Moubray House, 51 and 53 High Street, is one of the oldest buildings on the Royal Mile, and one of the oldest occupied residential buildings in Edinburgh, Scotland. The façade dates from the early 17th century, built on foundations laid c. 1477. The tenement is noted for its interiors, including a Renaissance board-and-beam painted ceiling discovered in 1999, a plaster ceiling with exotic fruit and flower mouldings with the arms of Pringle of Galashiels (five escallops on a saltire) dated 1650 painted on the wall, and a wooden barrel-vaulted attic apartment which is expressed on the roofline. Persons associated with the house include Scotland's first eminent portrait painter George Jamesone, the English spy and writer Daniel Defoe, who was instrumental in the passing of the 1707 Act of Union with England, and Archibald Constable, proprietor of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Moubray House is designated a Category A listed building by Historic Scotland.
Description
Moubray House lies on the north side of the High Street, between Trunk's or Turing's Close and the John Knox House, near the site of Edinburgh's Netherbow Port, the main gate into Edinburgh before its demolition in 1764. On the pavement in front of the property survives the Netherbow Well, one of the wells which formerly supplied water for the Old Town. In its origins, the tenement is a rare survivor of the Burning of Edinburgh in 1544, when Henry VIII of England ordered the Earl of Hertford to "put all to fire and sword, burn Edinburgh town". In Trunk's close, over a stone vaulted basement, can be seen "massive corbelled projections" which contained straight flights of stairs serving the north wing, perhaps part of Adam Moubray (III)'s building of 1529 and its extension. One of these stairs rises from the first-floor hall of this "back-land," where a later sixteenth-century painted ceiling of "exceptional quality" was discovered in 1999. This room is lit by a row of windows facing east.
The Moubrays In 1369, the three houses here all belonged to the Turing family, whose name is remembered as "Trunk's Close." The present site was laid out c.1472-7, after reconstruction of the Netherbow Port close to "John Knox's House" by Alexander Bonkill. The street frontage of Moubray House retains the line of the earlier medieval High Street, being the last house east before the defensive narrowing at the gate. The "John Knox House" is on the site of one of four houses built in the new narrow passage to the gate. During the 16th century the tenement was identified as Andrew Moubray's house in legal records. There were three Andrew Moubrays, although the original builder is called "Robert Moubray" in many sources. The part of house at the back was probably built around 1529 by the third Andrew Moubray (III) and his wife Katrine Hoppar. The plots on Edinburgh High Street were called "lands." The buildings could be divided into "fore, mid, and back-lands." These could also be divided in storeys, leading to complicated patterns of ownership and tenancy. These were wealthy and well-connected merchant families, and the Moubrays owned other properties in Edinburgh. In 1494 Andrew Moubray (I) disputed the rent of another house he owned in Leith with his tenant the sailor Robert Barton. Andrew Moubray (I), a second son, was made a burgess of Edinburgh in 1451, his fee pledged by the Baillie James Bonkill. As a merchant, he supplied cloths and sheets to Margaret of Denmark, Queen of Scotland to line her bath tub. On 18 August 1482, jointly with Laurence Taillefer, Moubray was appointed "Customar of Edinburgh", the collector of royal rents and duties owed by the town to the King. Andrew Moubray (I) bought the lands of Kirktonhill in Lauderdale from William Moubray in 1486, and with his wife Elizabeth endowed a chaplain at the altar of St Ninian in St Giles Kirk in 1478 and 1492. Their grandson, Andrew Moubray (III) was still patron of the altar in 1533. Their daughter, Agnes Moubray was married to the merchant Patrick Cant by 1492. The Moubrays main business was textiles and Andrew Moubray (II) sold fine cloth to King James IV in 1496, accepting a gilt cup as payment. Some of his mercantile activity in the Netherlands in the 1490s was recorded in the shipping Ledger of Andrew Halyburton, which records his trip to Middelburg and his cargoes carried by Andrew Barton. Andrew Moubray (II) exported wool and imported wine and furs. Laurence Taillefer, Andrew's partner as Customar of Edinburgh was married to Helen, the sister of Andrew Halyburton. He was also joint owner of the 60 ton James of Leith and had a licence from Henry VII to sell fish in England in 1490. Andrew (II) married Jonet Halyburton, whose brothers James and David Halyburton were soldiers of the Garde Écossaise. When Andrew Moubray (II) died in 1499, his children were still minors, so James IV gave his property to Patrick Halyburton until they came of age. Andrew Moubray (III) sold a crossbow to James V in 1527.
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