Southside Graveyard Project
The Southside Graveyard Project restores headstones which have been laid flat for safety reasons. This allows inscriptions to be read again and enhances the environment.
The OEC provided a grant of £5,000 to the Edinburgh Southside Graveyard Project in 2016, and helped to raise matching funding. Other contributors were the Grange Association, the Sir James Miller Edinburgh Trust, the South Central Neighbourhood Partnership and a private individual.
The Project has partnered with the City of Edinburgh Council which provides constructive opportunities to participants on the Community Payback Programme. Over 225 headstones have been rebuilt in the Grange Cemetery and 19 foundations prepared.
The Old Edinburgh Club was sorry to hear of the passing in 2022 of Alan McKinney, who was the driving force for the project. Alan also made an enormous contribution to the work of the Old Edinburgh Club, including serving as Honorary Treasurer.
Alan wrote an article the Book of the Old Edinburgh Club making the case for the project, and the Grange Association published a leaflet on progress.
Public Sculpture of Edinburgh
The Club co-sponsored research for the two-volume authoritative publication on the Public Sculpture of Edinburgh, volume 20 of the Public Sculpture of Britain series published in 2018 by Liverpool University Press.
The principal author was Ray McKenzie, previously Senior Lecturer in Art History and Research Fellow at the School of Art in Glasgow. Research was undertaken by by Dianne King, previously Acting head of Humanities and Honorary Research Fellow at Edinburgh College of Art, and Tracy Smith, freelance researcher and editor.
Bibliography of Edinburgh History
Our online Bibliography of Edinburgh History brings together an extensive collection of nearly 3,000 items – books, chapters, journal articles, and dissertations – covering the rich heritage of the city, dating from Maitland’s 1753 History of Edinburgh and Leith. It covers prehistory to modern times, taking in a range of themes – social, cultural, economic and architectural. It features the Old and New Towns and local communities across the city.
The compilation of the Bibliography was originally commissioned from Dr Malcolm Noble in 2017, and we completed two updating cycles since, identifying new publications and filling gaps from the past. He described his task in assembling the Bibliography in the Book of the Old Edinburgh Club, New Series, Volume 16.
Dean of Guild Court records
The records of Edinburgh’s Dean of Guild Court provide a remarkable collection of drawings, reports and correspondence tracing the development of the capital, site by site. These provide fascinating insights, not least on the construction of the New Town.
Since 2013, the Old Edinburgh Club the OEC has supported the work of Dr Joe Rock in cataloguing these records covering 1700 to 1824. This work is in its final phase and we are shortly to launch a searchable, online database to facilitate access to the records, of interest to building professionals, urban historians and genealogists.