Moubray House

Moubray House, 51 and 53 High Street, is one of the oldest buildings on the Royal Mile, and one of the oldest occupied residential buildings in Edinburgh, Scotland. The façade dates from the early 17th century, built on foundations laid c.1477.

The tenement is noted for its interiors, including a Renaissance board-and-beam painted ceiling discovered in 1999, a plaster ceiling with exotic fruit and flower mouldings with the arms of Pringle of Galashiels (five escallops on a saltire) dated 1650 painted on the wall, and a wooden barrel-vaulted attic apartment which is expressed on the roofline.

Notable people associated with the house include Scotland's first eminent portrait painter George Jamesone, the English spy and writer Daniel Defoe, who was instrumental in the passing of the 1707 Act of Union with England, and Archibald Constable, proprietor of the Encyclopædia Britannica.

Moubray House is designated a Category A listed building by Historic Scotland.

Moubray House lies on the north side of the High Street, between Trunk's or Turing's Close and the John Knox House, near the site of Edinburgh's Netherbow Port, the main gate into Edinburgh before its demolition in 1764. On the pavement in front of the property survives the Netherbow Well, one of the wells which formerly supplied water for the Old Town.

In 1369, the three houses here all belonged to the Turing family, whose name is remembered as "Trunk's Close." The present site was laid out c.1472-7, after reconstruction of the Netherbow Port close to "John Knox's House" by Alexander Bonkill. The street frontage of Moubray House retains the line of the earlier medieval High Street, being the last house east before the defensive narrowing at the gate. The "John Knox House" is on the site of one of four houses built in the new narrow passage to the gate. During the 16th century the tenement was identified as Andrew Moubray's house in legal records. There were three Andrew Moubrays, although the original builder is called "Robert Moubray" in many sources. The part of house at the back was probably built around 1529 by the third Andrew Moubray (III) and his wife Katrine Hoppar.

...
Wikipedia