Buying timber for building in early seventeenth-century Scotland: from Sweden or on the shore of Leith.

Much timber for furniture and building was imported from Norway and Baltic sources and ports, as far east as Königsberg, now Kaliningrad in Russia.[1] Imported timber for Edinburgh and the Forth valley was stored and sold at the ‘Tymber Hoffe’ or ‘Timber Bush’ in Leith. (Other ports are not considered here.) Some timber lay at Leith for years: cases recorded in the Edinburgh city ‘Book of Decreets’ dispute rental for the storage of slates, deals (pine boards), knappolds (oak), Swedish boards (pine) kept at the King’s Wark in Leith.^[2] In 1581 James VI rewarded the master of his equerry James Preston of Valleyfield (near Dunfermline) with £100 worth of timber to be selected from the Shore of Leith.[3] Although this imported timber was available, the royal artillery seemed to prefer native timber, in 1581 shipping timber from Inverness.[4]

Alexander Cunningham wright and Carnock House.

A prospective builder could expect his carpenter or wright to assess the quality of the timber on the Shore, in Scots to ‘vail’ or ‘wyle’ the goods. This was a task and expertise common to several trades, a painter would ‘vail’ pigments. The process is described in letters to the lawyer Thomas Nicolson of Carnock in 1634 from John Rollo. John supervised the work of repairing Carnock House near Stirling, while Nicolson worked in Edinburgh. Carnock house, built by Sir Robert Drummond, dated from 1548 and had been repaired c.1589 (dendrochronology date by AOC).[5] John’s surviving letters only describe the timber work. He doesn’t mention masonry work, or the internal decorative plaster which was installed in subsequent years, but remarks on the prospect of transporting large stones with great horses.[6]

John Rollo went to Leith on 12 June 1634 with the carpenter Alexander Cunningham to ‘wyle’ – value and strike a bargain for timber. They bought a number of fir joists for the roof of Carnock. The Shore was busy with soldiers recruited by Robert Munro for the Thirty Years War and John joked that he had hazarded himself without a sword amongst these Generals, Colonels, and Captains. The same day John made a further bargain with Alexander for further work at Carnock.

John had previously written a letter on 11 May 1634 explaining Alexander’s new contract for the roof and advocating Alexander’s role in choosing timber. Alexander was to take down the old roof and make new with ‘sarking’ – boards to which slates were nailed, and he would complete the ‘rynroofes’ – roofs over outshots called ‘jam(b)es’ and the ‘stormis’ – dormer windows. His next contract, the ‘new bargane’ would be lofting the wardrobe and making window cases.

John wrote to Nicolson that it was best to ‘send for the wright to wyle the tymmer, for it would be a great vantage to you … ye will neid a number of fyre geastis, and he can wyle thym best, and for littil chargis he will come eas [thither], and it will vantage yow more nor all his chargis’. The timberwork of the roof was finished by September. John reported that it was difficult to borrow horses to bring slates to Carnock and the slater had been sick with a deadlie fever for twenty days.[7]

John Rollo’s sister was married to Thomas Nicolson’s son John Nicolson of Drummondhall (now Bannockburn House). In 1636 Rollo acquired Drummondhall for himself. In some senses Rollo can be called an architect because he supervised building work for a client, managed budgets, made contracts, planned the supply of materials and understood building crafts.

The business letters also reveal interesting connections in literature too. Nicolson had bought Carnock from the Drummond family. A letter from the Stirling lawyer Robert Murray of Wester Livilands records a meeting of the poets William Drummond of Hawthornden and William Alexander, 1st Earl of Stirling where Nicolson’s business was discussed. A painted wooden screen made of oak and pine from Robert Murray and Christina Cowan’s house at Wester Livilands is now displayed at the National Museum of Scotland. The screen has painted sibyls and verses.

David Cuik travels to Gotland.

Prospective builders in Edinburgh could also order timber directly from Baltic and Swedish sources using the services of Leith timbermen, professional experts who travelled to the sources. In this manner clients were able to acquire the correct lengths and sections, and this seems to approach ordering a pre-fab building.

An example from 1605 reveals the patron’s instructions to the timberman.^[8] In September 1605 Thomas and James Inglis, merchant burgesses of Edinburgh, father and son, wrote instructions to David Cuik of Leith to buy timber from the Swedish isle of Gotland for their house.^[9] It is not clear if they had an Edinburgh townhouse or were buying for a house at Cramond, but the instructions are endorsed ‘for the house’.

