Historic graveyard in the imposing shadow of Edinburgh Castle

 

There cannot be a final resting place in Edinburgh with a more dramatic, or contrasting, backdrop.

The rows of headstones across the graveyard at St Cuthbert’s Parish Church either lie next to the tranquility of Princes Street Gardens or the bustle of Lothian Road.
They are also dissected by the main rail line out of the city, but all are overlooked by the imposing outline of Edinburgh Castle.

To follow its muddy, leaf-covered paths is to step back centuries into the world of the privileged professionals who shaped the city.

As with many historic cemeteries, St Cuthbert’s is dominated by the great and the good; men of influence and position, whose character and morality are lauded in rousing tributes etched into stone.

Women are remembered as wives and mothers - and, in the case of Margaret Grant, who died in her 80th year in ‘Porto-bello’ all that is recalled is “having distinguished and adorned her long widowhood by the habitual exercise of charity, hospitality and generous friendship by which she will long be remembered.”

Jane Bruce’s “long and honourable life” was marked in similar manner

Her still voice of religion, correct judgement,  and firmness in adversity all related to her 33 years of widowhood “where the sources of her own, and her family’s happiness .. and her virtues have stamped impressions on their memories which will hollow deeper till their ashes be mouldering with those of their mother.”

Those tributes were significantly more fulsome than many women’s graves from that time centuries ago, but they still sit in stark contrast to the glowing eulogies for the men whose children they bore, many of them barely surviving more than months.

One ornate headstone captures the fragility of life in the 1800s, and the pain of loss endured by so many couples.

William Beattie, builder and wood merchant died aged just 54 in 1837. His grave also contains six infants lost  in just 15 years. None of them made it to their second birthday, one only survived just six weeks, and  he and his wife lost three in four years. 

The losses are still impossible to comprehend.

That perhaps explains the extent of the tribute to William Rigby Murray, beloved child of John And Mary who, during his short life “gave the promises of distinguished abilities, high character and amiable disposition.” 

William died aged just 11.

But many others enjoyed life deep into old age, surviving all the hardships of the time, and the legacy they left on the cavity - and, in some cases far beyond - is told on the headstones which have also survived the ravages of time.

Bain Whyt, Esq, writer to the signet is remembered for huis “happy flow of humour, moral worth and genuine kindness” while merchant John Clapperton was born into humble life but  “raised himself to affluence by integrity and industry.”

And Andrew Hamilton, Scotland’s deputy controller of excise, was “ a sincere Christian … endowed with an acute and vigorous mind.”

Perhaps it is no surprise then that the cemetery was the target of grave robbers - a thriving industry as doctors and medical schools paid handsomely for fresh cadavers during the infamous Burke and Hare era.

A number of bodies were stolen before the walls were raised in height, and a watchtower added but then abandoned as the law changed and people could donate their bodies for medical research.

Burials ceased in 1875.

Today you’ll find one mausoleum, blackened by the pollution of modern city life, with its wrought iron gates wide open, and two sleeping bags and mattresses upended to create a temporary resting place next to those who have been there for centuries.

A discarded green sleeping bag has also been left  in the wide open vaults which run below the pavement of Lothian Road. 

They sleep possibly unaware of the extent of the history which engulfs them in the twilight hours.

https://viewfromfife.blogspot.com/2020/05/calton-cemetery-stories-on-every-stone.html