Writers' Museum

We were happily investigating funny little closes on the Royal Mile and accidentally came upon the Writers’ Museum.

Chris and Jane disappeared inside for a while but I was enjoying the pavement outside.

Bill wondered who you had to know to have an address like ‘2 Lady Stairs Close’.

Chris came out and said the stairwell was worth investigating, so I did, taking my camera with me.

I assumed that to enter the museum cost money but since I crossed no doorway but the outside entrance and never met another person, I’d not entered the museum.

I was wrong on two counts – a) the museum was free and b) no photo allowed.  Oops, too late.

The stairwell was beautiful, right up to the ladder leading to the hatch in the loft; also the quaint windows with the bullseye glass. This used to be the cheap bit, but of course now it is a novelty and therefore more expensive.

 

(If you’ve never read John Buchan, you’ve missed a treat).

We returned the next day to see the museum – all about Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson, all Scottish writers of note. 

 

The house was also beautiful.  It was built in 1622 by a man named Grey and owned in turn by several upper class families, including a Lady Elizabeth Something of Stairs, AKA Lady Stairs, who bought the house in 1719. It was rescued from near demolition at the turn of the last century by a gentleman who donated it to the city for use as a museum.

 

Somes it is well to note comments writ on stone as well as those carved in it.  Just so you know what some folks are thinking...