Skulferatu #17 - New Calton Burial Ground, Edinburgh

 

I think I’ve previously mentioned that I do love a good walk around a graveyard, especially a graveyard with a bit of character.  New Calton Burial Ground is just such a graveyard.  Built on the slope of a hill with tiered graves and a watchtower overlooking it all, this graveyard has some spectacular views over Edinburgh.  So, what better place to go on a grey, dull day to take in some of Edinburgh’s unique scenery while contemplating one’s own mortality? 

 

Graves at New Calton Burial Ground, overlooked by the Watchtower

 

A view of the Watchtower

 

Near the main entrance stands the Watchtower.  This was built so that in 1820, when the cemetery opened, guard could be kept against graverobbers, or resurrectionists as they were known.  Recently buried corpses were regularly stolen from their graves to feed the need for bodies at Edinburgh’s medical schools.  The only bodies legally available to them at that time were those of executed criminals, and there just weren’t enough of those to go round.  So, a trade in illegally acquired bodies developed.  Fearing that their relatives, or indeed their own bodies when they died, may end up on the dissection table, people went to extraordinary lengths to prevent this.  These included extra deep burial, iron cages built over the grave and guards watching over the graveyard. 

 

The Watchtower was later used as a house and was occupied as such until around 1955.  Despite it being tiny, at one time it was occupied by a family of ten.  The building is now derelict and in a state of disrepair.  It is on the Buildings at Risk Register.

 

A view over New Calton Burial Ground

 

View from New Calton Burial Ground over Edinburgh to Arthur’s Seat

 

There are several notable people buried in the graveyard, such as a couple of the Lighthouse Stevensons and William Dick, the founder of the Dick Vet College in Edinburgh.  Another of the worthies whose bones lie mouldering here is the poet William Knox.  Little known nowadays, he wrote one of Abraham Lincoln’s favourite poems – Mortality.  Knox, who was seemingly related to the Presbyterian killjoy preacher John Knox, was quite unlike his austere relative and led a rather intemperate life.  He was seemingly a very jovial and much liked bloke, with many friends.  However, he was a heavy drinker who like many alcoholics found it difficult to manage his money and his day to day life.  His drinking destroyed his health and he died of a ‘paralytic stroke’ at the age of 36 on 12 November 1825.    

 

Gravestone of William Knox

 

For your delectation here is Knox’s poem Mortality in full.  It’s a lovely piece of over the top morbidity – perfect for an old Goth like me.  Enjoy –

 

MORTALITY

 

O why should the spirit of mortal be proud!
Like a fast flitting meteor, a fast flying cloud,
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave –
He passes from life to his rest in the grave.

The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade,
Be scattered around and together be laid;
As the young and the old, and the low and the high,
Shall moulder to dust, and together shall lie.

The child that a mother attended and loved,
The mother that infant’s affection that proved,
The husband that mother and infant that blest,
Each – all are away to their dwelling of rest.

The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye,
Shone beauty and pleasure – her triumphs are by:
And the memory of those that beloved her and praised,
And alike from the minds of the living erased.

The hand of the king that the sceptre hath borne,
The brow of the priest that the mitre hath worn,
The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave,
Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave.

The peasant whose lot was to sow and to reap,
The herdsman who climbed with his goats to the steep,
The beggar that wandered in search of his bread,
Have faded away like the grass that we tread.

The saint that enjoyed the communion of Heaven,
The sinner that dared to remain unforgiven,
The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just,
Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust.

So the multitude goes – like the flower and the weed
That wither away to let others succeed;
So the multitude comes – even those we behold,
To repeat every tale that hath often been told.

For we are the same things that our fathers have been,
We see the same sights that our fathers have seen,
We drink the same stream, and we feel the same sun,
And we run the same course that our fathers have run.

The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would think,
From the death we are shrinking from they too would shrink,
To the life we are clinging to, they too would cling –
But it speeds from the earth like a bird on the wing.

They loved – but their story we cannot unfold;
They scorned – but the heart of the haughty is cold;
They grieved – but no wail from their slumbers may come;
They joyed – but the voice of their gladness is dumb.

They died – ay, they died! and we, things that are now,
Who walk on the turf that lies over their brow,
Who make in their dwellings a transient abode,
Meet the changes they met on their pilgrimage road.

Yea, hope and despondence, and pleasure and pain,
Are mingled together like sunshine and rain:
And the smile and the tear, and the song and the dirge,
Still follow each other like surge upon surge.

