The Golfers Land is a site on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, Scotland dating to around 1681. The site gets its name from the town house of John Paterson, said have been the teammate of the Duke of Albany in what is often regarded as the first international golf contest. [1] The townhouse has since been demolished and replaced with a new building, but a plaque on the wall continues to mark the site of Golfers Land.
The contest is alleged to have arisen in 1681 when two of the Duke of Albany's English guests at Holyrood Palace claimed that the game of golf belonged to the English, not the Scottish. It is claimed that the two English nobles boasted they could beat the Scottish Duke, and any other Scotsman he could find to play alongside him. It was agreed that a game would be played at Leith Links, just outside Edinburgh city centre. The Leith Links would have been one of the most important golf clubs of the era, with the rules of golf being developed there and adopted by the Royal and Ancient Company of Golfers on their move to St. Andrews in 1777, and as the home course of the Gentlemen Golfers of Edinburgh who would later become The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers. [2] The prize was to be national claim to the game of golf, and an undisclosed sum of money. [3]
The Duke called for John Paterson, a cobbler and amateur golfer to be his team mate. Paterson had a reputation as being one of the finest golfers in the country, taking after his father and grandfather. [1]
Paterson and the Duke were successful, and won the match. As the Duke had an attendant to carry his clubs, some have cited this as the first recorded use of a caddie in golf. [1]
The Duke is said to have given the winnings to Paterson, who used the funds to buy the property at 79 - 81 Canongate on the Royal Mile, and to build a large mansion on it, that he could be close to Holyrood Palace should he ever be called upon for his golfing service again. He named this site "Golfers Land". The property is recorded as having been five stories high, and was built over the entrance to Brown's Close. [4]
The Duke is also said to have awarded Paterson a coat of arms, a plaque of which was placed on the wall, and which remains on the site to this day. The arms were a shield of three pelicans in piety, on a chief three mullets. This shield is surmounted by a helm and mantling and a crest of a hand grasping a golf-club. [4]
Despite being Category A listed the building was demolished in 1960.
The site is currently occupied by a building built in the 1960s. The present occupants are the Kilderkin Pub. [5] A plaque remains on the wall to mark the site, and to commemorate the golf game.
Holyrood Abbey is a ruined abbey of the Canons Regular in Edinburgh, Scotland. The abbey was founded in 1128 by David I of Scotland. During the 15th century, the abbey guesthouse was developed into a royal residence, and after the Scottish Reformation the Palace of Holyroodhouse was expanded further. The abbey church was used as a parish church until the 17th century, and has been ruined since the 18th century. The remaining walls of the abbey lie adjacent to the palace, at the eastern end of Edinburgh's Royal Mile. The site of the abbey is protected as a scheduled monument.
Leith is a port area in the north of the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, founded at the mouth of the Water of Leith. In 2021, it was ranked by Time Out as one of the top five neighbourhoods to live in the world.
The Royal Mile is a succession of streets forming the main thoroughfare of the Old Town of the city of Edinburgh in Scotland. The term was first used descriptively in W. M. Gilbert's Edinburgh in the Nineteenth Century (1901), describing the city "with its Castle and Palace and the royal mile between", and was further popularised as the title of a guidebook by R. T. Skinner published in 1920, "The Royal Mile (Edinburgh) Castle to Holyrood(house)".
The following is a partial timeline of the history of golf:
The Scottish Parliament Building is the home of the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood, within the UNESCO World Heritage Site in central Edinburgh. Construction of the building commenced in June 1999 and the Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) held their first debate in the new building on 7 September 2004. The formal opening by Queen Elizabeth II took place on 9 October 2004. Enric Miralles, the Spanish architect who designed the building, died before its completion.
This article is a timeline of the history of Edinburgh, Scotland, up to the present day. It traces its rise from an early hill fort and later royal residence to the bustling city and capital of Scotland that it is today.