David Cuik bought the timber at Slite (Sleit, Sleidaf) on Gotland, stowing it in a ship hired in Stralsund in Pomerania. The instructions were specific regarding the timber and the payment of duties, suggesting that David Cuik was somewhat inexperienced. The order included joists of fine red fir of thirty feet and twenty eight feet in length and twelve inches by nine in section, others ten by seven inch in section and so on, including a note about bringing juniper wood, used in Scotland as ‘burnewood’ burnt for its fragrance. David was told about changing money and the tolls he would pay.

David Cuik wrote an account of his charges and costs. Changing Scottish money to rix-dollars at Stralsund cost a dollar. These dollars were rated at 53s-4 d Scots. His own expenses there were four dollars. The price of the timber in Gotland was 69 dollars, and less than a quarter of the final bill. The custom fee in Gotland was 30 dollars. David paid the customary rose noble (a gold coin) at Elsinore and a toll fee there based on the value of the cargo totalling six dollars. The timber purchase with the charges came to £300-9s. The skipper of the Stralsund boat Henry Deneis was paid £550 Scots for its hire (A skipper at this period was the boat owner, rather than the commanding sailor). His sailors were given a gift of £3 drinksilver, a tip, when the cargo arrived in Leith. The total cost was £908-9s.

Timber bought at the shore of Leith would factor in these costs and a profit for the timberman and so be more expensive, and would not be cut to the very specific lengths demanded by the Inglisses. The motive of the Inglis in specifying lengths seems to have been to save money by not wasting off-cuts of timber, rather than precisely to acquire a building kit or pre-fab, although that would have been the result of their order. They were naturally keen that their order would fit it one ship, or if there was more space their ship was filled with marketable timber and fragrant juniper burnwood:

7. Sex scoir to be heichest balkis of the same lenths [xviij futs] and quantitie and gif neid be for stowing ye may saw thame just in tua providing every cut be nyne fut of lenths. …

… Bot gif the ship can nocht stow the said haill tymmer lett want of the shortest to wit of thame of xviij futis, And if the ship will stow all the foursaid tymer And tak mair yerto ye sall by sua mony geistis of fyne rid fir of xxiiij fut of lenth to mak her full with burne wod ye maist pairt of juniper, ever by the hand to mak ticht stowing with, for we pay ane deir fraucht …

The use of Gotland timber continued; the town bought a cargo of Gotland timber in August 1617 to use for the University. The town council appointed three burgesses to price timber cargoes as they arrived and fined those who sold cargoes before they had been appraised by these pricers of timber.^[10] Cargoes of timber bound for Scotland would be recorded in the Elsinore toll records (a project to index these does not yet cover these decades) and in Scottish port records.

Timbermen and their wills.

Who were the timber men? David Cuik acted as a purchasing agent for the Inglis family taking their money and travelling to the Baltic on their behalf. He didn’t leave a will so we can’t know anything more of his circumstances. Several Leith timbermen and their wives made registered wills. James Scot (d.1596), mentioned above, had a quarter share of a boat worth £100. He had recently supplied timber for buildings to owners Frances Napier, Mark and James Acheson in Edinburgh and the Canongate, the tailor William Alexander, Robert Scott of Thirlestane, and the laird of Buccleuch. Other customers were wrights like Hary Lauder in the Canongate, and Scott sold masts (small £3 regular £9) presumably to shipwrights. Scott was wealthy, owed in total £966-19s at his death.[11]

Some timberman were not wealthy; David Patersoune, described as an indweller in Leith (rather than burgess), died in November 1625 leaving an inventory valued at only £50 with £160 owed to him by his debtors. He rented his dwelling in Leith from an advocate Mr James Aitkenhead for £40 per year. He and his wife kept a servant Margaret Strange who was paid £5 yearly. When David Patersoune made his will he was ‘lyand bedfast’ and had not been working recently.^[12] He still kept a serving woman at £5 per year, not an unusually low wage for an adult woman servant.^[13]

James Flemyng, another Leith timberman died in September 1611. His will presents a more prosperous picture than Patersoune’s with a stock of timber and a healthy list of debts owed to him by householders and wrights for timber.^[14] His stock included; 700 deals worth £322, 100 single roof spars worth £40, 150 double roof spars worth £36, and 22 pieces of oak at £13-6s. Most of this timber doubtless came from Baltic sources, shipped in cargoes like David Cuik’s, but here part of the stock of a timber merchant for retail in Leith and Edinburgh. The rest of his inventory was valued at £200, making a grand total of £653-6s-8d.

