greyfriars cemetery edinburgh scotland kirkyard
Greyfriars Kirkyard is the graveyard surrounding Greyfriars Kirk in Edinburgh, Scotland, and is in the hands of a separate trust from the church. For many people, the graveyard is associated primarily with Greyfriars Bobby, the loyal dog who guarded his master's grave. Though Bobby's headstone is at the entrance to the Kirkyard, he is actually buried at a grassy verge by a wall nearby, as the Kirk authorities would not allow his burial on consecrated ground. The dog's famous statue is opposite the graveyard's gate, at the junction of George IV Bridge, and Candlemaker Row. The Kirkyard was involved in the history of the Covenanters. They began in 1638 with signing of the National Covenant in the Kirk, and in 1679 some 1200 Covenanters were imprisoned in the Kirkyard pending trial. Many of the plots are enclosed in ornate stone and ironwork cages, called mortsafes, to preserve the dead from the attentions of the early 19th century resurrection men who supplied Edinburgh Medical College with the corpses for dissection. During the early days of photography in the 1840s the kirkyard was used by David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson as a setting for several portraits and tableaux such as The Artist and The Gravedigger. The Greyfriars Cemetery is reputedly haunted. One such haunt is attributed to the restless spirit of the infamous 'Bluidy' George Mackenzie (buried there in 1691), which is said to cause bruising and minor scratches and grazes on those who come into contact with it; few visitors tend to feel any ill effects. The Kirkyard is a favourite with ghost tours, which operate during the summer months, generally leaving from the High Street, and it is these which have embellished the reports. The SciFi channel's Scariest Places on Earth features Greyfriars Cemetery in a 2008 episode (This show was a repeat as Scariest Places is only in re-run status. It was only on for 4 years from 1999 to 2003).
Size: 3534px × 5315px
Location: Greyfriars Place, Old Town, Edinburgh, Scotland
Photo credit: © Jean-Christophe Godet / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: cages, cemetery, corpses, covenanters, dead, dissection, edinburgh, grave, graveyard, greyfriars, hanted, haunt, headstone, house, ironwork, kirkyard, local, men, mortsafes, ornate, plots, resurrection, scotland, stone, tomb, window
