My walk today took me through Holyrood Park and up Queens Drive with Salisbury Crags towering over me. As I walked round, I passed a steep path up the hill that leads to the upper road, Radical Road, and to a split in the cliff face there. This is known as the Cat Nick or Cat Nick Chasm. The path and the gap in the cliff face used to be a favourite spot for people to walk and then climb up on to Salisbury Crags. It was said that many of the leading lights in philosophy, poetry, and the Enlightenment, had climbed this, almost as a mark of passage into the intellectual elite.
In 1854 the path up to the Cat Nick saw a young man who would go on to be a leading light in world medicine almost come to a sticky end. Joseph Lister had been persuaded by his friend John Beddoe to walk up this dangerous and steep path. It would appear that Lister wasn’t too keen on the idea, but after being told by Beddoe how all the great thinkers of the day had done this, he decided to go along with his friend. About halfway up Lister’s vertigo got the better of him and he told Beddoe that he could go no further and would have to go back down. Beddoe agreed that this may be the best course of action, but as he turned to go down, he slipped and knocked out a boulder that crashed down the hillside catching Lister on the thigh. Lister was left in agony and Beddoe raced off to get help fearing that his friend’s leg was broken. Luckily, after being taken down from the hill and carried to the Royal Infirmary, it was found that he had suffered nothing more than severe bruising. Many years later when Lister had become world famous for his work in using antiseptics to prevent infection in wounds, Beddoe reflected on how close he had come to death that day and on the devastating effect this would have had on the millions of people who would be helped by his discoveries.
There is also a much darker tale connected to this spot and to tell it we will first have to travel back in time to Eighteenth Century Ayrshire and an Excise Officer called Mungo Campbell. Mungo was a man of good education who had joined the Scots Greys, a cavalry regiment in the British Army. During his time in the army, he saw much action and fought against the Jacobites during the rebellion of 1745. After the Battle of Culloden and the crushing of the rebellion, Campbell’s relative, Lord Loudoun, arranged for him to be appointed as an Excise Officer. Campbell took up this post in carried out his duties at various towns and villages around Ayrshire. Towards the end of his career Campbell’s health was in decline due to lung disease and he was transferred to Saltcoats, which was considered to be one of the easiest areas in Scotland for an Excise Man. There he married and settled down, leading a relatively quiet life. In Saltcoats he appeared to be quite a popular figure and was considered to be generous and fair, though he did like a drink and was a bit of a potty mouth with a penchant for blue language. He was also the sort of man who was very proud and would stand his ground on any point he believed in and would hold a grudge if anyone wronged him.
Campbell was a man who liked to fish and to hunt. He had licences to do so on the lands around him, with one exception, the land owned by Alexander Montgomerie, the Earl of Eglinton. The Earl was extremely strict about who could shoot or fish on his land and very rarely granted licences to anyone. For many years this was not an issue to Campbell until one day in October 1769. On that day he went out in with two of his colleagues to search the local coastline for any smuggled goods hidden in the sands awaiting collection. Campbell, being the lead Excise man carried his gun with him in case they met with any violence when trying to seize illicit goods. They found none and, on their way back to Saltcoats, they cut up from the beach and through Lord Eglinton’s land. As they walked through his estate a hare suddenly ran out from a nearby bush and Campbell’s hunting instincts kicked in and without thinking, he took aim and shot it. The shot was heard by Lord Eglinton who immediately demanded that one of his servants go to see what was going on. The servant sent to investigate, Alexander Bartleymore, was someone who’d had a run in with Campbell, as he had been caught transporting kegs of smuggled rum. The rum had been seized and destroyed by Campbell and his men. Since then, Bartleymore had held a grudge against Campbell, so on seeing he had shot a hare on Lord Eglington’s land he demanded that Campbell come with him and explain himself to the Earl. Campbell obliged and accompanied him back to Lord Eglinton’s house. There, the Earl raged at Campbell for shooting on his land but eventually accepted Campbell’s explanation and apologies. Campbell then assured him that it would not happen again.
A few weeks later, on the 24 October 1769, Campbell set out with his colleague John Brown to inspect a few areas along the coastline where they suspected that smuggled goods were being hidden. Again, they found nothing. As they returned home, they walked along the beach that ran around the Earl of Eglinton’s land. Bartleymore happened to see them and thinking he could cause some mischief, he immediately informed Lord Eglinton that Campbell was hunting on his land again. The Earl, was in his carriage, having just left his home to travel to Fairlie when stopped by Bartleymore, he then left the carriage, took a horse and along with Bartleymore and four other servants, rode out to where Campbell and Brown were on the beach. He called Campbell a scoundrel, demanded to know why he had been hunting on his land and ordered him to hand over his gun. Campbell denied that he and Brown had been hunting, pointed out that they did not have a dog with them and that he had shot nothing that day. He then told the Earl that he would hand his gun over to no man. The Earl however demanded Campbell’s gun and began walking towards him as if he intended to take the gun by force. Campbell began to back away from the Earl holding his loaded and cocked gun at his side in a defensive posture, much in the way that he would have been taught to do as a soldier during retreat. The Earl then asked Campbell if he intended to shoot him and told him that he was just as good a shot as Campbell. He then told one of his servants to go back to his carriage and fetch his gun. At this Campbell’s colleague Brown, who was in great fear about what was going to take place, walked away and left the unfolding scene.
