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Publication Account
Date 1981
Event ID 1018059
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1018059
A colony of Greyfriars, or Franciscans, dates to the summer of 1463 when there is notice .0f repairs to their place loosely stated to be 'outside the burgh' (Cowan, 1976, 131). The friars moved to a site within the burgh following the grant of land bestowed on them by James Douglas of Cassillis before 1479 when they were confirmed in their possession by James III (Cowan, 1976, 131). The friary was destroyed by the Reformers in 1559 and in 1562 the citizens petitioned the Queen for the Greyfriars yards to be used as a municipal burying ground.
In name the church survived the Reformation. By 1612, with overcrowding in the High. Church of St. Giles, the town ordered the construction of a church on the upper part of their new cemetery. The first church had an aisled nave with six bays and a western central tower. Munitions stored by the town council in the tower exploded in 1718 causing an amount of damage to the fabric of the church. This led to the construction of a second church at Greyfriars and a split congregation which
did not unite until 1929.
Information from ‘Historic Edinburgh, Canongate and Leith: The Archaeological Implications of Development’ (1981).
