Scottish Kirkyards

In Scottish Kirkyards author Dane Love shows how the social history of a whole parish can be recorded in a single plot of land. Kirkyards have often been greatly underrated as places of historical importance, offering, as they do, a wealth of information to visitors and local historians. Within them one can find Pictish symbol stones, medieval sculpture, eighteenth-century folk-art and ruins of ancient kirk buildings. Dane Love investigates kirkyards from all over Scotland, revealing some of the many stories hidden within them. He looks at the role of the kirkyard in the Scottish community, from being the parish market-place where law breakers were imprisoned to the days when the body snatchers stole corpses and to more peaceful times as kirkyards were regarded as 'gardens of death' by Victorians. Meanings of carvings on the tombs are explained and the traditional burial customs of Scotland are described. The book also includes a useful appendix which shows the visitor where to look for the graves of famous Scots.