Greyfriar's Kirkyard & Haggis

On our second day in Edinburgh we decided to visit Greyfriar's Kirkyard. This graveyard is really old and famous for two very different reasons. The first reason being that it was used as an open air prison in 1679 for over 1000 supporters of the National Covenant. The National Covenanters supported a document by the same name produced to help protect Scottish Churches from English influence.

The right hand side of this photo shows the old prison rooms, they were open to the elements and had simple iron gate in the doorway and no roof . They were later bought up by the Victorians and converted to burial sites. 

The second reason this graveyard is so popular is due to a Skye terrier named Bobby. The story goes that Bobby's owner Auld Jock died when Bobby was two. Bobby spent the next 14 years guarding his master's grave until his death. After his death he was buried just outside the church grounds (because he was an animal he wasn't allowed to be buried inside the walls of the Kirkyard).

Monuments to Greyfriar's Bobby

This was one of the coolest (and creepiest) graveyards I've ever been in. In one area of the yard the tombstones make up the back wall of homes while in another area all of the graves are covered by mortsafes (a contraption covering the area that stops the buried bodies from being disturbed....the biggest problem was the bodies being dug up and dissected by medical students) There are tons of stories involving the yard, it's use throughout history and famous hauntings.

Tombstones with homes built of the back

After finishing up in Greyfriar's Kirkyard we headed out to the National Gallery to view some amazing paintings and to a cute little pub for some lunch where I got to have Haggis for the first time. I actually loved it! It was a fancier version mind you, mostly ground lamb and less gut!