Greyfriars Kirkyard
Those of you who know me well know that I spend a great deal of time wandering around old cemeteries. I love them; I find them to be peaceful and strangely beautiful. On our recent trip to Edinburgh we took a nighttime tour of Greyfriars Kirkyard, we enjoyed it so much we decided to go back the next day and spend the afternoon there. Interestingly enough this is the cemetery where JK Rowling got a lot of her inspiration for her Harry Potter books, through the gates of the cemetery you can see the school that inspired Hogwarts and as you wander about the cemetery you can find tombstones with names such as “ Thomas Riddell”. Greyfriars Kirkyad began being used as a burial ground in 1562 when Mary Queen of Scots granted the former gardens surrounds Greyfriars Kirk to be used as a burial ground. Prior to there was a small graveyard surrounding St Giles, however this area had filled up and instead of being buried side by side bodies were soon being ...