Twelve

Building

Built 1802-04 for Adam Bruce, W.S., who bought the land for £82.16/-.  It is the smallest plot measuring 27 feet wide.  It is a four storey townhouse with garden and mews house at the back of the property.

Who lived there

In 1841 the house was owned by Miss Elizabeth Hope and occupied by her sister Miss Graham Hope (aged 76) and Hugh Hope, W.S., fourth son of Sir John Hope of Pinkie. 

In 1842 the house was bought for £1,900 by Dr James Duncan who lived and worked there until his death in 1866.  In 1871 his son John Duncan and his wife Jemima and family were living in the house. They moved to Ainslie Place and in the censuses of 1881, 1891 and 1901, the house is occupied by James Duncan's daughter, Elizabeth and her husband, Algernon Bishop-Culpeper, a retired army captain.

In 1929 the house was gifted to the Kirk Session of St. Andrews Church in George Street by William James Stuart, grandson of Dr James Duncan, in memory of his late parents.  His father, Rev. John Stuart, had been the minister of St Andrews Church.

From then until 1985 when it was sold, the house served as the manse for St. Andrews Church.

In 1985, the house was bought by James Gulliver, who built up the Argyll Foods Group and developed the Safeway supermarket chain into one of Britain's most successful retailers in the 1980's. In 1985 he tried unsuccessfully to acquire Distillers, the Scottish whisky group, but lost out controversially to Guinness.  He died in 1996.