Greyfriars

Edinburgh #3

Edinburgh's Old Town has some wonderful street names. Grassmarket leads to Cowgatehead, which in turn leads to Candlemaker Row. There you will find Greyfriars Kirkyard, its earliest burials dating back to the late 1500s, when it replaced the overfull graveyard surrounding St Giles Cathedral. It's now an atmospheric place, containing the graves of many notable people. 

The large tomb below is the burial place of architects William Adam and his son, John. John's brothers, Robert and James, made the 'Adam style' famous. 

The wall in the photo below is part of Flodden Wall, built to protect the city after the defeat of the Scots by the English in 1513 at Flodden Field. Completed in 1560, it augmented the existing city walls. The information sign made me laugh as it said: 'The feared English invasion never (yet) materialised.'

The Bothy by the gate, built in 1864, was a shelter for the families of the recently deceased, who were obliged to watch over the new grave to deter the 'resurrection men' or grave robbers, who used to dig up fresh bodies and sell them to the nearby medical school for anatomical dissection. The practice led to the use of 'mortsafes' (lockable iron cages placed over the new graves) and 'caged lairs' with high walls and roofs made of iron bars (see below). 

Some of the symbols on the graves are chilling. 'Memento Mori' - remember that you have to die!

The story of Greyfriars Bobby is more heartwarming. He was a little terrier, who, when his owner John Gray died of TB, refused to leave the graveside and guarded it for 14 years until his own death in 1872. He was buried just outside the consecrated ground and was commemorated by a drinking fountain outside (his nose now shiny where people constantly touch it), and with a more recent memorial stone and statue in the kirkyard.