Sir Walter Scott's, "The Abbott", and the description of the Seton's Cannongate House:

Entered by, under ..."one of the arched passages which afforded an outlet to the Canongate from the houses beneath, a passage, graced by a projecting shield of arms, supported by two huge foxes of stone". Therein was, "A paved court, decorated with large formal vases of stone, in which yews, cypresses, and other evergreens, vegetated in sombre sullenness, and gave a correspondent degree of solemnity to the high and heavy building in front of which they were placed as ornaments, aspiring towards a square portion of the blue hemisphere, corresponding exactly in extent to the quadrangle in which they were stationed, and all around which rose huge black walls, exhibiting windows in rows of five stories, with heavy architraves over each, bearing armorial and religious devices".

Upon entering the Lord Seton's Lodging, one "pulled the bobbin, and the latch, though heavy and massive... (and) entered the large hall, or vestibule, dimly enlightened by latticed casements of painted glass, and rendered yet dimmer through the exclusion of the sunbeams, owing to the height of the walls of those buildings by which the court-yard was enclosed.  The walls of the hall were surrounded with suits of ancient and rusted armour, interchanged with huge and massive stone escutcheons, bearing double tressures, fleured and counter-fleured, wheat-sheaves, coronets, and so forth..."