The Watchtower, New Calton Burial Ground
Following our fly by visit to the Burns Monument, we found ourselves exploring 'New' Calton Burial Ground. Don't let the name fool you, there is nothing new about it. The cemetery opened in 1820, had its first recorded burial (not reburial) in 1817, and was picked for the purpose of the dead at some point between 1800 and 1817.
Originally built as an overspill for Old Calton Burial Ground, the cemetery soon became the replacement and actually ended up housing relocated graves from the original site when they needed to be moved to make way for Waterloo Place. Because of this, several gravestones within this burial ground predate the site itself, but they were moved carefully and with respect at the time. They'd shut the new site completely in order to reinter these bodies, making it a solemn and private exercise. It's recorded that at least 300 graves had to be relocated, we can imagine that this left its mark on those who undertook the task...
Because of the carry over from the original graveyard, New Calton was made far larger than needed in order to accommodate the extra bodies as well as any others which needed relocating in future as well as, excuse us for being slightly vulgar, fresh corpses. It was a more convenient site for Edinburgh's growing number of corpses due to its overall expansion as a city in the early 19th century. It, much like the original burial ground, was also the Parish graveyard for the Caltonians who worshipped in Leith as Leith was too far away to take the deceased for burial.
During this time, interred within the walls of this graveyard were the family members of the author Robert Louis Stevenson. We found the family plot which contains his grandfather, grandmother, father and uncle. Potentially there are more of the Stevenson family within this graveyard, but we were unsure of the connection to the famed author and poet at the time and it was only on a whim that Ren took photos and had a closer look.
The graveyard contains an awful lot of notable burials, including William Knox, Abraham Lincoln's favourite poet, but we didn't take much note at the time so that'll be a task for another day.
What actually caught our eye, and is the reason for this post, is the Watchtower. Now this period was rife with graverobbers, Burke & Hare the most infamous of them although it is argued they didn't rob graves- and Burke still remains on display within Edinburgh to this day. In fact, he was imprisoned in Calton Jail just up the road from this site. But we hope to look into them during our next visit to Edinburgh in 2026. The purpose for grave robbing wasn't massively because of the riches within the coffins, of course they were a bonus, but the bodies themselves. Edinburgh had established itself as the leading medical hub and therefore needed corpses to dissect and study so that we could have more doctors and medicine. Unfortunately, due to superstitions that a soul could not move onto the afterlife if it wasn't intact, there wasn't exactly a queue of people leaving their bodies to science. Along came the 'Resurrectionists' to save the day, supplying fresh corpses on an ask-no-questions basis for a penny or two and some glory. Burke and Hare went one step further with this and made fresh corpses, but again that is a story for another day.
Edinburgh was desperately trying to put a stop to the recent plague of stealing the dead and in order to protect the newer corpses which had been buried, Watchtowers like this excellent specimen were built and occupied by guards who would deter/capture those brave or stupid enough to dig up the dead. This one in particular was occupied as a house from the mid 19th century until 1955ish. It's a very small building, but was rumoured to have a family of 10 living within it. The empty plots nearby were used as a garden to grow food and the rhubarb patch survived until the 1980s!
Whether or not this remained successful or not is up for debate as rumour on the street is that if you offered the right price to the guard you'd get your pick of fresh corpses to sell, but for the most part graverobbing died down.
On the side of the building is a plaque in remembrance of the McDonald/Bowe family, one of whom were actually born within this tower, but he later relocated to Australia where the remainder of his family mentioned here were too.
The question we hear you ask is, is it haunted? Without-a-fricken-doubt. Not far from the Stevenson Plot we saw a white wisp moving within the open tombs. Jamie, as always, went to investigate and the closer he got he found that he could no longer see anything. From that moment on everything seemed quite eerie, it started to rain, it got colder, something just felt odd. When trying to research ghosts nothing specific came up, only that this site is rife with paranormal activity. We aren't surprised considering 300 bodies were moved here, the dead hold grudges and being dug up is one of them hence the superstitions! But there was no names to potentially put to what we saw. Just a lone spirit walking within the burial ground. Our search did suggest that the burial ground could be haunted by Burke and Hare and Burke's screams can be heard on Calton Hill from when he was in jail, but this seems like something just to push their legend. We look forward to delving into that whenever that may be.
DISCLAIMER: Now for the official bit. This blog does not receive any paid promotions from the places mentioned above. We have not been approached to promote or act as spokespersons for any attraction mentioned within this post and this is simply a post intended to act as a day in the life of a couple on a cute date. All photos included are taken by ourselves and as such the rights for these images our ours, no links, brands, or companies mentioned otherwise belong or are associated with Phantom Adventures UK. We are responsible only for this blog. Opinions are our own and not influenced by any third party source..
If you have any recommendations on places to visit or somewhere you would like to see on the blog, please feel free to drop us a message on instagram under @phantomadventuresuk or email us at phantomadventuresuk@gmail.com
Comments
Post a Comment