The Howff

The Howff (the Scots word for a meeting place) is one of Scotland's oldest urban cemeteries, founded in 1564 on the grounds of a former Franciscan friary granted to the city by Mary Queen of Scots. For two and a half centuries it doubled as a meeting place for the city's trades guilds — joiners, hammermen, dyers — who used it for sworn assemblies because they had nowhere else with both privacy and a clear view of the centre.

The result is a remarkable collection of around 1,500 carved sandstone monuments to merchants, mariners and craftsmen, many with the symbols of their trade — anchors, ploughs, scissors, the all-seeing eye of the masons. The Howff is open during daylight hours and free to wander; an interpretive panel by the main gate keys the most interesting stones.

things to do sight cemetery
A story
One of the headstones near the centre of the cemetery is known as the "Wishing Stone" — visitors leave coins, pebbles or small objects on its weathered top and rub the carved inscription for luck. Nobody is sure when the tradition began, but archaeologists who tidied the burial ground in the 2010s reported finding modern coins layered with older ones underneath, suggesting the practice has been continuous for at least a century.