NORHAM-HALIDON HILL. 85 Sir place on which Edward I. and the the dispute respecting the succession of Scottish nobles met to adjust the suc- the Scottish crown; the contending cession of the crown of Scotland. An armies of England and Scotland, in the ancient monastery stood in the neigh-course of their several wars, frequently bourhood, at Chapel Park; and three took and retook it; and James IV. fine springs there are crowned by pillars, demolished its outworks immediately inscribed with the names of "the Nuns', before he marched to Flodden. the Monks', and St. Mary's Wells." Walter Scott describes it in the opening Milnegraden, 13 mile above Ladykirk, verses of "Marmion." now the property of David Milne Home, Esq., was anciently the seat of the Border sept of Graden, afterwards that of the Kers of Graden, and of the late Admiral Sir David Milne. The present mansion is modern. 260. THE UNION BRIDGE, across the Tweed, 4 miles above Berwick, was the earliest suspension bridge for loaded carriages in Britain. It was constructed in 1820, at the cost of about £7500, after designs by Captain Sir Samuel Brown. It measures 368 feet in length, and 18 feet in width, has the carriage-way 27 feet above the surface of the stream, and weighs about 100 tons. Paxton village, 1 mile north of it, stands amid beautiful scenery, and is believed to be the scene of the song of "Robin Adair." It has a post office under Berwick, and about 310 inhabitants. Paxton House, in its vicinity, is an imposing edifice, built in the latter half of last century, after a design by Adams. Edrington Castle, about a mile to the north, on a steep rock at the left side of Whitadder Water, is a small fragment of an ancient strong fortalice which figured much in the Border wars. A glen in its neighsur-bourhood is said to be the locality of 'Tibby Fowler o' the Glen." 259. NORHAM is a small town with a famous old castle. The town consists chiefly of one long street, and contained in 1851 a population of 1033. It has a post office under Berwick, and an inn called the Swan; and it communicates with the Scotch side of the Tweed by a recently erected bridge, with strong timber body and stone abutments. A church was founded in Norham by the first Culdee missionaries of Lindisfarne, and possessed for ages the privilege of sanctuary. The present parish church, situated on a romantic spot at the west end of the town, comprehends part of the ancient one, and shows several interesting architectural features. The ancient castle, now a total ruin, mounts a steep partially wooded eminence, overhanging the Tweed. It appears to have occupied a large extent of ground, and it still comprises a massive square keep, 70 feet high, though considerably shattered, and a number of vaults, fragments, and substructions, enclosed within a great circuit of outer wall. David I. of Scotland took and destroyed both the castle and the town in 1138. King John of England besieged the castle forty days in 1215, when it was in the possession of the Scotch, but was not able to take it. Edward I. resided in it while managing 261. HALIDON HILL, the post of the English army during the siege of Berwick in 1333, and the scene of their sweeping victory over the Scottish army under the Regent Douglas, occupies a peninsular space between the left banks of the Whitadder and the Tweed. It rises by a gradual acclivity from the side of the rivers, descends by a much more rapid fall on the further side, and commands from its higher parts a full prospect of all the approaches to Berwick. The battle of Halidon Hill was dramatized by Sir Walter Scott. 86 EDINBURGH AND ITS ENVIRONS. FOURTH DIVISION. EDINBURGH AND ITS ENVIRONS. EDINBURGH stands from 11⁄2 mile to 32 miles south of the Frith of Forth. Its site and immediate environs comprise a group of hills, with intermediate hollows and surrounding plain. Some parts of the hills are crags; some parts of the hollows are ravines; and all the heights and breaks and slopes, together with the spaces between and the outlooks around, have a picturesque arrangement. The entire place must have seemed, to the first human eyes which saw it, to be highly beautiful; and now, when improved by art to the extent of a large and graceful metropolis, it strikes all beholders from every land as the grandest seat of population in the world. Arthur's Seat, the highest of the hills, culminates at a point about 1 mile south-east of the centre of the city; has an altitude of 822 feet above the level of the sea; descends rollingly to the north-east and the east, over a base of about three-quarters of a mile; presents an abrupt shoulder to the south; and breaks down precipitously to the west. A narrow dingle, called the Hunter's Bog, extends north and south along its western base. Salisbury Crag rises