A Townhouse on George Street
No. 51 starts life as part of a classical tenement in Edinburgh’s brand-new New Town, built in cream sandstone on what will become the city’s grandest street.
A Picture Gallery Out Back
Miniature painter William Nicholson, soon the Scottish Academy’s first secretary, opens a top-lit picture gallery at the back with Dr Hay, probably to a design by architect Thomas Hamilton. Its boarded walls and picture rail are still here.
The First Lyon Was a Publican
On 18 October 1826, Jonathan Lyon, a spirit merchant whose Market Street shop doubled as a pub, places his first advert as an auctioneer. That’s the 1826 on our crest.
Lyon & Turnbull Move In
A year into his partnership with William Elliot Turnbull, Jonathan’s son William leases George Street Hall at No. 51 as the firm’s saleroom. Property, wine, fine art and the frankly unusual go under the hammer here for the next 135 years.
The Face of No. 51
George Beattie & Sons reface the building and bring it slightly forward, adding the Renaissance-style front, pedimented doorway and arched windows you still see on George Street.
A Bridge Over the Lane
Business is booming. The firm buys warehouses and a second saleroom on Thistle Street, then links them to No. 51 with a bridge over the lane behind. It’s still there.
A Royal Relic?
A gold cross pendant set with pearls and rubies, said to have belonged to Mary, Queen of Scots, comes up for sale. It goes to wine broker Francis Gibson for £55.
Colourists on the Walls
Work by the Scottish Colourists comes up for sale: F.C.B. Cadell in March 1926, S.J. Peploe in July 1927. By now the firm’s weekly adverts in The Scotsman list twenty or more sales at a time.
The Characters
William Plews joins as a fourteen-year-old office boy on ten shillings a week. In time, he and Ord Kennedy Reid become the saleroom’s best-loved auctioneers, and the lots get stranger: an Egyptian mummy, stuffed fish and, once, a set of coffins, with bidders invited to “try them out for size”.
The Lane Sales
Thistle Street Lane, right behind us, becomes an open-air saleroom. Every week, furniture and bric-a-brac are laid out on the cobbles for the Lane Sales. The crowd runs from “the peer of the realm to the local dustman”, and some are said to come from overseas.
Listed
On 13 January 1966 the building is Category B listed as part of the New Town’s George Street terrace. The listing singles out the top-lit saleroom at the back as being of considerable historic interest.
Going, Going, Gone
The Scotsman reports “Auction room going… going… after 173 years”, and what’s meant to be the final sale is held on 5 December 1998. In 1999 new owners revive the firm and move it to a converted church on Broughton Place, leaving behind a saleroom that has barely changed in over a century.
The Lyon Opens
After a six-month redevelopment, the old saleroom opens as The Lyon Public House. The rooms are named after the trade, the walls are full of curios from auction houses across the UK, and the crowd is still a big part of the show.
With thanks to Lyon & Turnbull, still selling at Broughton Place nearly 200 years on. Archive images courtesy of Historic Environment Scotland.