Thursday 14th October 1819
Thursday Oct 14th
My brother Frank being very unwell we remained at the hotel the whole of the day my father & two brothers went to the races at 12 o’clock the streets were crowded with carriages going to this amusement.
OBSERVATIONS & COMMENTS:
Musselburgh Races: The first races in Musselburgh took place in 1777 under the auspices of the Royal Caledonian Hunt.
1786: The finish of a horse race, Watercolour attributed to William Mason 1724-1797. Mason is better known as a poet and gardener. However, he was an accomplished amateur draughtsman and exhibited several works at the Royal Accademy. In 1786 two aquatints of his humorous depictions of horse races were executed by Francis Jukes and published by Robert Pollard. http://www.rareoldprints.com/p/13831
Between 1789 and 1816, race meetings were held on the sands at Leith, although some races did still take place in the town. In 1816, they returned permanently to Musselburgh, to a course that had been laid out for them by the town council. It would have been this new course that was admired by the Coplands.
circa 1850: Race horses and jockeys set off from the starting post at a racecourse. Coloured lithograph by Victor .J. Adam (1801-1866) after himself. From the Wellcome Foundation, Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) terms and conditions. https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/V0023271.jpg/full/760,/0/default.jpg
The Hunt were so pleased with the new course that they distributed 50 guineas amongst the town’s poor. The course is 2 km long.
Musselburgh Race Course . The main stand at Musselburgh, carefully built to face north so that spectators can watch without getting the sun in their eyes, and consequently difficult to photograph for most of the year. © Copyright Anne Burgess and licensed for reuse under the (CC BY-SA 2.0) Creative Commons Licence. https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3503336
In the middle of the course is a nine-hole golf course, dating from at least 1672. The Royal Musselburgh Golf Club was founded there in 1774. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musselburgh_Racecourse
Can you help us?
Old Regency Prints, Pictures an Coaching maps: Do you have access to any prints or pictures showing what town and country would have looked like when Lucy travelled through? Any illustrations of what she would have seen in 1819 will enliven our research.
New Pictures: Do you have any modern pictures of the streets, buildings, gardens and views that would enable us to see the changes that two centuries have wrought?