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Edinburgh, Canongate Churchyard

Cemetery (Post Medieval), Churchyard (Post Medieval), Unidentified Pottery (Post Medieval)

Site Name Edinburgh, Canongate Churchyard

Classification Cemetery (Post Medieval), Churchyard (Post Medieval), Unidentified Pottery (Post Medieval)

Canmore ID 52463

Site Number NT27SE 415

NGR NT 26419 73816

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/52463

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
Canmore Disclaimer. © Copyright and database right 2024.

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Digital Images

Administrative Areas

  • Council Edinburgh, City Of
  • Parish Edinburgh (Edinburgh, City Of)
  • Former Region Lothian
  • Former District City Of Edinburgh
  • Former County Midlothian

Archaeology Notes

NT27SE 415 26419 73816

A collection of 55 potsherds, ranging in date from 14th to 18th century, and an 18th-century clay pipe bowl were recovered as surface finds from Canongate churchyard. The finds are now in the collections of Edinburgh City Museum.

A T Simpson, S Stevenson and N Holmes 1981.

INVENTORY OF GRAVEYARD AND CEMETERY SITES IN SCOTLAND REFERENCE:

Address: Canongate Churchyard, Canongate, Edinburgh

Postcode: EH8 8BN

Status: Closed for burials but maintained

Size: 0.76 hectares, 1.87 acres

TOIDs:

Number of gravestones: Not known

Earliest gravestone: Not known

Most recent gravestone: Not known

Description: Burial ground associated with a church

Data Sources: OS MasterMap checked 20 September 2005; Bereavement Services Portal checked 20 September 2005

Architecture Notes

NMRS Print Room

Canongate Churchyard

2 prints of memorial to Adam Smith

The Society of Coachdrivers Stone, showing also brick building beyond

Inglis Photograph Collection

Acc No 1994/90

Activities

Project (1997)

The Public Monuments and Sculpture Association (http://www.pmsa.org.uk/) set up a National Recording Project in 1997 with the aim of making a survey of public monuments and sculpture in Britain ranging from medieval monuments to the most contemporary works. Information from the Edinburgh project was added to the RCAHMS database in October 2010 and again in 2012.

The PMSA (Public Monuments and Sculpture Association) Edinburgh Sculpture Project has been supported by Eastern Photocolour, Edinburgh College of Art, the Edinburgh World Heritage Trust, Historic Scotland, the Hope Scott Trust, The Old Edinburgh Club, the Pilgrim Trust, the RCAHMS, and the Scottish Archive Network.

Field Visit (16 October 2002)

Bronze profile portrait of young 'Clarinda', facing right, with her long waving hair held back in an elaborate arrangement of cascading ribbons. The right shoulder, nearest the viewer, is cut off; the chest bare apart from a sweep of drapery over the left shoulder.

The Ninety Burns Club approached the Town Council of Edinburgh in 1899 asking for a subscription towards restoring the grave of Clarinda. The Town Council recommended taking no action (1)

In 1910 The Builder quoted the Glasgow Herald: 'The Edinburgh Ninety Burns Club have initiated a movement to place a tablet on the grave in Canongate Churchyard of Mrs Maclehose, the 'Clarinda' of Burns.' The Builder considered this to be 'a little unreasonable', their argument being that 'to place on the gravestone of one, the resting-place of whose remains is thereby already sufficiently recorded, a tablet to the poet's individual vision of the animated flesh, were not only to commemorate what is not there, to confound with the immortal Clarinda the mortal Mrs Maclehose, but also, and not subtly, to slight the poet the promoters ostensibly esteem.' (2)

On 16 June 1922 The Building News reported that the bronze had been unveiled on 10 June (3).

Inscriptions : Cut in stone below oval portrait: CLARINDA

Signatures : Beneath bust (incised letters): H S Gamley A.R.S.A.

Design period : 1910-1922

Year of unveiling : 1922

Unveiling details : 10 June 1922

Information from Public Monuments and Sculpture Association (PMSA Work Ref : EDIN1480)

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