Calton Cemetery: Stories on every stone:

 Stepping through the gates of a cemetery is like opening the pages of a book.

There are stories to find at every turn, from the great and the noble, to the unsung and forgotten.

New Calton Cemetery on Regent Road is overgrown and unkempt, but maybe that's the way it should be as nature slowly reclaims the resting places of people who once scuttled along nearby Princes Street up to the cobbled streets of the Old Town or down to the elegance and grandeur of the New Town.

With every passing season the branches extend further around the intricate, beautifully crafted inscriptions, the grass grows higher around the base of the tombstones, and the work of the stonemasons starts to fade.

We shouldn't halt the march of time, but, neither can we lose them entirely.

Every headstone offers a glimpse into a life lived, many leaving you wanting to know more.

"Tombs with a view" is the welcome message on the gate which beckons you in at the foot of Calton Road. The flippancy of the language jars with the formality and respectfulness which honour  Edinburgh's great and good of the 1800s who now rest here.

They surely didn't build a watchtower to protect them from bodysnatchers to tolerate such marketing nonsense.

The views though are stunning. The higher you climb, the more you see across Holyrood Park in all its natural beauty, down to Leith and out to the Forth. On a beautiful summer's day it is a perfect place to explore, and immerse yourself, in Auld Reekie's  magnificent history.

Solid, expensive catacombs and dark Gothic mausoleums tower over  rows of headstones which seem to be ramshackle by design, but a pattern and structure emerges as you step back and study the whole scene.

Stepping off the path into the long grass, you encounter the resting places of merchants and magistrates, surgeons, lawyers and their clerks, municipal managers, bootmakers and watchmakers.

Step closer and you encounter engineers who designed lighthouses, a Solicitor General, a Bishop of Edinburgh, and a Baronoet, and a Writer to the Signet.

You also see the debris of the graveyard's life after dark today - a discarded syringe, an empty Diazepam packet and torn open condom wrappers.

A crumpled tent lies abandoned in the middle of the graveyard, while some of the high-walled tombs are filled with discarded bedding, plastic bags and empty beer bottles. Oddly, a pair of socks lie neatly folded, as if ready for someone to put away in a drawer.

The shabbiness of today sits uncomfortably with the dignity of the past.

Many of the headstones offer little insight beyond the formal recording of the person's  name, and dates of birth and death, but others give a glimpse of remarkable lives and grievous losses.

John Lyle who died aged 33 in 1852 after accidentally drowning in the Firth of Forth  is remembered with a headstone "erected by his son, Thomas, by whom his melancholy death is deeply lamented" - words which leave you wondering if he ever got over the loss of his father.

The pain of death was evident too on the headstone of  Joseph Finney, optician - erected in 1827 by his "disconsolate widow and only surviving relative", Christiana McKay. You can almost hear the blinds being drawn and mourning clothes donned every day for the rest of her life.

Many resting places record children lost in infancy. One family burial site holds 18 people. Three didn't survive beyond birth, two others were dead before their tenth birthdays.

It's also interesting to see society of its time reflected in the tributes. Men are marked by their trade. Women are marked almost solely by the trade of their husbands. Other than being married and raising children, they are afforded no footprint.

And for men of high standing, the tributes grow more fullsome. 

John Redpath, iron merchant, was given a significant final resting place complete with a glowing eulogy from his company, Redpath Brown & Co, which lauded his "integrity and sterling worth" and remarked: "It is believed he never lost a friend nor had an enemy."

David Pratt of Seggie, who died in 1841 was "warm in his affections, of most artless simplicity, and noted among men for his uprightness."

An image of his character is further fleshed out with the note he was "blunt in his manner, but judiciously generous and unostentatiously pious."

Christianity also ran through his veins: "The scriptures in which he was early trained, gushed from the fountain of memory to his guileless lips."

Was he a towering figure who dominated a room, or one of those quiet men whose word simply was law within his own home?  Just as an author leaves us to picture how their character looks, so we are left to create the face of the man behind the words on his tombstone.

The cemetery is filled with pedestals upon which the great and good were placed. 

Thomas Oliver, who death in 1844 was "extensively regretted",  and  distinguished by "an acute and sound understanding" - of what, we are not immediately told.

He was "manly, just and of liberal sentiment" and possessed "great energy of character."

Only at the end of the citation do we begin to understand his area of specialism: "He led the way in improvement, equalling by precept and example, and raised himself to a high plane among the scientific agriculturists of the UK."

Oliver was also a kind master and affectionate husband,  in that order.

The bigger the resting place, the more important the man, but then you stumble, quite literally, across the smallest piece of stone and encounter a man whose work inspired one of the city's most enduring tourist landmarks - one that is visited, touched and photographed every single day.

John McLeod was the man who painted the picture of Greyfriars Bobby which hangs in the kirk across the street from the world-famous statue of the dog.

His resting place, no bigger than a set of bathroom scale, lies partially covered by long grass and dandelions.

A jewel in a faded crown of glorious people who once walked the streets of a historic city.