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The petitioner, for the purpose of establishing an extensive iron manufactory, purchased certain houses situated at the south back of the Canongate of Edinburgh, which had formerly been possessed by the Commissioners of the Customs as coach-houses and stables. These buildings are nearly 600 feet from St John Street, and lie to the eastward of the road to St. Leonard's Hill.
At the southern extremity of the property (which is bounded by the south back of the Canongate,) the petitioner erected a furnace for melting pig iron. This furnace was worked by a cylinder, and not by bellows, so that the production of smoke was comparatively small.
Sir John Stewart, Mr. Haig, and others, proprietors in the vicinity, presented a bill of suspension and interdict to have this furnace and manufactory removed as a nuisance; and “the Lord Ordinary (Woodhouselee) having considered this bill, with the answers and replies, passed the bill, and granted the interdict as craved.”
The petitioner reclaimed to the Court; and pleaded,
1st That the alleged nuisance was not of an intolerable kind, was not dangerous to the properties, and did not in any considerable degree impair the comfort and security of the neighbourhood.
2d, That this part of the town was the situation of nuisances, the common sewer of that district of the city disgorged itself in this quarter; and nuisances of all kinds, breweries, bakehouses, dunghills, currying-shops, and tan-yards, were frequent in the vicinity.
But the Lords refused the petition, and remitted to the Lord Ordinary to pass the bill.
Lord Ordinary, Woodhouselee.Act. John Clerk.Alex. Glen, W. S. Agent.Buchannan, Clerk.
Fac. Coll. No. 19. p. 50.
