Finding a future for Edinburgh's historic graveyards

The World Heritage Site contains a great many historic buildings and structures, amongst which must be counted the five burial grounds. Burials in churches were stopped in Scotland in the mid 17th century, meaning that the great, good, poor, rich, mad, and bad all found themselves equal under the turf as well as before the eyes of the Lord.
 
The result of this is an incredible collection of tombs, monuments and mausolea, exposed to the vagaries of Edinburgh's climate as well as regular visitors to the burial grounds, many of which have become zones of tolerance.
 
The condition of the burial grounds varies but there are clearly issues common to them all and potential common solutions. EWH is proposing teaming up with the various bodies involved in the management of the burial grounds in the formation of a trust to explore how we can transform something that is currently seen as a problem into a tremendous asset to the World Heritage Site without precluding individual and very welcome initiatives for repair, restoration and interpretation work.