Summer House inside the gates of Morray House
Holyrood Road, Edinburgh EH8 8BA
If you look through the gates of Moray House on the north side of Holyrood Road from this spot you can see the summer house where a historic event took place in 1707. In that year the threat of a riotous mob, enraged by the decision of the Scottish Parliament to sign the Treaty of Union with England, prevented the representatives of the two countries from signing the Treaty in the Scottish Parliament. For their own safety they retreated to this summer house in a private garden off Hollyrood Road, where they could sign away Scotland’s independence in peace. However, it proved one step too far for the Scottish representatives that Article 13 of the treaty imposed a malt tax on Scotland which had originally been established in England to pay for war with France. This tax on the brewing industry was too much for the Scottish parliamentarians and it was finally agreed that Scotland would be exempted from it. However, after the Union the tax was eventually imposed on Scotland anyway in 1725, leading to riots in both Edinburgh and Glasgow, where nine people died.
View of Moray House summer house from across Holyrood Road.
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