Lord Eglinton then again walked towards Campbell and Campbell retreated, however, as he did so he stumbled on a stone and fell backwards. According to Campbell, on falling he accidentally fired the gun and shot the Earl by mistake. However, according to Lord Eglington’s servants, Campbell fell onto his back and the Earl, smiling at Campbell’s fall walked towards him. Campbell then deliberately fired at close range into the Earl’s belly. The Earl cried out that Campbell had murdered him, and Campbell threw away his gun. He was then set on by the Earl’s servants but managed to break from them and tried to grab the Earl’s gun from the servant who had just arrived with it. They fought briefly before Campbell was overpowered and struck to the ground by the other servants. The Earl on seeing the beating Campbell was taking from his men cried out to them to not harm him. They then tied Campbell up and he was transported to Irvine in a cart, while Lord Eglinton was taken in his carriage back to his house. There, at around midnight the Earl died from his wounds.
Campbell was transported to Edinburgh to stand trial at the High Court for murder. At his trial Campbell claimed that the shooting had been accidental, and several contemporary newspapers wrote that it seemed likely he would be acquitted as there was evidence his gun had gone off by accident. However, all Lord Eglington’s servants who had been present at the incident, testified that it had been a deliberate act on Campbell’s part. That he had aimed and fired the gun a short time after falling. The doctor who had attended to the Earl also stated that the dying man had told him that Campbell had deliberately shot him. There were then various arguments by Campbell’s Counsel that the shooting, if deliberate, could be seen as an act of self-defence, given the aggressive actions of the Earl, especially as Campbell was not on his land when confronted by him. At the conclusion of the trial the jury found Campbell guilty by a majority of nine to six. The judge then read out the sentence and this was that Campbell – ‘was to be carried back from the bar to the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, therein to remain, and be fed on bread and water only…until Wednesday the eleventh day of April next to come, and upon that day to be taken forth of the said Tolbooth, and carried to the common place of execution in the Grassmarket of Edinburgh; and then and there, betwixt the hours of two and four o’clock in the afternoon of the said day, to be hanged by the neck by the hands of the common executioner, upon a gibbet, until he be dead; and his body thereafter to be delivered to Doctor Alexander Monro…to be by him publicly dissected and anatomized…’
Campbell had other ideas though and told the friends who had attended the trial that he would not be hanged for murder. During the night, after his return to the Tolbooth, he hanged himself. The next morning his body was discovered along with the following note for his wife –
‘You will find, my long and faithful companion, I have kept my word with you – Since I must die because I would not surrender my arms to a tyrannic Lord, I am resolved to avoid being a public spectacle – ‘Ere you receive this I am no more. May every happiness attend you on earth, and may we meet in eternity, is the earnest wish of your’s even in death.’
Tolbooth, Feb 24 Mungo Campbell
There was then a bit of a legal kerfuffle over Campbell’s body, as his friends argued that it should be returned to them for burial rather than be dissected, as the sentence had not been carried out. This point was eventually agreed, and his body was handed over. As Campbell had committed suicide, he could not be buried on consecrated ground, so his friends had him buried at the foot of Salisbury Crags in Holyrood Park. However, the friends of Lord Eglinton and the citizens of Edinburgh were a bit annoyed that Campbell had managed to avoid being executed. Feeling they had been deprived of a good hanging, an angry crowd made its way to Campbell’s burial place and dug up his body. They then carried it up to the summit of Salisbury Crags and threw it off into the chasm at the Cat Nick.
Campbell’s broken body was later recovered by his friends. Rather than reburying him at the foot of the crags again and running the risk of further indignities being carried out on his body, they had it transported to Leith. There they hired a small boat and sailed out into the Forth where they weighed his body down and sunk it in the sea.
* * *
I don’t think I’ve seen anyone recently walking up this path to the Cat Nick. I did it once many years ago with some friends, and all I can say about that experience is that I wouldn’t do it again. Heights and me don’t mix, as I found out. So, to get round there today, I took the easier route up the gentler slopes by St Margaret’s Well.
On reaching the Cat Nick I took in the views over Edinburgh before leaving the Skulferatu that had accompanied me in a gap in some rocks nearby.
The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –
Latitude 55.946138
Longitude -3.174302
what3words: eagle.bother.keeps
I used the following sources for information on the Cat Nick -
The Butchering Art
Lindsey Fitzharris
Penguin Books 2017
Historical Tales and Legends of Ayrshire
William Robertson
Hamilton, Adams & Co 1889
The Trial of Mungo Campbell before the High Court of Justiciary in Scotland for the Murder of Alexander Earl of Eglintoun
Robinson and Roberts 1770
Information for Mungo Campbell, Late Officer of Excise at Saltcoats, in a Criminal Prosecution before the High Court of Justiciary in Scotland, for the alleged murder of the late Alexander Earl of Eglinton
Undated
The Newgate Calendar, Volume 4
Ex-classics Project 2009
Traditions of Edinburgh
Robert Chambers
1868
The Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland from the Twelfth to the Eighteenth Century, Volume Five
David MacGibbon & Thomas Ross
1892
Article and photographs are copyright of © Kevin Nosferatu, unless otherwise specified.