‘Tis the twink of an eye, ’tis the draught of a breath,
From the blossom of health to the paleness of death,
From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud –
O why should the spirit of mortal be proud!

 

I left the Skulferatu that accompanied me on today’s walk in a hollow in a tree near the top of the graveyard.

 

Skulferatu #17

 

Skulferatu #17 in tree hollow at New Calton Burial Ground

 

Google Map showing location of Skulferatu

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are:

 

Latitude 55.953664

Longitude -3.177293

 

Skulferatu #15, St Baldred's Cradle, Peffer Sands, East Lothian

 

The thing I love about working in East Lothian is that there are so many beautiful places nearby to go for a lunchtime walk.  My walk today was along Peffer Sands, which is a great big sandy beach with lots of sand dunes.  It is a quiet and isolated spot with amazing views over the Forth and down to the Bass Rock.   

 

View down Peffer Sands to the Bass Rock

 

I walked along the beach and up onto the rocky outcrop at the southern end of the beach.  This area is known as St Baldred’s Cradle. 

View from St Baldred’s Cradle

 

View over rocks at St Baldred’s Cradle

 

Here St Baldred is believed to have spent some years in a remote hermitage.  He obviously liked the view if he came here, as it’s still pretty remote and out of the way.  There is supposedly an ancient cairn here, but I’ve never actually seen it.  However, I do find this is often the case with ancient landmarks, unless they are pointed out to me, I just don’t see them.    

 

Today’s Skulferatu was left in a crack in one of the rocky outcrops overlooking the Bass Rock.

 

Skulferatu #15

 

Skulferatu #15 in rocks at St Baldred’s Cradle

Google Map showing location of Skulferatu

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are:

 

Lattitude 56.023742

Longitude -2.584464

 

Skulferatu #12 – Lochend Park, Edinburgh

I lived in the Abbeyhill area of Edinburgh years ago and remember the first time I stumbled across Lochend Park with it’s strange, little loch in the middle.  It was a hot, humid summers day and the loch looked almost like something from a bayou in the southern United States with the trees growing out from the water.

Lochend Loch or Restalrig Loch is really just a large puddle that sits in a natural hollow in the ground and its depth varies with the rainfall.  It used to serve as one of the main water supplies for Leith, but the water was of poor quality and often stagnant.  The locals therefore preferred to get their water from the local wells instead.

Lochend Loch with Arthur's Seat in background and Lochend House on left of photo

 

The loch was also used for the hunting of wildfowl and King James IV of Scotland hunted there occasionally.

A drawing of Lochend Loch from Cassells Old & New Edinburgh Vol. 3 (1883)

 

Sometime in the 1570s the loch was the site of the ghostly apparition of a fairy army.  Bessie Dunlop, a midwife, and folk healer from Ayrshire was on the way to Leith and had stopped and tethered her horse by Restalrig Loch.  As she was resting, she heard ‘a tremendous sound of a body of riders rushing past her with a noise as if heaven and earth would come together…the sound swept past her and seemed to rush into the lake with a hideous rumbling noise.  All this while she saw nothing…’  (Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft, by Walter Scott).  It would seem that a ghost she regularly spoke to informed her that this was the fairies on one of their earthly processions.  Alas for poor Bessie, she was later tried and found guilty of witchcraft and in 1576 was executed on Castle Hill in Edinburgh.

Above Lochend Loch sits Lochend House, which is also known as Restalrig Castle.  The house used to belong to the Logan family, however it was confiscated from them by the Scottish Parliament in 1609, due to Robert Logan having been involved in a plot to abduct King James VI of Scotland.  From 1704 it was owned by the 6^th Duke of Balmerino, Arthur Elphinstone.  He was beheaded on 18 August 1746 at Tower Hill in London for his part in the Jacobite rising if 1745.  In 1816 most of the house was pulled down and a new house was built on the site.  The property was recently renovated and is now privately owned.

Lochend House, as seen from Lochend Park

 

There is a Doocot in the park which stands north from the house and next to a small, brightly coloured playground.  It provided a nesting site for several hundred pairs of pigeons, which were used for eggs and meat.  The Doocot is still popular with the local pigeons.

 

In 1645 the plague hit and devastated Leith, killing off around half the population (and we think we’ve got it bad with the Covid!).  There is evidence of a chimney in the Doocot and it is thought it was used as an incinerator to burn the clothing and other items of those who fell victim to the plague.  In old maps of the area, it is referred to as the ‘plague kiln’.