Flemyng’s will also records some of his customers for timber and ‘burnewood’ the fragrant firewood then in favour in Edinburgh. These include Mr Thomas Barclay who owed £40 and Robert Robertson in the Canongate who owed £30. William Turnbull in Dalkeith owed £32. A wright John Lindsay in Edinburgh owed £10, another wright George Houston owed £4 and so on. In all James Flemyng was owed £330 for timber he had delivered.

Flemyng rented his house for £24 per year from Harry Morrison an Edinburgh merchant. He had a serving woman Katherine Harald who was paid £5 per year. Flemyng had a silver ‘piece’, perhaps a cup, weighing seven ounces worth £21, and nine silver spoons worth £18. Possession of table silver implies wealth and also that the owner entertained in style. He left £50 to the Kirk of Leith to be distributed to the poor. His wife Bessie Wilson was to dispose of the rest of his goods gear and money ‘without any impediment question or contradiction or trouble to made to her’. James Broun wright and burgess of Edinburgh was a witness to this will with John Phillop, a servant of the merchant Ninian McMorran

Michael Pearce.

[1] James Scott in Leith timberman and custom collector (d. July 1596), Scott was to receive duties to repair the shore, 9 May 1589, Extracts Edinburgh 1573-89: Scott was a ‘timberman’, importing and selling timber and owned a part cargo of one ship at his death, in 1589 he delivered a cargo to Jean Fleming lady Thirlestane probably in connection with the reception of Anna of Denmark NLS Adv. 29.2.5 f.202, he dealt with a [blank] Neilsoun Dutchman in ‘Conisberie’ – Königsberg now Kaliningrad, £60 ships customs and entry silver were due to him, will 18 April 1598, ECC8/8/31.

[2] Extracts Records Edinburgh (1931), 137 ‘Tymber Hoffe’: ECA Acts and Decreets SL234/1/6, 24 November 1603 Decerns Gilbert Dick to deliver to Trolus Lawson baxter twenty dailles and thrie hundred sclaittes of sik dailles and sclaittes qlk the said Gilbert hes lyand in Leith prommittet by the said Dik to him thrie year syne or thairby for the [-] service to him of ane bakehouse in Todriks wynd; 29 December 1603, Thomas Wright in Leith to pay James Coldann’ the sum of £13-6s for lye maill of 36 hundred ko’ldes five hundred and 27 Suadious buirds in the Kings Wark in Leith keipit be the said James as tacksman thair by whom goods keippit by the said James four years (paid 19 January 1604).

[3] NRS E21/62 f153v September 1581; voucher E23/6/15 Glasgow 10 Sept 1581, Preston of Valleyfield.

[4] NRS E21/62 126-126v April 1581, timber bought by John Chisholm in Inverness.

[5] Demolished 1941. Sixteenth-century painted timber and samples of decorative plasterwork were salvaged by the Ministry of Work.

[6] The decorative plasterwork with Nicolson’s arms (samples kept by HES) dates from after he acquired a Nova Scotia peerage. The window gablets also had the Nova Scotia arms. In 1634 Nicolson was still ‘Mr’.

[7] NRS GD17/428, 27 letters to Thomas Nicolson of Carnock, four from John Rollo about building in 1634. Rollo also writes about legal business.

[8] NRS GD63/74 James Inglis to David Cuik in Leith to buy timber in Gotland, 1605

[9] Fir, deals and juniper wood in Gotland are mentioned in Adam Olearus, The voyages and travells of the ambassadors sent by Frederick, Duke of Holstein, to the Great Duke of Muscovy and the King of Persia begun in the year M.DC.XXXIII. and finish’d in M.DC.XXXIX, (London 1669), lib II, 27

[10] Extracts Burgh Records of Edinburgh (1931), 164.

[11] ECC8/8/63 p.631.

[12] NRS CC8/8/54 p. 103

[13] M. Meikle, The Scottish People 1490-1625, (2013), 71

[14] NRS CC8/8/47 p. 73