Silvermills
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Silvermills once an ancient village, is today part of the Edinburgh New Town.
Possibly best known for the great tannery, which did much to inhibit the progress of the New Town development. Parts of it and the old mills still stand on both sides of West Silvermills Lane to the south of Silvermills House (c.1760) the residence of John Lauder of Silvermills (d. July 28, 1838), owner of the tannery, and father to the famous brother artists Robert Scott Lauder (1803-1869) and James Eckford Lauder (1811-1869), both born in that mansion.
In 1835 architect George Smith erected St Stephen's School in St.Stephen's Street, which street was laid out in 1825. At the end of this street was a large skating rink designed in 1895 but converted into a theatre five years later. It is today a ballroom.
The most prominent building in the immediate vicinity is St. Stephen's Church in St Stephen's Place at the north end of St Vincent Street, built in 1827 for £18,975, on a design of vast scale, a mixture of Baroque and Grecian architecture by William Henry Playfair. Thomas Stevenson, father of Robert Louis Stevenson was a devout and regular attender here. St Vincent's Episcopal Church (now the church of the Knights of the Order of Saint Lazarus) is in the same street, built in 1857 in English Gothic on a much smaller scale.
[edit] References
- Romantic Edinburgh, by John Geddie, London, Edinburgh, and Glasgow, 1929, pps:241-2.
- The Buildings of Scotland - Edinburgh, By John Gifford, Colin McWilliam, and David Walker, London, 1984, ISBN 0-14-0710-68-X
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