Cordiner's Land, West Port, Edinburgh 1626

I caught up with D over a coffee at a cafe in West Port.  There are so many buildings and pends dating to the medieval period in this part of Edinburgh.

Cordiner's Land is a five story tenement building. A panel with the insignia of the Cordiner's Incorporation has been inserted above the entrance. It's inscribed with a verse from Psalm 133 - "Behold how good a thing it is, And how becoming well, Together such as bretheren are, In unity are to dwell."

By the middle of the 17th century, buildings were built higher within the Edinburgh city walls and the tenement, almost universally built of stone with slate roofs, had become the standard form of housing. 

The word Cordiner derives from the French word for shoemaker, Cordonnier. Cordiners were leatherworkers, mostly shoemakers who made a complete new shoe.  Cobblers worked with old leather and repaired shoes. I have ancestors from the early 1800s who worked as shoemakers in Selkirk.