[1540/12/74]¹

For policy in Edinburgh

Item, touching the reparations and mending of the deformities within the town of Edinburgh, and especially where there are common passages and entry whereby all strangers and our sovereign lord's other lieges pass and repass, it is thought expedient and also it is ordained that the provost, bailies and council of Edinburgh give warning and charge all manner of the persons who have any lands, buildings and waste ground upon the west side of Leith Wynd that they, within a year and a day, honestly build and repair their said waste ground and ruinous houses, and that they begin to do the same within three months, and that they end the same within a year and a day, or else sell the same to others to be built within the said space, and to charge those who are known personally and others by open proclamation at the market cross of Edinburgh, with certification to them if they fail, the said provost and bailies shall cause the said lands, tenements and waste ground to be apprised and shall sell the same to anyone who will buy them and pay the prices thereof to the owners; and if no man will buy them, it shall be lawful to the said provost and bailies to cast down the said waste lands and with the stuff and stones thereof build an honest, substantious wall from the port of the Nether Bow to the Trinity College; and it shall not be lawful in time coming to any manner of person to pursue them or their successors thereof, or pretend any right or entry thereto, in time to come, neither for the principal land nor for annualrent owing furth thereof. And because the east side of the said wynd pertains to the abbot and convent of Holyroodhouse, it is ordained that the bailies of the Canongate cause the same to be done upon the said east side. And also because of the vileness that comes by the slaying of animals by the butchers dwelling on the east side and the emptying of entrails of beasts generating corruption, it is therefore ordained that the same be forbidden by the provost and bailies of Edinburgh and Canongate under the pain of confiscation of all such meat slain by them in the manner foresaid.