Doocot in Lochend Park

Pigeon sheltering inside Doocot

 

I left a Skulferatu by the loch as a present for the fairies, just in case they come by again.  I hope they like it.

Skulferatu #12

Skulferatu #12 resting on some leaves by the bank of the loch

 

Google Map showing location of Skulferatu

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are:

Latitude 55.960842

Longitude -3.159896

Article and photographs are copyright of © Kevin Nosferatu, unless otherwise specified.

Skulferatu #11 - Hangman's Crag, Holyrood Park, Edinburgh

I was out for a walk around Holyrood Park, and while there wandered past a spot known as Hangman's Crag.  Leaving the main path, I crossed over a small fence and took a narrow path up to the top of this rocky outcrop. I have walked up here a few times before, but always in the summer when it has been dry.  Though it was steep, it was a relatively easy walk.  Not so in winter.  Everything was slippery and wet and a worked up into a mass of mud from all the thousands of people who have been walking up this path in these Covid ridden times.  Thankfully, on the most treacherous part of the path, there were lots of tree branches to hold onto.  If there hadn’t been, I’d have ended up flat on my arse in the mud.

Hangman's Crag, with Duddingston Kirk in the background

Hangman’s Crag sounds like the name came from the place being a site of execution, but actually it comes rather from the sad tale of one of Edinburgh's much hated and loathed executioners.

 

In the late Seventeenth Century in Edinburgh, one of the city's hangmen was a young man who had come from a wealthy and well-to-do family from Melrose in the Scottish Borders.  On his father's death, he had inherited the estate and a great deal of money.  However, the young man had extravagant tastes and wasted the whole fortune on living the high life.  When not drinking, entertaining and visiting one of the city’s many whorehouses he was gambling away vast amounts of money.  Soon he was broke.  There was no money left.  To survive he had to move to lowly lodgings and sell off his belongings, though he did keep one set of fine clothes.  The young man then had to do what no gentleman should ever have to do, he had to work for a living. So, he took the job as the city hangman.  This was a particularly odious and unpopular job at that time, as many of those sentenced to die were innocent men fallen foul of higher powers or those whose religion was not in keeping with the main orthodoxy.  Even in normal times the city hangman was seen as someone on the fringes of society, on the same level as common criminals and prostitutes.

 

The young man took up this office and performed his duties of execution, flogging and all the other rather unpleasant sentences ordered by the courts.  Now, a man has to be of a certain mentality to carry out these sorts of duties and not be affected or destroyed by the torment he is inflicting.   This young man found escape from the guilt of his actions and from the lowly office he now occupied in life, by donning the one set of fine clothes he had kept and mixing with the gentlefolk of Edinburgh.   He would dress up and mingle with the groups of Edinburgh society who played golf in the evenings at Bruntsfield Links, and for a few hours he could feel he was back in his place in society.  He could switch off from the haunting screams of those whose lives he was paid to end.  Those he was paid to maim or torture or humiliate.

 

One day while out at Bruntsfield Links, the young man was recognised by a group playing golf.  One of their friends had recently been sentenced to death for some minor offence, and they realised that the young man playing golf alongside them was none other than the man who had hanged him.  They shouted at him and pointed out to the others there who he was.  They insulted him, spat at him, threw stones at him and chased him away.  They told him never to come back, that he was a disgrace and lower than even the most common and base criminal who had dangled from his rope.    The young man ran off humiliated and ashamed.  He made his way to the quiet solitude of one of the crags overlooking Duddingston Loch.  There he contemplated his life and what he had become.  Falling into a state of great despair he threw himself off the crag to his death.  His body was then found there the next day.  After this the crag he had thrown himself from was always referred to as the Hangman’s Crag.

View up path to top of Hangman's Crag - with Crow Hill in the background

View from Hangman's Crag over Duddingston Loch

 

Near the top of the crag, I found a hollow in a group of rocks near the cliff edge and there I left the Skulferatu that had accompanied me on my walk.

