Saturday 23rd October 1819
Saturday Oct 23rd At 9 o’clock we attended the sacred music which is held in the Parliament house; it was excessively crowded & I never heard music go off better
OBSERVATIONS & COMMENTS:
Parliament House: The oldest part of Parliament House is Parliament Hall, which the Town Council of Edinburgh, at its expense, had built as a permanent home for the Parliament of Scotland, and as such is the oldest extant purpose-built parliamentary building in the British Isles.
1829: The Parliament House, Edinburgh from page 128 of Modern Athens, displayed in a series of views; or, Edinburgh in the nineteenth century; exhibiting the whole of the new buildings, modern improvements, antiquities, & picturesque scenery of the Scottish metropolis & its environs, by Thomas Hosmer Shepherd. Original held and digitised by the British Library (Accession number HMNTS 010370.dd.10.) This work is in the public domain. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MA(1829)_p.128_-_The_Parliament_House,_Edinburgh_-_Thomas_Hosmer_Shepherd.jpg
It was completed in 1639 to the design of James Murray. It has a dramatic hammer-beam roof constructed of oak from the Balgonie and Culross forests of Fife, thought to be the hardest and most durable in Scotland during that period.
Parliament Hall. © Copyright N Chadwick and licensed for reuse under the (CC SA-BY 2.0) Creative Commons Licence. https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2312698
The roof of the new Scottish Parliament Building continues this tradition, and is supported by large laminated oak beams.
Scottish Parliament Building . © Copyright Richard Dear and licensed for reuse under the (CC SA-BY 2.0) Creative Commons Licence. https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/428432
After the Act of Union 1707, the Parliament of Scotland was adjourned, and the building ceased to be used for its original function. The Hall was used for the sitting of courts, but in recent times has been subject to restoration work and now remains open as a meeting place for lawyers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_House,_Edinburgh
_p.128_-_The_Parliament_House,_Edinburgh_-_Thomas_Hosmer_Shepherd.jpg){kind=link}
Parliament Hall . © Copyright Anne Burgess and licensed for reuse under the (CC SA-BY 2.0) Creative Commons Licence. https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3677940
Photographer Anne Burgess in a subscript to her photograph above adds: “Until the Union of Parliaments in 1707, this was where the Parliament of Scotland met. The building was designed by Sir James Murray and dates from 1632-1640, and the great hammer-beam ceiling was built in 1637-9 by John Scott, master wright to the Town of Edinburgh. This is the view looking south towards the great stained-glass window, which is looking rather washed-out in this shot because of the sunlight.” https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3677940 It was probably this room that Lucy found excessively crowded but she enjoyed it - I never heard music go off better
Can you help us?
Old Regency Prints, Pictures an Coaching maps: Do you have access to any prints or pictures showing what town and country would have looked like when Lucy travelled through? Any illustrations of what she would have seen in 1819 will enliven our research.
New Pictures: Do you have any modern pictures of the streets, buildings, gardens and views that would enable us to see the changes that two centuries have wrought?