Actual Education Interactive Guided Tours

York's History - The Old Town Guided Tour Screenshot Gallery

The pictures on this page were taken from the 360 degree panoramic photos used in this CD-ROM. These simple little stills show the level of detail you will enjoy in our "Greyfriars Kirkyard Interactive Guided Tour". Remember, what you see here is a tiny part of each scene and that there are far more scenes than the few shown below. This page acts as a screenshot tour rather than the glorious virtual tour which will be your guide around Edinburgh's famous Greyfriars Kirkyard.

Visit our "Greyfriars Kirkyard Interactive Guided Tour" page to experience the real thing!

The first marker we come to is the one to Greyfriars Bobby. The little Skye Terrier is probably the most famous 'resident' of Greyfriars Kirkyard.

The ornate Baroque monuments on the eastern side of the Kirkyard are explored and their detailed and intricate carvings are explained in this virtual tour.

If Bobby's grave is the most popular one in the Kirkyard then this is the next most visited. In front of us is the gravestone to John Gray. Gray was the master of little Greyfriars Bobby and it was on this grave that the little pooch stayed. The 'table tomb' we can see to the left of the grave is where Bobby sheltered.

Bobby's gravestone and Gray's were placed in the Kirkyard a long time after their deaths.

This simple metal marker shows us where George Buchanan is buried...well possibly! Many of the gravestones aren't exactly over the correct graves and Buchanan's is possibly no exception to this rule. This Scottish scholar was tutor to both Mary, Queen of Scots and her son, the future King James VI. Buchanan has not one but two markers in Greyfriars and your virtual tour visits both of them.

The Martyrs' Monument remembers the sacrifices made my men and women of the Covenanting movement. The Covenanters fought so that the Church of Scotland would not be controlled by King Charles I. The National Covenant was signed in Greyfriars Kirk and, many years later, the survivors of the final Covenanting army were locked in the Covenanter's Prison area to the south of the kirkyard. There are around 100 Covananter martyrs buried in a trench in front of the Martyrs' Monument.

James Douglas, Earl of Morton was once regent of Scotland. It was Morton who finished the 'Lang Siege' of Edinburgh Castle by borrowing English artillery. One of his artillery batteries was placed in Greyfriars Kirkyard. Eventually Morton was tried and executed by the orders of King James VI. Morton was quite possibly involved in the murder of Henry, Lord Darnley, husband to Mary, Queen of Scots and father of King James VI. His body was placed here and was eventually rejoined with its head sometime later.

The plain little marker directly in front of us is that of Captain John Porteous. Porteous bungled an execution and ordered his Town Guard to open fire. Innocent civilians were killed and the unpopular captain was imprisoned in the Tolbooth Prison next to the High Kirk of St Giles. Word reached the people of Edinburgh that the Queen looked set to order Porteous' release. Spurred on by hatred and fury, the Edinburgh Mob broke into the Tolbooth and dragged the unfortunate Porteous to the Grassmarket where they hanged him on a dyers pole. The gravestone looks old but was only placed here in 1973.
Porteous other claim to faim is that he participated in the first golf match to be reported in a newspaper.

Greyfriars Kirkyard contains many fascinating tombs and monuments. Our virtual tour reveals the stories behind many of them. In front of us we can see the mausoleum of Sir George Mackenzie. Mackenzie was the Lord Advocate of Scotland (the leading judge) and presided over many trials of Covenanters. He persued this group with such dedication that his memory polarises opinion even today. Some remember him as being a man of learning who donated his library to the Toun College (now the University of Edinburgh. Other people remember his reputation as being 'Bluidy' Mackenzie who had the blood of many Covenanter martyrs on his hands.

'Bluidy' (or bloody) Mackenzie had such a reputation after his death that the boys from Heriots School dared each other to bang on the door of the mausoleum before running away. The Mackenzie mausoleum was long thought of as being haunted and this made it the perfect place for Deacon Brodie to hide a young highway man after he had helped him escape from the Tolbooth.

Bodysnatchers often prowled around Greyfriars at night. The problem became so bad that the Kirk bought a mortsafe. This iron cage was used until bodies had become so decomposed that the anatomists would have no use for them. The world's most famous bodysnatchers were Burke and Hare. This is a mistake because Burke and Hare never snatched a body from a grave - instead they murdered their victims. Greyfriars Kirkyard does have one link to the evil Irishmen.
Alexander Monro was one of the early anatomists in Edinburgh. His son, also named Alexander, succeeded in the profession and the third generation Monro, unsurprisingly named Alexander, continued in his father and grandfather's footsteps. The elder two Monros are buried in Greyfriars and their gravestone mentions the grandson. It was the grandson who competed with Robert Knox as anatomists in the early nineteenth century. The third generation Monro was the man who dissected the corpse of William Burke after the Irishman's hanging.

The door to the Covenanters' Prison is usually locked to all but the excellent ghost tour which visits here each night...and for us!

Many people think that the Covenanters' Prison used the ground we see now but it was in fact a much larger area originally. The prisoners from the Battle of Bothwell Brig were kept in this yard between the Flodden and Telfer Walls for some time. There were no graves here then and the prisoners had no shelter and precious little food - they were only given a penny loaf per person per day.

Eventually some prisoners promised not to fight again, some were tortured and hanged and some were placed in a prison ship which would take them to the Americas where they would be used as slave labour. Horrifyingly for them the ship sank in a storm and only a few survived. Many people in Edinburgh believed that the closeness of this prison site to the mausoleum of Sir George Mackenzie meant that the ghost of the Lord Advocate was unable to rest in peace. The legend of 'Bluidy Mackenzie' has meant that many people believe that the Covenanters' Prison is the most haunted place in Britain!

But to prove that we weren't scared we even took a photograph inside the infamous 'Black Mausoleum' in the Covenanters' Prison. Do you dare take our virtual tour yourself...?