Skulferatu #11

Skulferatu #11 in a hollow between rocks at the crags edge

Google map showing location of Skulferatu #11

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are:

Latitude 55.941027

Longitude -3.154901

Skulferatu #10 - Scott Tower, Corstorphine Hill, Edinburgh

 

If you drive out of Edinburgh on Queensferry Road and head towards South Queensferry, the Forth Bridges and Fife, you pass Corstorphine Hill.  From the road it looks like nothing much, as all you can see is a scruffy area behind an old stone wall, with bushes and some towering trees.  There is no real sense of what lies behind this.  However, if you park up your car somewhere convenient and walk to the muddy path just off Queensferry Road, you enter a peaceful woodland haven.  Within a few yards it is hard to believe that just behind you is a noisy, polluted highway.

One of the old quarry sites on Corstorphine Hill

View from Corstorphine Hill of Forth Bridges and hills of Fife

When walking into the woodland from Queensferry Road, one of the first things you pass is Barnton Quarry.  The area is now fenced off.  It is a disused, stone quarry that was later used as a military command centre and nuclear bunker.  The bunker was built in 1952 and in the early 1960s was redesigned as a Regional Seat of Government.  This meant that in the event of a nuclear war up to 400 politicians and civil servants could shelter there, while the rest of us fried in the nuclear explosion or died in the nuclear fallout.  The site remained operational up until the early 1980s.  At the time of writing it is being renovated and converted into a museum and education centre.

 

So anyway, I slipped and slid in my inadequate footwear up through slimy paths of mud and dead leaves.  Around me birds sang in the woodland canopy up above.  Then after a bit further walking, I could see an old, stone tower emerging through the trees. 

Scott Tower through the trees

Stairs leading up hill to Scott Tower

This Victorian oddity is the Scott Tower (also known as Corstorphine Tower or Clermiston Tower) and was built in 1871 to commemorate the centenary of the birth of Sir Walter Scott.  A bit greedy you might think, considering that there was already the Scott Monument in central Edinburgh to celebrate his life.  However nowadays it is hard to comprehend the fame of this Edinburgh born novelist, poet, playwright and historian.  The man’s novels were international bestsellers.  In fact, it was said that some of his novels outsold the Bible, which at that time was quite something.  Nowadays his work, to the modern reader, seems very turgid and boring.  I did try to read his novel Waverley once for a university course, but soon gave up and did the work on a novel by Daniel Defoe instead.  Moll Flanders – a much easier read.

Scott Tower, Corstorphine Hill, Edinburgh

Scott Tower through the trees

 

Scott Tower is situated at the top of Corstorphine Hill and is twenty metres tall.  It is usually locked, but pre-Covid was open occasionally to the public.  I’ve never managed to get to it when it has been open, but have been told that the views from it are quite amazing.  One day I will get up there and take a few photos.

 

Today’s Skulferatu was left in a hollow in a tree not far from the entrance to the tower.

Skulferatu #10

Skulferatu #10 left in hollow in tree

Google Map showing location of Skulferatu #10

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are: Latitude 55.951069  Longitude -3.272677.

Skulferatu #9 - Nelson Monument, Calton Hill, Edinburgh

 

Path up to top of Calton Hill from Regent Road

Nelson's Monument, Calton Hill

I have many fond memories of Calton Hill and days of misspent youth there.  On a cold, February morning in 1982 the kid’s TV programme Swap Shop was live on the hill in front of the National Monument.  I have a memory of the main stage being a boxing ring, not metaphorically, but it literally was an actual boxing ring.  We then had the excitement of watching the Revillos mime to their song ‘Bongo Brain.’  There is an extremely lo-fi and wobbly video of this available on YouTube.

 

The Revillos on Swap Shop at Calton Hill, Edinburgh

In the summers of the mid 1980s my friends and I used to go up the hill and sit by the pillars of the National Monument of Scotland (or Edinburgh’s Disgrace, as we knew it).  There we’d smoke fags and drink cheap, nasty lager and think we were cool.  We were not cool, but rather just a bunch of slightly pissed and noisy teenage geeks.

Other than the National Monument, Calton Hill is cluttered with exciting, old buildings such as the Dugald Stewart Monument, the Old Observatory House, the City Observatory, and Nelson’s Monument.  It also has some spectacular views over Edinburgh.

View from Calton Hill over Edinburgh to Leith

 

A brief history of the main buildings is –

 

The National Monument of Scotland was built to commemorate the Scottish soldiers and sailors who died in the Napoleonic Wars.  It is modelled on the Parthenon in Athens and work began on it in 1826.  However, by 1829 the money for its construction had run out and it was left unfinished. 

