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Lauder Griffin, Grange Loan

Submitted by kim traynor

Name	Lauder Griffin, Grange Loan
Distance	0.07 miles from EH9
Description	One of two sculpted pillars surmounted by griffins, set 100 yards apart in Grange Loan. These are the last remains of the mansion house which gave the Grange area its name. Records show that the grange of St Giles, i.e. a monastic farmhouse, existed in the reign of David I in the 12th century, but may have been founded earlier. After the Scottish Reformation the farmhouse was gradually modernised by its secular owners. In 1731 it came into the possession of the Lauder family who transformed it into a residential mansion by the architect, William Playfair, between 1827 and 1832. Visitors to the Grange included Bonnie Prince Charlie, while resident at Holyrood in 1745, and, later in the century, David Hume, Robert Fergusson and Henry Mackenzie when its tenant was William Robertson, Principal of the University and Provost of the City. The house, increasingly unoccupied after 1848, fell into decay and was finally demolished in 1936. The griffins from the entrance gateway were saved and are believed to date from the early 1700s. Walter Scott, when a young High School pupil, is said to have climbed one to check whether its tongue was of "veritable paint or veritable fire". Today the Grange is one of Edinburgh's most highly desirable residential areas.
Photographer	kim traynor
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