For the security of the dead

It looks like an old stone garden shed. But look more carefully and you will see that there is a gun-loop lined with a clay pipe set into the wall. The building, which lies in the corner of the graveyard of Slains Parish Church is an old watch-house and dates from about 1800. At that time the resurrection men were busy throughout Scotland, digging up newly buried corpses and selling them to the nearest anatomy school, in this case Aberdeen University. One way to prevent this was for men to keep watch over new burials. The watch-house not only provided shelter from the elements but also acted as a redoubt from which the watchers could take pot-shots at the bodysnatchers with a musket.