The History of St John’s House, South Street

In the first of a series of  posts, Graduate Trainee Jack O’Hara takes a look at some documents in University Collections relating to the complex of buildings on South Street, St Andrews known as St Johns, occupied today by the Department of Medieval History. 

At St Andrews, 1596: ‘Williame Arthur is upon the xxv day of October last by past ordourlie denuncit [as a] rebell and put to the horne.’ 

To be ‘put to the horn’ in 16th century Scotland was not the good time it would at first seem to promise. Arthur’s failure to pay his rent, being  ‘aught pundis money of our realme,’ put him in considerable debt to his superior, Patrick Adamson, son of the late archbishop. Despite various attempts at recovery of these funds, Adamson was unable to settle the matter with Arthur, who inhabited a few rooms in his South Street property and made use of the toft to the north of the rig. While Adamson pursued Arthur for the funds, the latter continued brazenly to ‘[resort] to markatis and kirkis within the said citie’ and so a horning, that is expulsion from civil life and denunciation as an outlaw, was authorised. Three blows of the horn by a baillie at the mercat cross were accompanied by the reading of this letter, and Arthur was ejected not only from Adamson’s tenement, but from burgh life itself, his moveable assets being seized by the burgh under royal warrant and shared among his debtors as was required.  

Transcription of the document in word format available here:

The rooms in question formed part of a complicated and evolving complex of buildings on the north side of South Street, sprawling over four tenements of land which had originally comprised the local holdings of the Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, or the Hospitallers, a military order who came to own property in every Scots burgh by 1319 at the latest, though perhaps as early as the mid-twelfth century when a similar order, the Knights Templar, received such a gift from Malcolm IV. After the Templars’ disbandment in Scotland, their former lands were conveyed to the Hospitallers, who were based in Torphichen. After this date, lands which had belonged to either order became known as Temple lands and Temple tenements, obscuring whether they originally belonged to the Hospitallers or the Templars. For example, in the University’s earliest documents relating to this property, it is referred to as terra templaria (1625) and, later, ane temple tenement (1674), despite the fact that the Hospitallers, and then their secular successors, had been its superiors for at least 300 years. The superiority of the Order was memorialised by the University in the 1970’s when it acquired the last of this complex and renamed the buildings “St John’s,” which itself necessitated the renaming of St John’s annexe at St Regulus Hall on Queen’s Gardens.  

While the frontage today gives the impression of three distinct properties, it can be seen from Brooks and Whittington’s birds eye reconstruction of the burgh’s medieval burgage plots that it was originally divided into four tenements (figure 1), an arrangement fossilised by the surviving layout of properties on the north side of St John’s Garden (figure 2), showing that no. 71 probably results from the union of two formerly discrete portions of land. The frontage, however, seems to have been separate from the lands at the back from a relatively early date, shown not only by documents held by the University, but also perhaps by Geddy’s map of the late 16^th century.  

Although the perspective of the map is decidedly skewed, and liberties have been taken to ‘correct’ anomalies resulting from the cartographer’s viewpoint, it has been shown that with regard to architectural detail, individual buildings were depicted with considerable care, and while elements of the St John’s complex are immediately recognisable in Geddy’s map, it is difficult to match this exactly with the present layout. For example, the broad frontage of no. 71 is shown with its main door and adjacent entrances to the east and west vaulted sub-floors, which are still present today, however there are three distinct buildings shown to the east of this where only two should be expected. It may be that Geddy’s depiction of the building immediately to the east of no. 71 as a well defined, separate structure is an attempt to show the proper division of properties, even if the frontages were already becoming amalgamated to some extent. There is also the fact that closes, or clausurae, accessed by vennels like the one surviving at St Johns, were the site not only of shabby lean-to’s, chicken coops and outside stairs, but also buildings of some distinction. Perhaps the overcrowded street front in Geddy’s depiction is an attempt to illustrate one of these buildings, bringing it forward to the street-line.  

Finally, there is the distinctive gable-fronted tower house shown immediately to the west of Baxter Wynd / Baker Lane. It is unlike any other property as drawn on the map, and it is tempting to compare it to the only known urban property of the Hospitallers which survived long enough to be studied, drawn and even photographed. The example from Linlithgow High Street, which was (devastatingly, and not without concerted opposition) pulled down in the late nineteenth century, comprised a similarly narrow gable-fronted structure of at least four storeys, perhaps as early as the mid-15^th century up to the beginning of the 16^th. Unfortunately, the location of the South Street building on the Geddy map is not where we would expect to see the principal building of the Order: by the 15^th century, when our earliest records of these properties emerge, this most easterly tenement is not described as a temple land, nor do the preceptor of Torphichen or his post-Reformation successors appear as superior.  

The older documents relating to this east-most property have not come down to us together with the rest of the charters, precepts and notarial instruments relating to those to its west, so it is possible there is yet to be uncovered some yellowed parchment suggesting that it also pertained to the Order. In my next post, I will look in detail at the documents which have survived and show the convoluted history of ownership and tenancy of these fascinating properties, including hornee William Arthur and how he came to squat in the hall, chamber and gallery of Patrick Adamson’s townhouse. Hopefully, I will be able to put together a final post showing how the buildings were adapted and renovated to become the Department of Medieval History in the 1970’s. 

Jack O’Hara
Graduate Trainee