The Beauty and Education Offered by Cemeteries
Commentary
Since my adolescence I have loved churchyards and cemeteries. I still find entry to them as irresistibly tempting as to bookshops.
Cemeteries are a spur to the imagination; they are an education in the tragic dimension of life and hence are a consolation.
They instill gratitude and a sense of proportion. They are often beautiful; they are peaceful havens in even the busiest or most frantic of towns or cities.
They are reserves of wildlife and, in spring and summer at least, they echo with birdsong.
The French writer, André Gide, once said that, when he went to a town that was new to him, he always visited the cemetery, along with the market, the courthouse, and the park.
Edinburgh City Council recently announced plans to reconsider the future use of Thomas Hamilton’s Royal High School on Calton Hill, ending a deal with developers who had pledged in 2009 to find a sustainable purpose for the building. The High School, a masterpiece of the Scottish Greek Revival, has long lain empty; in 2015 plans to transform it into a luxury hotel were widely condemned by heritage groups and the public, and last year
the Scottish Government rejected a revised proposal.
The council’s decision has been welcomed by the Royal High School Preservation Trust, which since 2015 has campaigned for the building to become a new home for St Mary’s Music School. The trust is likely to make a bid to take over the site, while the hotel developers have yet to confirm whether they will submit a further proposal. In the April 2015 issue of Apollo, Gavin Stamp discussed the significance of Hamilton’s building and lamented that it might become a hotel; an adapted version