Historic Notice. 
IN the year 1670 a small portion of ground, known as St. Ann’s 
Yards, lying to the south of Holyrood House, and usually let to 
market gardeners by the Hereditary Keeper of Holyrood House, 
was occupied by two eminent Edinburgh’ physicians, Andrew 
Balfour and Robert Sibbald, for the making of a Physic 
Garden, and James Sutherland was appointed to the ‘‘ Care of 
the Garden.” This was the foundation of the Royal Botanic 
Garden of Edinburgh, which is therefore, after that of Oxford 
(founded in 1632), the oldest in Great Britain. The Garden 
was stocked with plants from the private Garden of Dr. Andrew 
Balfour, in which for some years he had been accumulating 
medicinal plants, and also in great measure from that at 
Livingston in West Lothian, the laird of which, Patrick Murray, 
was much interested in the growing of useful plants. Shortly 
thereafter, but at what precise date has not yet been ascertained, 
Sutherland became custodian of the Royal Garden, which lay on 
the north side of the Palace, and it became a Physic Garden for 
instruction, whilst the original plot in St. Ann’s Yards was, 
apparently, given up. 
In 1676 the same physicians acquired from the Town Council 
of Edinburgh a lease of the Garden of Trinity Hospital and 
adjacent ground for the purpose of a Physic Garden in addition 
to the Garden already existing at Holyrood, and they appointed 
the same James Sutherland (1639 ?-1719) to be ‘‘ Intendant” of 
this Garden. The site of this Garden, which for convenience of 
reference may be called the Town’s Botanic Garden, was the 
ground lying between the base of that portion of the Calton Hill 
upon which the prison is built and the North Bridge, and it is 
now occupied by a portion of the Waverley Station of the North 
British Railway. The name Physic Garden attached to a street 
in the vicinity is a reminiscence of the existence of the Garden at 
this spot. 
About 1702 another Botanic Garden was established in 
Edinburgh in the ground immediately adjacent to the College 