from the west side of the Hunter's Bog with a regular gradient to a height of 574 feet above the level of the sea; terminates suddenly in a semicircular sweep of about 5 furlongs in diameter, with the convexity toward the city; is crested along the brow of its semicircle with naked, mural, greenstone cliff, of about 60 feet in mean depth; and descends thence in smooth, rapid, regular declivity. Neither this hill nor Arthur's Seat contains a single modern building; but both lie within the domain of the Queen's Park. A corner of plain, about 3 furlongs in breadth, at the north end of Salisbury Crag, contains the Falace and Abbey of Holyrood. The Calton Hill rises on the north side of this and westward, on a base of about 5 furlongs by 3; takes an abrupt, precipitous character, toward the west end; and attains there an altitude of 344 feet above the level of the sea. Its sides, about two-thirds round, and about one-third up, are engirt with an elegant line of terracestreet; and its shoulders and summit are disposed in walks, and studded with public buildings. A ravine, partly lined with houses, partly overhung by them, partly impracticable, curves round the west base of Calton Hill, and goes off to the north-east till it becomes lost in the circumjacent plain. An outspread eminence commences at its further side, swells soon in one part into a small hill, but extends elsewhere with flattened summit and easy slopes altogether about 1 mile from east to west and 6 furlongs from south EDINBURGH ANI ITS ENVIRONS. 87 to north; and all this eminence, together with adjacent parts of plain, on both banks of the Water of Leith, is occupied by the New Town. A narrow vale, coming up from the vicinity of Holyrood, extends along the south side of the New Town; was formerly filled with a sheet of water called the North Loch, but now is partly occupied by small streets and railway termini, and partly disposed in landscape gardens. A hill, shaped somewhat like a wedge, with the upper edges rounded off, about a mile long, and a quarter of a mile broad, flanks the further side of the vale all upward from Holyrood; attains at its west end an altitude of 445 feet above the level of the sea; and breaks down there, on three sides, north, west, and south, in bare faces of compact trap rock, all steep and partly mural. The greater part of this hill is occupied by the oldest portions of the Old Town; and the crown of it, all round the brow of the precipitous faces, is occupied by the Castle. A ravine, along its south side, densely filled with houses, was originally an aristocratic quarter, but now swarms with the poor. A rising ground, on the further side, of similar extent and character to the New Town eminence, is occupied partly by some old suburbs, partly by some modern extensions, and merges at the skirts into flat, ornate environs. The central part of the New Town, to the extent of about one-half of the whole, consists of two parallelograms, separated from each other by large spaces of landscape garden. Each parallelogram comprises a central street, terminating in spacious squares or square-like places, two flank streets in the form of terraces, two intermediate minor streets, and several transverse streets crossing the others at right angles. A tract to the west of the northern parallelogram, abutting on a high-faced ravine of the Water of Leith, contains a grandly-edificed large area in the form of a dodecagon; and other parts contain fire terraces, handsome streets, and elegant crescents. The architecture of many portions affects the Grecian character, with profusion of pillars and pilasters; and the architecture of nearly all combines gracefulness with simplicity, variety with symmetry, and derives much aid to its effect from the quality of the building-material,-a hard, fine-grained, lightcoloured sandstone. The interior views are pleasing; the views southward, suddenly closed up by the Old Town and the Castle, are highly romantic; and the views northward are so open, so distant, so discursive over frith and far-away hills, as to kindle thrilling rural fancies in the very centre of the city. The most recent extensions of the Old Town have some resemblance of character to the New Town; but the old suburbs and the whole of the ancient city present wide differences or a total contrast. The ground is boldly broken by the steepness of the principal ascents, and by the depth and narrowness of the central ravine. The only main thoroughfare from east to west climbs the wedge-shaped hill from Holyrood to the vicinity of the Castle, with varying width and inconvenient ascent; and is then connected, by artificial terrace, bridge, and raised road, round the south loin of the Castle rock, with the western suburbs. The main thoroughfares from north to south are |