Greyfriars Anniversary
Explore 400 years of history from Greyfriars Kirkyard
SCOTLAND’S most famous kirkyard, Greyfriars, in the heart of Edinburgh’s Old Town is ringing in its 400th anniversary with a humble perspective. When publishing the celebration plans, Reverend Richard Frazer reflected that, “Compared to the immensity of ‘Deep Time’, a phrase coined by geologist James Hutton, an Enlightenment figure associated with Greyfriars Kirk, 400 years is the mere blinking of an eye.
“That being said,” he continues, “these last 400 years has seen the world transformed more radically than any other period during human history.”
A programme of year-round events to mark the anniversary was unveiled, including talks, screenings and walks befitting of a place where scientists, theologians, poets, and martyrs lay side by side.
But, due to Covid-19 restrictions and a sense of responsibility for the wellbeing of the community, the programme has been postponed until the incredible history can be commemorated fully.
Visitors have still been encouraged to tour the kirkyard and discover the intriguing testaments to 400 years of history for themselves.
Having opened its gates on Christmas Day, 1620, it has been rather an eventful “blink of an eye” for the kirkyard. The site has gone from monastery to unofficial torture chamber, to a graveyard inspiring the likes of authors Charles Dickens and J.K. Rowling.
Greyfriars Kirkyard possesses a Tardis-like quality of being far more expansive within than seems possible from without. It has no steeple, so from ground level – bearing in mind the undulating streets of Edinburgh have many “ground levels” – it is completely lost among the Old Town’s spires and tenements.
For many visitors, their first reaction is almost always
awe that such a space can endure in the heart of this tightly-packed city.
The significance of Greyfriars’ history expands far beyond its gates. From here, it is possible to grapple with many of the fundamental forces that shaped the Scotland we know today.
The kirkyard’s origins lie in the spiritual struggle of the Protestant Reformation. It was a Franciscan monastery – hence the name “Greyfriars” for the grey robes of the monks – before passing into the possession of Mary, Queen of Scots in 1560. She in turn gave it to the town council to use as a burial ground.
In 1638, the National Covenant was signed in the new Greyfriars Kirk, which threw down the gauntlet against the notion of divine right monarch. It also argued against the belief that only a few privileged individuals – those at the top of rigid organisational hierarchies – had direct access to the divine.
Many of the Covenanters who would fight and die for these ideals now fill the graves of the kirkyard, after being held and tortured in a make-shift cage within the kirkyard. Connections to the story of Scotland are everywhere on the site.
Enter through the great iron gates at Candlemaker Row and veer left to see two mortsafes. These horizontal cages protected the remains of those who could afford them from body snatchers – men who made their money by selling cadavers to the nearby Royal College of Surgeons, now Edinburgh Medical College. Here’s another connection
The significance of Greyfriars’ history gates” expands far beyond its
– the Royal College was founded in 1505 by King James IV, who fell at the Battle of Flodden in 1515 – a catastrophic defeat for Scotland which gave its name to the stretch of wall that still stands at the south-western perimeter of the kirkyard.
Follow the Flodden Wall and you’ll find both the Covenanter’s Prison and the resting place of William Mcgonagall, a poet and tragedian whose lamentable wordplay has secured him a reputation as Scotland’s worst writer.
He will long be remembered, however, not just for that inglorious distinction but for possibly inspiring the name of a Harry Potter character.
J.K. Rowling famously penned the first of her Harry Potter novels in a café overlooking the graveyard, and it is thought she took inspiration for character names from the graves of Potter, Mcgonagall, Moodie and Tom Riddle.
The kirk’s defiant act optimism” of
She walked in the footsteps of another famous writer – Charles Dickens misread Ebenezer Scroggie’s grave inscription in the kirkyard more than a century earlier, inspiring one of his most famous novels.
Scroggie’s job was described as “a meal man”, which Dickens misread as “a mean man”, thus creating the infamous miser in A Christmas Carol.
Greyfriars Kirk is an active part of the local community and its members are keen to celebrate its 400-year history as soon as restrictions allow. In the meantime, they are focusing on crafting of a “Future Vision”, a consultation process open to Edinburgh residents and visitors of all faiths, which you can contribute to on the Kirk’s website.
Thinking ahead, a time capsule is also being made to be opened on the 500th anniversary in 2120.
In a time when so many of us are utterly engrossed in the concerns of the present, it is an admirably defiant act of optimism to celebrate the past by unreservedly giving something of ourselves to the future.
For more information visit: www.greyfriarskirk.com