of which were similarly sized 8 gun yachts.

Fubbs was commissioned by King Charles II in the 1680s and named for his mistress Louise Renée de Penancoët de Kéroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth. “Fubbs” was a pet name which meant “chubby” or “voluptuous” and would have been a compliment at the time.

Next in line is a Scottish merchant vessel, it may be a Dutch-built Fluyt/Flute as it has the correct sail plan, rounded lines, raised stern and lacks gunports. Scots merchants often used ships built in the Low Countries.

And lastly a Scottish warship – pictures of which are very few and far between. The detail at the stern suggests a military ship, the Royal Scottish Navy existed at this time largely as a privateering force, with no permanent establishment. The lines between a merchant and fighting vessel at this timer were fairly flexible.

This vessel very closely matches the 17th century votive ship (a model kept in a mariner’s church to make offerings and prayers to), “The Schip”, in the collection of the Aberdeen Maritime Museum (pics

Again this is possibly a Dutch-built vessel, as it is known that warships were purchased by Scotland in the Low Countries at this time.And out in Leith Roads we see an English warship of the Royal Navy probably a “Fifth Rate” (the largest sort of warship that wasn’t a “ship of the line” i.e. a ship of the battle fleet) and another Scottish merchant Fluyt.

This map and its illustration capture Leith at a point in time when it was about to change; within 10 years, the King’s Wark gone, the Windmill/Tower would be built and the quays extended. The medieval buildings of much of the town would slowly give way to more modern ones, and the Union of the Crowns would be completed bringing the Royal Scottish Navy to an end.

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