The last West Warriston House was originally built in 1772 and was demolished in the 1970s. There had been previous houses on the site dating back to at least the early 16th century The site was to the north of the playing fields.
In 1599, or thereabout, John Kincaid of Warriston was beaten to death in the house by his servant John Weir. His wife and a nurse were found to have arranged the killing. The nurse was burned to death at 4am one morning on Castle Hill; the wife executed by the Maiden (an early guillotine) at the same time at Canongate Cross. It took several years to catch Weir, but he was eventually broken on the wheel in 1607.
These were not the only residents of West Warriston House to come to a violent end. Archibald Johnston, Lord Warriston, one of the authors of the National Covenant, was caught up in the aftermath of the Restoration and was found to be on the wrong side. He was hanged at the Market Cross in 1663 and his head displayed at the Netherbow. The rest of him is buried in Greyfriars Kirkyard.
Notes: While the cache location might seem very public, it is very easy to not be seen. Irresponsible dog walkers are not a major problem in the area, but I'd still keep my eyes peeled just in case. GPS reception is a little flaky around here. If you look at the coordinates in Google Earth, or Google Maps (satellite view) the marker is very close to exactly right. The provided reference waypoint is an averaged one straight from the GPSr for the cache location. It's not accurate, at least not when I'm standing at the cache with the GPSr about to average it again, but you might find it handy to have. There aren't many places above ground level to put a regular sized cache around here, and this one is somewhere where you wouldn't think there was room.
The cache has been moved to a different hiding place, but there is no change to the coordinates
Congratulations to Torsparkles on being the First To Find.
Thank you to Uilebheist, who looks after my caches when I'm away.