St Cuthbert's churchyard, Edinburgh

St Cuthbert's Churchyard, Edinburgh

Visited July 2018

At the end of Princes Street Gardens, and in the shadow of Edinburgh Castle, is the parish church of St Cuthbert's, surrounded by its historic graveyard. The church dates from the late 19th century, but there have been churches on the site since at least the 12th century, if not a few centuries earlier.

 Although it's got stunning views over the Castle, and opens directly onto the Gardens, it was quiet when I visited on a Saturday afternoon at the end of July.

The gravestones here are a real mix - in the oldest part there are loads of skulls and other memento mori symbolism, with graves dating back to the 17th century. In the northern sections the Victorian and more recent gravestones are plainer, and arranged in rows, but there are some interesting insights into the social history of the time, as so many include details of the roles in society of those buried there, not just names, dates and epitaphs.

Should you find yourself at the far end of Princes Street, do go in here - it's not nearly as well known as Greyfriars, but is just as interesting, if not more so, and much, much less visited. A true gem in the heart of Edinburgh!

Canongate Kirkyard, Edinburgh

Canongate Kirkyard, Edinburgh

Visited September 2016

The kirkyard of the Canongate Kirk on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh contains burials from the 18th century onwards, in a variety of states of repair. The church itself is still in use, and there are modern memorials in the kirkyard as well as ancient. 

It’s a neatly laid out kirkyard, on the Holyrood rather than Castle part of the Royal Mile, and there weren’t too many tourists when I visited. There are large monuments around the walls and towards the back, and smaller stones in the middle. A few early stones bear memento mori such as skulls, but they’re few and far between.

Two memorials of note are the memorial to the Coachdrivers of the Canongate, whose stone shows a coach and horses, and the stone to poet Robert Fergusson, who was the inspiration for Robert Burns.