Covenanters' Prison, Churchyard, Greyfriars Church, Candlemaker Row, Edinburgh

Covenanters' Prison, Churchyard, Greyfriars Church, Candlemaker Row, Edinburgh

This burial ground, in use from 1562, contains an incomparable collection of burial monuments and enclosures of exceptional architectural importance, ranging from the Artisan Mannerist George Heriot (senior) Monument of 1610 to the Neo-Classical Joseph Black Enclosure of 1805. The monuments are grouped around Greyfriars Church (separately listed) and enclosed by a lodge, gatepiers, railings and walls, including sections of the Flodden and Telfer Walls. Many significant alumni are commemorated here; all monuments and enclosures are of exceptional importance and considerable group value.

The East Wall features an outstanding series of 17th-century wall monuments displaying Renaissance and Mannerist details drawn from contemporary pattern books. The George Heriot (senior) Monument (1610, by Richard Doby, Dean of Guild 1610–12) has a basket-arched recess flanked by pilasters with vertical, diagonal and fishbone fluting, and a two-stage inscription panel above bearing initials, arms and symbols of death. The Naismith Monument (1614) features a taller recess with rusticated columns and a mutilated figure of Naismith sitting up in his coffin, with angels bearing scrolls behind and an inscription panel above. The Harlay Monument (1617, probably by David Aikenhead, Dean of Guild 1613–20) resembles the Heriot Monument but includes baluster pilasters at the base and octagonal columns supporting an entablature. The Dennistoun Monument (1626) has an inscription panel surrounded by strapwork and flanked by Corinthian columns, surmounted by an aedicule containing arms with a horse's head in a broken pediment. The Robert Mylne Monument (1674) comprises an inscription panel in a tall Corinthian aedicule (with inscriptions on the columns) topped by a segmental pediment containing a coat-of-arms, bounded by semicircular cast-iron railings added in 1779. The Martyrs' Monument was erected in 1707 with an inscription panel and open book below in an Ionic aedicule; it was renewed in 1771.

The North Wall contains the Bayne of Pitcairlie Enclosure and Mausoleum (1684–5), a rubble-walled enclosure with moulded cornice and door frame, featuring an ogival stone-roofed mausoleum surmounted by a swagged urn. The mausoleum has round-arched openings with Corinthianesque pilasters and a statue of Bayne, clad in a long cloak, in the south niche. The Trotter Mausoleum (Robert and William Mylne, 1709–10) is a small pitched-roofed building with a slated roof with stone skews, ashlar to the front and rubble to the sides. It has a central entrance with a roll-moulded surround, grille and inscription panel over the door (now with a modern boarded timber door).

The West Wall holds a group of mural monuments of exceptional quality in both materials and execution. The Byres of Coates Monument (William Wallace, 1629) comprises a carved pedestal supporting an aedicule with paired fluted Corinthian columns, an enriched entablature and broken pediment, containing a key-blocked round-arched recess with inscription panel and figurative relief. The Bannatyne Monument (1635) features paired twisted Corinthian columns supporting a richly decorated entablature and an aedicule (now on the ground) with an elaborately scrolled pediment and relief depicting a cherub, hourglass, skull and view of Edinburgh. The Foulis of Ravelston Monument (William Aytoun, 1636) is one of the most elaborate: it has an enriched pediment supporting a tripartite Ionic-columned wall monument with headless female figures representing Religion and Justice standing on sarcophagi in outer shell niches. A central aedicule contains an inscription panel, portrait busts linked by clasped hands, a skull, a coloured cherub and strapwork decoration. Above the entablature sits another aedicule with a broken segmental pediment, flanking caryatids and an enriched cartouche containing a central relief panel depicting a sleeping cherub, skull and hourglass. The McMath Monument (1674) comprises four fluted Corinthian piers supporting a segmental pediment broken by arms and framing barley-sugar columns, with a sarcophagus and inscription panel to the rear.

The William Robertson Mausoleum (1793) is a square-plan ashlar building with a stone dome on pendentives, fluted key-blocked round-arched openings and paired Roman Doric corner pilasters. The Adam Mausoleum (John Adam, 1750) is also square-plan ashlar with a conical stone roof, a round-arched entrance to the east and blocked round-arched entrances to the north, west and south with thermal openings above. An entablature with bucrania and rosettes supports a dome carried on a circular cornice to the interior; marble inscription panels were added in 1827.

A long narrow section to the southwest, known as the Covenanters' Prison, is entered through a broken-pedimented gateway and bounded to the west by the east wall of Heriot's Hospital and to the south by a section of the Telfer Wall. This section contains high-quality 18th and 19th-century burial enclosures. On the east wall, the McLurg Enclosure (1717) features a Corinthian-columned aedicule containing a round-arched inscription panel with a small pedimented aedicule atop the entablature containing arms, with a carved angel in the pediment framed by reclining cherubs. The Dalrymple Enclosure (William Jameson, 1781) shows high-relief draped urn flanked by upturned torches under a consoled open pediment. The Innes Enclosure (early 19th century) is Neo-classical in style, with polished ashlar, a corniced doorpiece, carved name inscription panel, Doric frieze and modillioned cornice. On the west wall, the Joseph Black Enclosure (1805) is Neo-classical with a swagged inscription panel (replaced 1894) in a round-arched recess beneath a mask keystone and fluted spandrels, flanked by panels with carved serpents.

The South Wall contains the Mausoleum of George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh (designed by James Smith, 1691), a stone-domed circular ashlar temple surmounted by an urn and based on Bramante's Tempietto in San Pietro in Montorio as illustrated in Palladio's Quattro Libri. The mausoleum has a base course, dentilled cornice and engaged Corinthian columns flanking shell niches. A two-leaf timber panelled door in a moulded surround faces north, surmounted by a cartouche. The interior, restored by Rowand Anderson in 1892, is lit by small windows in a ribbed dome and features plaster shells on the wall. The Little of Liberton Mausoleum (1680–3) is a rectangular Corinthian peristyle with fluted piers to the corners and an ogival stone roof with mourning figures at the corners, sheltering a sarcophagus with a recumbent effigy.

The lodge, gatepiers, gates, railings and walls date from 1840. The lodge is a semi-octagonal-ended single-storey piend-roofed structure with lozenge-paned leaded glass windows and an octagonal chimney stalk topped with an octagonal can. The gatepiers are obelisk-topped corniced ashlar structures. Cast-iron railings run along a squared and snecked bull-faced retaining wall with piers and machicolation at Candlemaker Row; steps to Candlemaker Row at the northeast feature a round-arched gateway with a decorative cast-iron gate. A key-blocked round-arched gateway through the Flodden Wall to the west encloses an area bounded by the east wall of Heriot's Hospital and containing early to mid-19th-century monuments. A gateway to Heriot's Hospital has tall ashlar obelisk-topped gatepiers and decorative cast-iron gates bearing the Heriot insignia. A decorative wrought-iron arch spans the two-leaf decorative cast-iron main gates.