The National Monument of Scotland or Scotland's Disgrace

 

The Dugald Stewart Monument is a memorial to the Scottish Philosopher and mathematician Dugald Stewart (1753-1828).  Regarded as an important figure in the Scottish Enlightenment he published many philosophical essays.  Here’s a little quote from him – ‘There are very few original thinkers in the world, or ever have been; the greatest part of those who are called philosophers, have adopted the opinions of some who went before them.’

The Dugald Stewart Memorial

 

The Old Observatory House was designed by the architect James Craig and was originally built as a family home.  It was then used by astronomers for a short time.  It is now rented out as holiday accommodation.

 

The City Observatory was built in 1818 and was used until 1896 when due to light pollution from the city centre, it was decided to move to the Royal Observatory at Blackford Hill.

 

Nelson’s Monument was built between 1807 and 1816 to commemorate Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson’s victory over the French and Spanish Fleets at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, and his death during the same battle.  In 1852 a mechanised time ball was added that was synchronised with the one o’clock gun fired daily from Edinburgh Castle.  The time ball dropped daily allowing ships in Leith Harbour to set their chronometers by it.

Nelson's Monument

 

I left the Skulferatu, that came on my walk in a gap in a tree, just on the hill leading up to Nelson’s Monument.

 

Skulferatu #9

Skulferatu #9 in split in tree

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are: Latitude 55.954352 Longitude -3.182646.

Google Map showing location of Skulferatu

 

Skulferatu #4 - Granton Harbour, Eastern Breakwater, Edinburgh

 

I walked out from Leith to the Eastern Breakwater at Granton Harbour.  I took the path along the Water of Leith and then went down Trinity Path and on to Lower Granton Road, where I followed the coastline along to Wardie Bay.  The sun was out, but the wind was a raging howl.  The clouds above me zoomed over the sky, as if they were making up for the lack of aircraft in these Covid riddled times.  The tide was high, and the air tasted of the salt spray from the water.

Granton Eastern Breakwater from Wardie Bay 

The walk along the Eastern Breakwater is one I only discovered recently, as though I’ve passed it many times on the bus, I had always assumed it would be closed to the public.  Given that its rather exposed and the walk is a bit uneven, it will probably be closed for ‘health and safety’ reasons at some point in the future!

The harbour at Granton consists of three parts, the main harbour, Granton Harbour Breakwater and the Eastern Breakwater.  The main harbour is now mainly used by leisure craft and the Royal Forth Yacht Club is based there, the Granton Harbour Breakwater is closed off due to construction in that area, while the Eastern Breakwater is a popular spot with local fishermen.  However, the harbour once had a busy and industrious past.  It opened in 1838 and the construction was funded by the 5^th Duke of Buccleuch.  The lighthouse engineer, Robert Stevenson (grandfather of the famous author Robert Louis Stevenson) then oversaw the construction of the outer breakwaters.  These were completed in 1863.  The harbour became a port for the export of coal, the import of esparto grass, used in making paper, and a large fishing fleet was also resident there.

 

In 1847 the Edinburgh and Northern Railway operated a ferry service from Granton Harbour to Burntisland in Fife.  In 1850 they opened the first roll-on-roll-off railway ferry in the world and this allowed a direct rail link from Edinburgh to Dundee without passengers having to leave the train.  This service ended in 1890 with the opening of the Forth Bridge.

Warning sign at entrance to Eastern Breakwater

On the Eastern Breakwater I was blasted by the wind as I carefully made my way along the walkway.  There is a narrow walkway on either side of the jutting, uneven stones that make up the main part of the structure.  Here and there are rusting moorings and chains and there are a couple of small, crumbling buildings.  The buildings are both now sealed, but up until recently were open.  There was little in them other than discarded beer cans, fishing line and the smell of stale piss.

View along Eastern Breakwater

One of the buildings on Eastern Breakwater

At the end of the Breakwater I reached a white, box structure.  I don’t have a clue what this is, but assume it was a lighthouse of sorts at one point.  There I found a circular hole in the wall which was a perfect place to leave a Skulferatu.  So, I left one there.

End of the pier – Eastern Breakwater

Skulferatu #4

Skulferatu #4 in hole in wall in lighthouse

I then struggled back along towards the shore as the wind tried to whip my feet away from me and the low winter sun dazzled my eyes.  Overhead seagulls soared and screeched their eerie calls to one another.

Map showing location of Skulferatu

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are – Latitude 55.987863 Longitude -3.220660.