Manchester/Scotland 2025 - Edinburgh St Cuthbert's Kirkyard

 

Just right next to Princes Street Garden, right at the end if you're walking from Waverley Station, you will find yourself at the entrance of St Cuthbert's Kirkyard. It was a sudden gloom when you reach there, so different from the colourful garden. Being us, and checking the map that we could walk through the church ground, we decided to venture in.

Here is the gate we went in from, it looked greener inside, but with less flowers, cause well, there was a cemetery at the ground area. But many people seems to just walk right in, some even jogging inside. So again, I guess this was just an extension of a park, but on a church ground?

Here is a information board about the church. 

And here we go again! Another graveyard visit. This place was a lot more serene than Greyfriars Kirkyard. Perhaps because it was in the morning, or perhaps because it was less well known? But I do think it was a lovely kirkyard. And the fewer crowd made it a much lovely place to walk through and admiring the grounds here. 

In the middle of course, was the church. Again, we did not venture inside. 

I did went up all the way to the front door. But it was closed. And I noted it was also a Sunday, so perhaps there were mass being held inside. So I didn't venture in. Besides, we were on our way to Dean Village, no time for worship!

Here is the front view of the old church. I love the tress surrounding it. 

I may not have time for worship, but I always have time for graveyards and tombstones. As mentioned, this was a smaller area than Greyfriars, but it was still a sizeable area. And the morning light shining through the dark ground was really mesmerising. 

I saw this lovely triple tombstone at one corner. They looked kinda dark somehow, and I don't remember walking all the way up to them. I did just zoom with my phone camera to capture this photo. It was the largest view of them I go from my collection. Sometimes I do wonder, why I would look into the mausoleum of Bloody MacKenzie, yet stayed away from this lovely looking one? I don't really know. But when travelling to unknown places, I do tend to listen to my intuition a lot, especially so if I am alone.

The kirkyard do have some other lovely stone carving, and I recall white flowers growing on some graveyard, and people were just sitting there having a picnic. It was all, so, un-oriental! Lol. Yet, lovely and peaceful, none of those horror movie vibe. Maybe the vibe would be different if I walk through it at night? 

Again, more views of the castle from a different location. Not sure if you could see it, but at the left bottom area of the photo, you could see a train track and a yellow train running through it. I think that was were our train went through too when we pulled up to Waverley Station from Manchester. 

Castle Rock?

Here is the side path that many people used to cut across and avoid walking on the boring road. 

Here is a nicer view of the building next to it. I like the round shaped tower and windows. It's cute that the church has red doors too! That is so striking!

Lovely morning sun ray shining into the graveyard as we walked by.

After walking around, we could exit back to Princes Street, but that wasn't the direction we were headed, so we went back to the church area and found the other exit that would bring us closer to Dean's Village. I'll show you the walk along the way and perhaps if you are familiar, you would recognise some of the buildings in the next post.