Comely Bank Cemetery

Designed by the eminent architect George Washington Brown, Edinburgh’s Comely Bank Cemetery was laid near the end of Queen Victoria’s reign in 1896. It has since lost its southern entrance and modern housing now encroaches upon its original, ornate gate piers. Access is now only possible via its north-east corner on Crewe Road.

Due to the cemetery’s proximity to the city’s hospitals it contains a disproportionately high number of World War One and Two casualties who sadly died of wounds or illnesses related to their wartime experiences. Numbering over 300, these include Reginald Earnshaw, the United Kingdom’s youngest wartime service casualty of World War Two, whose grave was only marked in 2009 after its location was located by one of his former shipmates.

The cemetery is open to the public for visits every day, but if you can’t make it along in person any time soon Edinburgh City Council and Captured Realities have produced the immersive 360° tour below that allows you to enjoy a virtual visit. You might also enjoy this recent talk from Patricia Keppie, the Scotland Public Engagement Coordinator of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, in which she shared with the Cockburn Association and the audience some of the individual stories of those whose graves are maintained at Comely Bank by the CWGC.