The Kirk of the Canongate, or Canongate Kirk, serves the Parish of Canongate in Edinburgh's Old Town, in Scotland. It is a congregation of the Church of Scotland. The parish includes the Palace of Holyroodhouse and the Scottish Parliament. It is also the parish church of Edinburgh Castle, even though the castle is detached from the rest of the parish. The wedding of Zara Phillips, the Queen's granddaughter, and former England rugby captain Mike Tindall took place at the church on 30 July 2011. The late Queen Elizabeth II used to attend services in the church on some of her frequent visits to Edinburgh.
The origins of golf are unclear and much debated. However, it is generally accepted that modern golf developed in Scotland from the Middle Ages onwards. The game did not find international popularity until the late 19th century, when it spread into the rest of the United Kingdom and then to the British Empire and the United States.
The Canongate is a street and associated district in central Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland. The street forms the main eastern length of the Royal Mile while the district is the main eastern section of Edinburgh's Old Town. It began when David I of Scotland, by the Great Charter of Holyrood Abbey c.1143, authorised the Abbey to found a burgh separate from Edinburgh between the Abbey and Edinburgh. The burgh of Canongate that developed was controlled by the Abbey until the Scottish Reformation when it came under secular control. In 1636 the adjacent city of Edinburgh bought the feudal superiority of the Canongate but it remained a semi-autonomous burgh under its own administration of bailies chosen by Edinburgh magistrates, until its formal incorporation into the city in 1856.
The Old Town is the name popularly given to the oldest part of Scotland's capital city of Edinburgh. The area has preserved much of its medieval street plan and many Reformation-era buildings. Together with the 18th/19th-century New Town, and West End, it forms part of a protected UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Queensberry House is a building of 17th-century origin which is now a Category A listed building. It stands on the south side of the Canongate, Edinburgh, Scotland, incorporated into the Scottish Parliament complex on its north-west corner. It contains the office of the Presiding Officer, two Deputy Presiding Officers, the Parliament's Chief Executive, and other staff.
Canonmills is a district of Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. It lies to the south east of the Royal Botanic Garden at Inverleith, east of Stockbridge and west of Bellevue, in a low hollow north of Edinburgh's New Town. The area was formerly a loch which was drained in three phases in the 18th and 19th centuries, disappearing finally in 1865.
The Moray House School of Education and Sport is a school within the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Science at the University of Edinburgh. It is based in historic buildings on the Holyrood Campus, located between the Canongate and Holyrood Road.
John Paterson was a Scottish architect who trained with Robert Adam (1728–1792) whom he assisted with his work on Edinburgh University Old College and Seton House Castle.
Younger's Brewery was a brewery in Edinburgh which grew from humble beginnings in 1749 to become one of the city’s main commercial enterprises, supplying domestic and foreign markets. It should not be confused with another, less renowned Edinburgh brewery, that of Robert Younger, who also brewed in Holyrood at the St. Ann's Brewery or that of George Younger, who brewed in Alloa.
The Canongate Kirkyard stands around Canongate Kirk on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, Scotland. The churchyard was used for burials from the late 1680s until the mid-20th century.
Leith Links is the principal open space within Leith, the docks district of Edinburgh, Scotland. This public park is divided by a road into two main areas, a western section and an eastern section, both being largely flat expanses of grass bordered by mature trees. Historically it covered a wider area extending north as far as the shoreline of the Firth of Forth. This area of grass and former sand-dunes was previously used as a golf links.
John Rattray was an Edinburgh surgeon who served as surgeon to Prince Charles Edward Stuart during the Jacobite rising of 1745. He was a proficient archer, winning the Edinburgh Arrow on two occasions, however it is for his golfing achievements that he is principally remembered. A skilful golfer, Rattray won the first competition organised by the Company of Gentleman Golfers to become the 'Captain of Goff' for a year. In this capacity he signed the first ever Rules of Golf.
John Bayne of Pitcairlie (1620–1681) was a writer to the Signet (lawyer) born in Scotland. Known for his work on important contracts such as those relating to the 1672 renovation of Holyrood Palace, he ran a legal team which is linked to several notable architects and major building projects in Edinburgh.
John Kinloch or Killoch was keeper of the royal tennis courts, a post master and stable owner in 16th-century Edinburgh and the proprietor of house used for lodgings and banquets.