Old and New Edinburgh
Volume I
St. Giles’s Churchyard.
INTERIOR OF THE HIGH CHURCH, ST. GILES’S.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF ST. GILES’S.
St. Giles’s Churchyard-The IIaison Dieu-The Clam-shell Turnpike-The Grave of Knox-The City Cross--The Summons ot Pluto-
Executions : Kirkaidy, Gilderoy, and others-The Caddies--The Dyvours Stane-The Luckenbooths-The Auld Kirk S~yle-Eym’o
Lodging-Lard Coalstoun’s Wig-Allan Ramsay’s Library and “Creech‘s Land”-The Edinburgh Halfpenny.
DOWN the southern slope of the hill on which St.
Giles’s church stands, its burying-ground-covered
with trees, perchance anterior to the little parish
edifice we have described as existing in the time of
David 1.-sloped to the line of the Cowgate, where
it was terminated by a wall and chapel dedicated
to the holy rood, built, says Arnot, “in memory of
€hrist crucified, and not demolished till the end of
the sixteenth century.” In July, 1800, a relic ot
this chapel was found near the head of Forrester’s
Wynd, in former days the western boundary of the
churchyard. This relic-a curiously sculptured
grouplike a design from Holbein’s “Dance of
Death,” was defaced and broken by the workmen.
Amid the musicians, who brought up the rear,
was an angel, playing on the national bagpipe-a
