St Cuthbert’s Church and Kirkyard, Edinburgh

I wanted to visit St Cuthbert’s Church because I’m a big Agatha Christie fan and this is where she married her second husband the archaeologist Max Mallowan in 1930. However, I’d already scoped out prior to arriving in Scotland that none of the opening times of the church were going to work around what day trips I already had planned so I went along knowing that I wouldn’t be able to go inside. I was pleasantly surprised therefore to find that the grounds were more extensive than I had expected and I had a very nice walk around the kirkyard late one afternoon.

Located near the end of Princes Street (walk down the street with Waverly Railway Station behind you) the present building was built in 1892. One of the most impressive aspects of the church is this memorial to the Rev. David Dickson who died in 1842 and features life size statues of the reverend, his wife and their three children.

Another architectural feature I really liked was the cupolas, though they can sometimes be obscured by the surrounding trees.

The churchyard is said to be the oldest continuously used site of worship in Edinburgh and buried here include Thomas de Quincey, writer of Confessions of an Opium-Eater and William Macao, the first naturalised Chinese citizen of Scotland. I didn’t spot their graves as I was just wandering around but I did find the following interesting gravestones and memorials. This one is of William Bonnar a Scottish portrait painter. His brother-in-law was Meikle Kemp who designed the Scott Monument.

I also really liked this statue of a woman – the draping of her clothing is fantastically well done.

It was actually a really nice quiet place to wander around and worth visiting if you want a bit of a break from the busyness of Princes Street.