Imposing three-storey, 31 bay, symmetrical,

U-plan classical complex of justiciary buildings

with pedimented, hexastyle portico
In the year 1649 I dissected a stone cutter’s boy

that dy’d of an asthma, in whose lung I found

a great quantity of stone dust suck’d in with the air
situated on a sloping site and falling eight storeys

to south Cowgate. Ashlar with rusticated arcade
and stuffing almost all the vessels, insomuch

that I seem’d to cut through a heap of sand
Coursed rubble to rear. Base course, impost

course, band course, cill courses, cornice,
so that the vessels being filled with dust,

could not admit the air,
balustraded parapet with decorative

panels surmounted by stone sphinxes.
which was the occasion of the poor fellow’s death.



Found poem. Sources: Anatomy of Human Bodies (1679).

The Architectural description is of the Supreme Courts

of Scotland from Historic Environment Scotland.