Getting away from it all: Marie de Guise’s townhouse in Blythe’s Close

It is thought that Marie spent much of her time in residence at Blyth’s Close off Castle Hill, in the period before her regency 1543-1554. Blyth’s Close no longer exists, having been demolished around 1846 to make way for New College and the Assembly Hall. Its location on the north side of the High Street was roughly opposite the Lawnmarket and, in the mid -16th century, Marie’s house would have been a large, imposing property with gardens and orchards laid out on the slope down to the Norloch. The view to the north would have been open and expansive. In the 1820s and 30s the buildings in the close were in a dilapidated, crumbling state (see illustration) and the High Street was by then crowded with the high tenement buildings with which we are familiar today. 00!