COLINTON HOUSE 



MIDLOTHIAN 



N almost every instance in Scotland 

 (where such instances are far too 

 frequent), of the abandonment of an 

 ancient fortified dwelling for a mansion 

 in the modern style, one has to deplore 

 the inferiority of the new position to the old. It 

 may have been defensive, rather than aesthetic, 

 features in the ground that guided early architects 

 in their selection of house-sites, but it puzzles one 

 to understand the motive which so often prompted 

 their successors in the nineteenth century to dis- 

 regard both considerations. In no place that I 

 have visited is the result more to be lamented than 

 at Colinton, once the principal residence of the 

 Foulis family. Perched high upon the steep and 

 wooded east bank of the Water of Leith, the old 

 castle of Colinton, now a roofless ruin, commanded 

 views of exquisite beauty in every direction. The 

 silvan glories of the river valley lay beneath it on 

 the west ; on the east the eye might range to the 

 Castle Rock of Edinburgh ; while on the south front 



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