Buddleia – Friends of Greyfriars Kirkyard

Today was a day of a great team effort & outstanding progress on the repairs to the Bayne Mausoleum.

Bayne has long suffered from particularly invasive Buddleia that has pushed apart the stone blocks making up the canopy. This has led to water ingress which has accelerated the rate of deterioration of the carved stonework, as well as damaging its structural integrity. As a result Edinburgh World Heritage, Edinburgh Bereavment Services, Nic Boyes Stone Conservationist & The Friends of Greyfriars Kirkyard have been working together to plan & carryout repairs to remove the Buddleia and seal up the joints with lime mortar. This required the use of a Cherry Picker and coordination of all of the people & materials required to carry out this work in a very busy Kirkyard. The opportunity was also taken to give a talk to students studying Stone Conservation at Edinburgh University to explain the process of assessing the condition of the Mausoleum, plan the work and carry it out.

Everything went really well today and we can celebrate a material improvement to the condition of the Bayne. Further work will be carried out in coming days to complete the task and remove buddleia from other monuments.

Great thanks are due to Susan Buckham & her colleagues at Edinburgh World Heritage plus Paul, Kevin, Kevin, Mark, Andy & Jane at Edinburgh Bereavment Services who worked together to plan, fund and execute the work. And particular thanks to Nic Boyes who worked tirelessly all day in a highly professional manner to get the job done. The Friends of Greyfriars (Chris & Liz in particular) supported, encouraged and informed the work in many ways too, including some funding. I hope you all agree that this is a good use of our resources.

We can all feel proud of this progress and it builds our confidence & commitment to see more conservation in the Kirkyard in future.

The Bayne Mausoleum, Greyfriars Kirkyard, Edinburgh

9am this morning shows how extensive the buddleia had become and the extent of movement in the stonework

4pm this afternoon. The buddleia is all gone, the joints have been filled with lime mortar and the whole covered over in hessian to aid its drying and bonding with the stonework, creating a stronger and more water tight structure.