Stodgy Gothic

I took this image from outside the South Leith parish churchyard, standing in Constitution Street. The street runs adjacent to the graveyard wall and was built in 1790 to improve access to the harbour of Leith.

In 2009 during the preparatory works for the Edinburgh tram system the street was entirely dug up and 260 graves containing some 302 inhumations in a variety of grave types were found under the road surface.

The graves, orientated NW-SE, were arranged in closely spaced rows. The majority were single, supine extended inhumations interred in wooden coffins or in earthen graves. Also present were shrouded bodies placed in simple graves, group burials in irregular pits and superimposed double burials, usually of a child and an adult. Documentary and pottery evidence point to a date between the 16th and 17th centuries for most graves, which suggests that Constitution Street was built on top of the then south east part of the churchyard with little consideration for those buried there.

South Leith parish church was originally a chapel, dedicated to St Mary, built c1483 attached to the collegiate church of Restalrig. Originally cruciform, it had been reduced to its nave by 1559. It was made into a parish church in 1609. Between 1650 and 1657, it was used as a magazine by Cromwellian troops, subsequently being restored to ecclesiastical use. The fabric was entirely renewed in 1848, but the west piers of the original crossing are still to be seen in the vestibules at the east end of the building.