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The Mercat Cross of Edinburgh stands in the city's Parliament Square next to St Giles Kirk, facing the High Street (part of the Royal Mile). ==Description and history== The current Mercat Cross is of Victorian origin, but was built close to the site occupied by the original. The Cross is first mentioned in a charter of 1365 which indicates that it stood about from the east end of St. Giles' Church. In 1617 it was moved〔 to a position a few yards (metres) down the High Street now marked by "an octagonal arrangement of cobble stones" (actually setts). This is the position shown on Gordon of Rothiemay's map of 1647 (see external link below). In 1756, the Cross was demolished and parts of the pillar re-erected in the grounds of Drum House, Gilmerton. A monument now stands there and on it a plaque that reads "Erected in memory of the old Mercat Cross of Edinburgh which stood at The Drum from 1756 to 1866. This Monument was erected November 1882". Five of the eight circular medallions featuring sculpted heads from the understructure of the original cross were eventually secured by Sir Walter Scott who incorporated them into the garden wall of his house at Abbotsford in the Scottish Borders. In 1866 the pieces of the cross from Drum House were reassembled on a new stepped pedestal on the east side of the north door of St Giles. (That base now supports the Canongate Cross.) Because the pillar had been broken during demolition in 1756, its height was reduced after reassembly from and its girth made thinner. In 1885 it was placed on a new octagonal drum substructure at its current location, south of the original pre-1617 position. This was designed by Sydney Mitchell and paid for by William Gladstone, M.P. for Midlothian from 1880 to 1895, whose father and grandfather hailed from Edinburgh. The sculpted heads on the original cross were replaced by the royal arms of Britain, Scotland, England and Ireland, the burgh arms of Edinburgh, Leith and the Canongate, and the arms of the University. The original shaft was replaced when the Cross underwent extensive renovations in 1970. A study of the stonework, commissioned by the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) and carried out in 1971, concluded that: embedded in the current structure are two pieces of an old shaft stone, that the capital belongs to the first part of the 15th century and that the unicorn is an 1869 reproduction of its predecessor on the 1617 cross based upon a description in contemporary accounts. The tympanum above the wooden studded door on the east side of the Cross bears the following Latin inscription composed by William Gladstone, in incised Gothic letters: }} 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Mercat Cross, Edinburgh」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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