Five historical burial grounds are scattered around Edinburgh’s city center, oases amid the dense urban surroundings often full of students and tourists. Greyfriars Kirkyard, Canongate Kirkyard, St. (...)
Five historical burial grounds are scattered around Edinburgh’s city center, oases amid the dense urban surroundings often full of students and tourists. Greyfriars Kirkyard, Canongate Kirkyard, St. Cuthberts Kirkyard, Old Calton Burial Ground, and New Calton Burial Ground form a collection of graveyards that provide a window into the history, culture, and society of Scotland from the early seventeenth to late nineteenth centuries. Among the weathered, decaying headstones of lawyers, poets, smiths, tailors, philosophers, and others that formed the fabric of Edinburgh’s society, histories and legacies weave stories of the transition of Edinburgh from medieval town to Enlightenment city to the “second city of the Empire.” Economist Adam Smith, poet Robert Fergusson, inventor Robert Stevenson, and philosopher David Hume rest among the city’s departed, testament to Edinburgh’s cultural and academic importance. Years of exposure to the elements, vandalism, and neglect have led to deterioration throughout the five graveyards. Headstones that have been removed or have become dislodged from the ground by the passage of time or by vandals now lie flat, decaying and eroding with each passing year. Graffiti and damage from vandals mar many monuments. Paths have become overgrown, dissuading visitors from entering the grounds that evoke such significant memories of the history and importance of Edinburgh in the development of the United Kingdom.
