Edinburgh - Scotland - page 121

Level 6 is given over to the 20th century, with galleries devoted to war and industry, and a particularly affecting
exhibition called Leaving Scotland , containing stories of the Scottish diaspora that emigrated to begin new lives
in Canada, Australia, the USA and other places.
Finally, find the elevator in the corner near the war gallery and go up to the Roof Terrace to enjoy a fantastic
view across the city and the castle.
Nowadays the broad, open square, lined by tall tenements and dominated by the loom-
ing castle, has many lively pubs and restaurants, including the White Hart Inn , which
was once patronised by Robert Burns. Claiming to be the city's oldest pub in continuous
use (since 1516), it also hosted William Wordsworth in 1803. Cowgate - the long, dark
ravine leading eastwards from the Grassmarket - was once the road along which cattle
were driven from the pastures around Arthur's Seat to the safety of the city walls. Today it
is the heart of Edinburgh's nightlife, with around two dozen clubs and bars within five
minutes' walk of each other.
THE RESURRECTION MEN
In 1505 Edinburgh's newly founded Royal College of Surgeons was officially allocated the corpse of one ex-
ecuted criminal per year for the purposes of dissection. But this was not nearly enough to satisfy the curiosity of
the city's anatomists, and in the following centuries an illegal trade in dead bodies emerged, which reached its cul-
mination in the early 19th century when the anatomy classes of famous surgeons such as Professor Robert Knox
drew audiences of up to 500.
The readiest supply of corpses was to be found in the city's graveyards, especially Greyfriars. Grave robbers -
who came to be known as 'resurrection men' - plundered newly buried coffins and sold the cadavers to the ana-
tomists, who turned a blind eye to the source of their research material.
This gruesome trade led to a series of countermeasures, including the mort-safe - a metal cage that was placed
over a coffin until the corpse had begun to decompose; you can see examples in Greyfriars Kirkyard and on level
5 of the National Museum of Scotland. Watchtowers, where a sexton, or relatives of the deceased, would keep
watch over new graves, survive in St Cuthbert's and Duddingston kirkyards.
The notorious William Burke and William Hare, who kept a lodging house in Tanner's Close at the west end of
the Grassmarket, took the body-snatching business a step further. When an elderly lodger died without paying his
rent, Burke and Hare stole his body from the coffin and sold it to the famous Professor Knox. Seeing a lucrative
business opportunity, they figured that rather than waiting for someone else to die, they could create their own
supply of fresh cadavers by resorting to murder.
Burke and Hare preyed on the poor and weak of Edinburgh's Grassmarket, luring them back to Hare's lodging
house, plying them with drink and then suffocating their victims. Between December 1827 and October 1828,