Old Calton Burial Ground: Hume, Lincoln and the Martyrs
Why is it significant?
As you walked along Waterloo Place you may not have noticed that you were crossing a bridge. Regent Bridge, finished in 1819, carries the street high over Calton Road below. Now go through the gate on the right into Old Calton Burial Ground, and the noise of the traffic drops away behind the walls.
Key Facts
| Place | Old Calton Burial Ground: Hume, Lincoln and the Martyrs |
|---|---|
| Address | Waterloo Place, Edinburgh EH1 3BQ, UK |
| Geo Coordinates | 55.95340, -3.18580 |
| Part of Walk | Calton Hill, Edinburgh: Monuments, Martyrs and the Athens of the North |
| Generated | Generated |
As you walked along Waterloo Place you may not have noticed that you were crossing a bridge. Regent Bridge, finished in 1819, carries the street high over Calton Road below. Now go through the gate on the right into Old Calton Burial Ground, and the noise of the traffic drops away behind the walls.
When Waterloo Place was cut through here in the 1810s, the new road sliced the old graveyard in two. Graves had to be dug up and the dead moved, so a new burial ground was opened further east. Edinburgh has always been short of flat land, for the living and the dead alike.
The round, castle-like tomb near the wall belongs to David Hume, the philosopher and historian, designed by his friend Robert Adam. Hume was the great sceptic of the Enlightenment, doubtful about miracles and polite but firm about religion, and when he died in 1776 many pious citizens were sure he was damned. The story goes that his friends feared a mob might attack the grave, and for several nights men kept watch over it by lantern light.
Nearby stands someone you might not expect in Scotland: Abraham Lincoln, with a freed slave at his feet. This is the Scottish-American Soldiers Monument of 1893, honouring Scots who fought for the Union in the American Civil War, and it is often called the first statue of an American president outside the United States. And the tall obelisk is the Political Martyrs' Monument of 1844, for Thomas Muir and four other reformers who, in 1793 and 1794, were sentenced to transportation to Australia simply for campaigning for the vote.
Muir's story alone would fill a film: he escaped from the penal colony on an American ship, crossed the Pacific, was wounded in a sea battle off Spain and died in exile in France. Now return to Waterloo Place, and take the steps up onto Calton Hill. It is a short, steep climb, so go slowly, and stop at the little round temple at the top.