"Certainly the oldest building inScotland, and possibly in Britain, still continuously used forcommercial purposes."
Beneath the Society's commodious offices in Leith lie fourvaulted cellars, used since time immemorial for the storage ofwine. Tradition has it that they were built before 1200, and wereeither granted to the Abbey of Holyrood on its foundation in1143, or built by the monks soon after. I repeated this traditionin the article about the Vintners Room which appeared in the lastNewsletter, and was helpfully corrected by a Member, Neil Hynd,who pointed out that the style of the vaulting does not match the(Romanesque) style employed at this early date. However, theVaults were certainly in existence by 1439 when 'the grete voluteof Villiam Logane' is mentioned in a charter by Patrick, Abbot ofHolyrood. This 'William Logan' was the son [possibly grandson] ofSir Robert Logan of Restalrig, Lord High Admiral of Scotland, andson in law of King Robert II, who died in Spain in 1329 whileaccompanying Robert Bruce's heart to the Holy Land.
By this time, the wine trade with Bordeaux was wellestablished. The monks of Holyrood not only imported their ownwines, but had a right to dues on the importation of wine cominginto the Port of Leith, and a large measure of control in itsdistribution. The Vaults provided them with spacious cellarage.
Their location was well chosen. Until the 17th century, theWater of Leith was navigable up to the stone bridge, and thebasin below the bridge was considerably broader. This has nowbeen filled in, but for a long time after they were built theVaults stood as close to the wharves as possible: their earthenfloors are only fractionally higher than the high-water mark ofthe Forth's spring tides.
Being sub-terranean, they were spared the cruel destruction ofLeith perpetrated by the Earl of Hertford in 1544, on theinstructions of Henry VIII, and some forty years later a singlestorey building was erected above them, made of sea-boulderscemented with hot lime. This survives today, and part of ithouses the bar of the Vintner's Room Restaurant.
At the Reformation, the Vaults passed into the ownership ofthe Vintners' Guild of Edinburgh. The 'Vintners' Room' was knownas the 'Sale Room': wines which had been landed at the Port weresampled here by members of the Guild and purchased if approved.The price itself was fixed by the Edinburgh Town Council: thePresident of the Guild bought it if he approved the quality atthat price, but he could not make an alternative offer. Oncepurchased, the casks were carted up to Edinburgh and sold ondraught, the citizens filling their own bottles and jugs. Thiscustom continued into the eighteenth century, when containerswere filled for sixpence, with little concern for capacity.
In 1649, General Monck quartered his (Cromwellian) troops inthe Vaults, paying 42 Scots pounds in annual rent, according tothe Edinburgh Town Treasurer's records for that year, and in 1682a large stone warehouse was built on the site, incorporating theearlier Vinters' premises.
In about 1739, the Vintners Room itself was opulentlydecorated with stucco by Thomas Clayton, who had recently arrivedfrom England and set up his workshop in Leith.
It is possible that this was Clayton's first Scottishcommission, and it provided him with a good opportunity todemonstrate his skills to those who came to the Vaults to buywine. The plasterwork is charmingly appropriate to its purpose:gambolling putti drink wine beneath vines in a superb panel abovethe fireplace (which may originally have been coloured, like a3-D painting), while the auctioneer's niche is surmounted by ascallop shell.
By 1740 Clayton was working with William Adam on The Drum forLord Somerville, and the latter introduced him to the Duke ofHamilton, for whom he did some work at Holyroodhouse (nowdestroyed) and at Chatelherault.
The present building known as 'The Vaults' was erected by theVintners' Guild of Edinburgh in 1682 - the [Pevsner] Guide to theBuildings of Scotland describes it as ' a rubble warehouse',although this is inaccurate since the stone is dressed. A furtherstorey (the fourth) was added in 1785, which included a centralgable and pan-tiled roof. Both these unusual features are stillin place.
In 1753, the whole building was leased to one James Thomson,Wine Merchant. Thomson's father had married into the wine tradein 1698 and established himself in Thomson's Court, off theGrassmarket in the Old Town of Edinburgh. His descendantscontrolled the business for three generations. In 1820 the firmbecame known as J.G. Thomson & Company after its seniorpartner, James Gibson Thomson, who was Treasurer of the City ofEdinburgh during the 1840s by which time his family business wasthe preeminent wine merchants in Scotland. In 1875, the yearbefore he retired, J.G. Thomson took James Anderson, and theUsher brothers John (later Sir John) and Andrew Usher aspartners. The latter is credited with being the first whiskyblender, as the term is understood today, and he also built andgifted the Usher Hall to the City of Edinburgh in 1900.
Thereafter the firm was directed by three generations ofAndersons. It became a public company in 1905, and by the 1930swas supplying wines to most of the top hotels in Scotland. Bythis time J.G. Thomson & Co was one of the country's leadingindependent whisky blenders, with a prosperous overseas trade.
After World War II many private hotels amalgamated into larger'chains' or were acquired by breweries. This effectively removedThomson's principal outlets, and, like many other wines andspirits firms (notably Chas. Mackinlay & Co), the company hadno alternative but to become the wine division of a brewery. In1960 it was bought by Charrington United Breweries Ltd. Threeyears later C.U.B. acquired Tennents, and in 1966 J.G. Thomsonbecame a subsidiary of Tennent Caledonian.
Until 1983 J.G. Thomson continued to trade from their spaciouspremises at their famous address. By the time of the company's250th anniversary, the front of the Vaults had been embellishedwith 'J.G. THOMSON & Co. LIMITED 1709-1959, THE VAULTS,LEITH' in large letters. Less decorative was the single storeybottling hall which filled the carpark at the front of lefthandside of the building (from the front), the unsightly concretelift tower above it and the open cast-iron fire escape risingfrom the steps leading to what are now the Society's premises.These have since been removed.
By the early 1960s Thomsons was a shadow of what it had oncebeen. The last bottlings were done at The Vaults in 1964, and theold building became no more than a warehouse with offices. By thelate 1970s the top two storeys were unsafe and unusable. TennentsCaledonian resolved to re-establish the company as a seriouswines & spirits wholesaler and erected new purpose-builtpremises, including a bonded warehouse, on London Road inGlasgow, from where the company trades to this day.
This was in 1983. At the same time the Vaults complex - indire condition - was sold to an unusual consortium, made up ofPhilip Hills (tax consultant), Russell Hunter (actor), BenTindall (architect), W. Gordon Smith (writer) and David Alison(contractor) for £40,000.
Readers with knowledge of the Scotch Malt Whisky Society willrecognise its founding fathers among these names, and the oldbuilding was acquired specifically to provide the nascent Societywith premises, and to establish a whisky museum.
The concluding part of "The True History of theVaults" is still to come.
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