Restalrig (/rɛˈstælrɪx/ rest-AL-rikh) is a small residential suburb of Edinburgh, Scotland (historically, an estate and independent parish).
[2] The Norman noble family the de Lestalrics were the ancient landowners in the area (including nearby South Leith).
The park which occupies the site of the now much reduced loch contains a 16th-century doocot at its northern end, sometimes speculated to have served as a kiln for burning infected clothing and belongings during the plague of 1645.
[6] According to Raphael Holinshed, Richard III of England camped at Restalrig in August 1482 after capturing Berwick upon Tweed.
[9][10] In April 1572 at the height of the Marian civil war, Thomas Randolph and Sir William Drury stayed in the Deanery.
[11] The English ambassadors plotted with Archibald Douglas to kidnap George, Lord Seton from the shore of Leith, but the plan did not take effect.
[13] St Margaret's Well stood here until 1859 when it was moved to Holyrood Park by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland to avoid destruction by railway workshop construction.
Piershill Square at the head of Smokey Brae was built by the City Architect, Ebenezer James MacRae in 1937.
[18] It replaced Piershill Barracks, the former home of the Royal Scots Greys, the cavalry regiment most famous for their charge at Waterloo, and the subject of the well-known, and much reproduced, head-on view painted by Elizabeth Thompson, "Scotland Forever!".
He built a hexagonal chapel royal there, adjacent to the kirk, dedicated to the Virgin Mary and the Holy Trinity,[20] and endowed it a chaplaincy in 1477.
At the same time, he made the kirk a collegiate establishment called the Deanery of Restalrig, and initiated a programme of extension.
Some parts of the choir walls survived, however, and in 1836 were incorporated in the rebuilt church by William Burn[22] which served as a chapel of ease for the parish of South Leith.