Repairs for St John's graveyard

Edinburgh World Heritage has granted £7,000 towards a project to conserve the graveyard at St. John’s church on Princes Street.

The project EWH is helping to fund will see conservation work to the boundary walls and around 30 memorials. Repairs will include consolidating flaking stonework, re-pointing in traditional lime mortar, removing vegetation and graffiti, re-building memorials, and carefully recording fragments of broken headstones.

The graveyard has many notable memorials, which give a snapshot of New Town life
in the early 1800s.  Sir Walter Scott’s mother, Anne Rutherford, is buried there, along with James Donaldson who founded Donaldson’s hospital for the deaf. One of the smaller headstone’s also commemorates Malvina Wells, who came originally from the West Indies, and was a servant to the MacLean family for over 70 years. 

The conservation work is part of a wider project that will improve both physical and intellectual access to the graveyard. New handrails and facilities for disabled people will be installed. Interpretation for visitors will also be improved, with a graveyard trail, training for volunteer guides and the development of education packs for primary school groups.

As well as the EWH grant, the project is funded by contributions from the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Pilgrims Trust and other charitable bodies.