Lockdown heritage
Edinburgh graveyard project
Peter Yeoman, in one of his lockdown dog walks in Warriston Cemetery near his home in north Edinburgh, noted that the memorial marking the family grave of Dr Joseph Anderson was in need of attention, obscured by vegetation and with the lettering becoming illegible.
As an archaeologist and longterm Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Peter was concerned that this monument to such a key individual in the understanding of Scotland’s past should be lost.
Joseph Anderson LLD HRSA (1832-1916) is of great significance to the history of archaeology, as David Clarke demonstrated in his excellent paper about Anderson in vol 132 (2003) of the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, https://scot.sh/socant.
Assistant secretary and editor to the Society for many years, creator and Keeper of the National Museum of Antiquities, Anderson was justly famed for producing the seminal Early Christian Monuments of Scotland with Romilly Allen in 1903.
The work begins
At Peter’s request the Friends of Warriston Cemetery were granted permission from City of Edinburgh Council Cemeteries to clear low tree branches, gently wash the stone and repaint the lettering. The Friends are active all year round in maintaining the grounds, which feature numerous specimen trees that contribute greatly to the biodiversity of the city.
Warriston was designed by architect David Cousin (as mentioned in Morven Leese’s article about Cousin in History Scotland September/October 2020 p.14) as a Victorian garden cemetery, opened in 1843. Numerous eminent Victorians are among the 64,000 burials here; Anderson is in good company alongside other leading Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, including Cosmo Innes, and rests just yards away from another great Scottish antiquarian Sir James Young Simpson, father of anaesthesiology.