BOOK OF DOVECOTES 



of the three around the house. Above each of 

 the two lower string-courses the walls receive 

 a slight "set-back"; the third is just below the 

 roof. 



This is an exceptionally handsome dovecote, 

 and we love it none the less that from its an- 

 cient walls the voice of pigeons falls upon our 

 earto-day. Quiteout of keeping with its peace- 

 ful purpose is the knowledge that, close to the 

 building, now the sole remnant of the former 

 castle of Corstorphine, jealousy provoked a 

 certain George, Lord Forrester, to kill his wife. 



From the Murrayfield tramway terminus it 

 is but a short walk to Ravelston, where, in a 

 garden unrivalled in Edinburgh, among vast 

 yew hedges, spreading cedars, dolphin foun- 

 tains, relics of antiquity of every kind, we find 

 the last of Edinburgh dovecotes there is time 

 to see. It is of oblong, two-compartment type, 

 and very large; quite twenty-five feet high, and 

 long and broad in proportion. The walls are 

 three feet six inches thick. The one compart- 

 ment is still open, though no longer occupied 

 by birds; the doorway of the second has for 

 years been closed by a thick growth of ivy. 

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