Dean Cemetery

The Dean Cemetery is a prominent cemetery in the Dean Village, in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Dean House

Stone carving from Dean House, now part of retaining wall in Dean Cemetery.

It stands on the site of Dean House (built 1614), part of Dean Estate which had been purchased in 1609 by Sir William Nisbet, who became in 1616 Lord Provost of Edinburgh. The Nisbets of Dean held the office of Hereditary Poulterer to the King. The famous herald, Alexander Nisbet, of Nisbet House, near Duns, Berwickshire, is said to have written his Systems of Heraldry in Dean House. The estate house was demolished in 1845, and Sculptured stones from it are incorporated into the south terrace wall supporting the edge of the cemetery.

The cemetery

Bust of artist and photography pioneer David Octavius Hill, sculpted by his second wife.

Dean Cemetery was laid out by David Cousin (who built Chirnside Bridge Paper Mill) and became a fashionable burial ground, its monuments becoming a rich source of Edinburgh and Victorian history, but mainly middle and upper-class. Many bear witness to Scottish achievement in peace and war, at home and abroad.

The cemetery is privately owned by the Dean Cemetery Trust Limited.

Notable interments

• Sir Thomas Bouch, railway engineer
• Isabella Burton (née Lauder), with children, wife and family of John Hill Burton, historian
• Samuel Butcher, professor of Greek at Edinburgh University, President of the British Academy, Liberal Unionist MP for Cambridge University
• David Octavius Hill (d. 1870), artist and photography pioneer
• Andrew Inglis (d. 1875), M.D., Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, and Professor of Midwifery at Aberdeen University
• Sir Hector MacDonald, (d.1903), Major General and distinguished Victorian soldier
• William Henry Playfair, architect
• Robert Hepburn Swinton of that Ilk (d.1852)

Monuments

There is a monument to historian John Hill Burton, who is buried at Dalmeny.

Links

Official Website: http://www.deancemetery.org.uk/

Bibliography

• The Dean Cemetery, Edinburgh edited by A. S. Cowper and Euan S. McIver, Edinburgh, 1992. ISBN 0-901061-54-9.