Canongate

About Canongate

This was the primary entrance to the town, leading as it did from the Canongate Bridge. At the end of the bridge would have been the Canongate Port, a fortified entrance way. Number 2 Canongate is built on the foundations of an earlier building and these are still visible in the basement. There are many fine 18th century buildings including the white building on the left. Notice the two small circular windows on the first and second floors. Next door is number 10, the site of the former Black Bull Inn. Prior to 1759, the centre of Canongate had a group of buildings running down its length. This was called the ‘Tongue o’ the Canongate’. The town’s Tolbooth stood at the Market Place end before it was replaced by Newgate.
Here also is the Royal Hotel -which was previously the Harrow Inn. It was perhaps renamed after the visit of royalty to the town although this is not certain. Past the Royal Hotel, on your left was the site of a house in which Robert Burns stayed on his visit to Jedburgh in 1797 when he was made a Freeman of the Royal Burgh. There is a plaque -a profile of Burns originally with a light blue background and the head picked out in gold leaf -marking the spot of the house.