Description

Opened 1820. Large, regularly planned, terraced graveyard, situated on sloping site on Calton Hill with fine examples of 18th and 19th century gravestones in a variety of styles (see Notes). Monuments include roofless Classical lairs, Gothic gravestones, obelisks, table stones, including one with relief sculpture of Wisdom consoling Misfortune.

WATCHTOWER: (NT 26587 74009): 1820. 3-storey circular, battlemented watch tower. Squared and coursed rubble with ashlar margins. Band courses. Some segmental-arched window openings to 3rd storey. Cantilevered, external stone curved staircase with metal banister, leading to entrance on 3rd storey. Polygonal stacks. Some windows boarded. Fire damaged.

BOUNDARY WALLS: to all sides. Tall, rubble walls with square-plan gate piers to NW with low, pyramidal caps.

Statement of Interest

A well-designed burial ground on a particularly picturesque site overlooking the Old Town of Edinburgh and with a view across the Firth of Forth. Many of its monuments are finely designed with elaborate carvings. The watch tower is a good example of its type, positioned at the highest point of the graveyard for maximum effect. The graveyard is also notable for its distinctive terraced plan.

The New Calton Cemetery was planned in 1817 and opened to the public in 1820. It was begun as a place to re-inter the remains which had been disturbed by the placing of Waterloo Place through the centre of the Old Calton Burial Ground (see separate listing). It is thought to have been laid out by the City Superintendent of Works, Thomas Brown and has planned terraces to the SW.

Grave-robbing was a particular problem in 18th and early 19th century Scotland as a means of providing corpses for medical dissection. It reached a peak in Edinburgh in the 1820s as the Medical Authorities made it compulsory to pass a course in practical anatomy in order to obtain a medical degree. Watchtowers were one way of trying to ensure that there was a deterrent, as someone would stay in the tower to keep watch over the fresh graves.

List description revised as part of Edinburgh Holyrood Ward resurvey 2007-08. The watchtower was previously listed separately.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• New Calton Cemetery, Edinburgh at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q17791424

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

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