Next to the office....

THIS SAINT WHOS CORPS LYES BU/RIED HEIR
LET ALL POSTERITIE ADMEIR
FOR VPRIGHT LIF IN GODLY FEIR
WHEN JUDGEMENTS DID THIS LAND / SURROUND
HE WITH GOD WAS WALKING FOUND
FOR WHICH OF MIDST OF FERS / HE S CROUND
HEIR TO BE INTERRED BOTH HE
AND FRIENDS BY PROVIDENC AGRIE
NO AGE SHAL LOS HIS MEMORIE
HIS AGE 53 DIED / 1645

This probably commemorates a victim of the virulent plague epidemic that swept through Edinburgh that year. If this is the case it is one of a very small number of memorials (if not the only one) to survive from the time when plague victims had to be buried outwith the Edinburgh City Boundary. It could be a merchant called John Livingston, although there is a bit of a dispute about the year he died.

The grave stands within what was once the grounds of Greenhill House - John Livingston's residence. This was on the Borough Muir, the area to which Edinburgh plague victims were expelled for isolation and burial. Even if the person buried here was not a plague victim it would have probably been impossible to take the corpse across the infected area for burial in a regular Edinburgh graveyard.