The story
Welcome to the Old Calton Burial Ground. As you stand here on Waterloo Place, notice how the road seems to slice right through the hillside. When this grand thoroughfare was constructed in the early nineteenth century, it actually divided the cemetery in two, leaving the stones and monuments perched like a silent, stony audience overlooking the bustle of Edinburgh’s New Town.
Step inside the gates, and the first thing you’ll likely notice is the soaring obelisk reaching toward the sky. That is the Political Martyrs' Monument, a tribute to five men who were transported to Australia simply for advocating for parliamentary reform. But if you follow the path toward the southwestern corner, you will encounter a structure that looks less like a grave and more like a Roman fortress.
This massive, cylindrical mausoleum belongs to David Hume, the Great Infidel. Hume was perhaps the most influential philosopher of the Scottish Enlightenment, a man who dared to doubt everything from the nature of the self to the existence of miracles. He commissioned his friend, the famed architect Robert Adam, to design this tomb.
Hume was so controversial in his time that, as he lay dying in 1776, crowds gathered outside his house to see if a man who didn’t believe in the afterlife would stay calm in his final moments. After he was buried, his friends had to stay at the gravesite for eight nights, burning candles and firing pistols into the air to deter both body snatchers and those who believed the devil might come for him. Look closely at the simple inscription: it contains only his name and dates.
Hume insisted on this, believing his work should speak for itself. Just a few steps away, you will find a sight that feels unexpectedly American. Towering over the Victorian headstones is a bronze statue of Abraham Lincoln.
Raised in 1893, this was the very first statue of a US President to be erected outside the United States. It serves as a memorial to the Scottish soldiers who fought and died for the Union during the American Civil War. At Lincoln's feet, a freed slave reaches up in gratitude, a powerful reminder of the global impact of the struggle for liberty.
It is a poignant intersection of histories—a tribute to American freedom standing in a graveyard that celebrates the Scottish thinkers who helped define the modern world. As you wander back toward the exit, take in the view of Calton Hill and the city spires. This ground is a place where the Enlightenment meets the industrial age, and where the radical ideas of Edinburgh’s past still echo against the blackened stone.
Thank you for walking through history with me today.