Genealogy Ebooks | Burials In The Churchyard of Restalrig

Burials In The Churchyard of Restalrig 2-04-2016

The village of Restalrig is situated in the parish of South Leith and on the eastern outskirts of the city of Edinburgh. It is a place of great antiquity, and in pre-Reformation times its collegiate church was the parish church of Leith. At the Reformation the church, which was dedicated to St. Triduana, was ordered by the General Assembly to be razed and utterly cast down as a monument of idolatry, and the parishioners ordained to repair to St. Mary's Church at Leith, a sentence which was only too faithfully carried out.

The edifice remained a ruin till the year 1836, when the present chapel of ease was constructed out of its remains. Though ceasing to be a place of worship after 1560, the churchyard continued to be a place of sepulchre, and after the disestablishment of Episcopacy in 1689 was used by the members of that body as a place of burial when denied the right to conduct service in other places. In 1726, with the sanction of John, Lord Balmerino, and James, Lord Coupar, his son, the proprietors of the Barony, the Friendly Society of Restalrig was constituted, and to its care the ruined church and churchyard were made over.

The first members of this Society were Messrs. Harry Allan, writer; Charles Allan, surgeon; Mrs. Wood, heiress of Warriston and portioner of Restalrig ; the heirs of James Elphinston ; James Telfer, heritor ; James Robertson, heritor ; Thomas Wood, farmer; John Fulton, farmer ; William Oliphant, farmer, Lochend; James Abercrombie, farmer ; James Coustoun, farmer, Alexander Dickson, farmer, and Patrick Petrie, schoolmaster. To these Robert Maxwell, in Jock's Lodge, and James Robertson, in Restalrig, were subsequently added.

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