One of the enduring mysteries of Greyfriars Kirkyard is we still don’t know where the original Grey Friars buildings were. When the Grey Friars established a Friary in Edinburgh in the early 15th century James I granted them the land that now forms the Kirkyard. Over the years they were based in Edinburgh they will have developed a friary church, a cloister, refectory, and dormitory. This complex would not necessarily have been particularly large, as there were likely no more than a couple of dozen Friars based here. The rest of their land was used for growing food and herbs used to feed the hungry and treat the sick of Edinburgh. But during the Reformation the Friars were banished and their buildings demolished. No one today knows what buildings they had or precisely where they were. Most historians appear to have concluded that these buildings were in the North end of the current burial ground, on the edge of the Grassmarket. But others (me included) speculate that Greyfriars Kirk built between 1610 & 1620 was founded on the footprint of the old Friary, incorporating where convenient the stonework of the much earlier buildings.
There are several things that corroborate this theory. Firstly this is a flat section of ground, that sits in the middle of the land, so a better position to locate the Friary than on the slope near the Grassmarket. Secondly if we look closely we can see evidence of an older building lying underneath the current Kirk. These photos illustrate where the walls, pillars and buttressing of the Kirk appear to have been built off earlier foundations.
Thanks to Jamie Moffat at the Kirk for identifying and allowing access to these old areas of stonework.
