PART V. VARIOUS MATTERS CONNECTED WITH THE FAMILY. (MONUMENTS, ARMORIAL BEARINGS, PREVIOUS HISTORIES, ETC.). PART V. CHAPTER I. THE WEDDERBURN MONUMENTS IN THE HOWFF OF DUNDEE. The Howff of Dundee is one of the oldest burial grounds in Scotland. It dates from Part V. 1564, till when the only burying ground used in the burgh was the small churchyard of Chap. I. S. Clement's, situated in the centre of the town and surrounded by houses on all sides. This was brought to the notice of Queen Mary when she visited Dundee in 1564, and thereupon, with an intelligent appreciation of sanitary laws, she gave a grant of the Grey Cordelier Friars' house and garden, then lying outside the walls, to be used as a burying ground.' This seems to have been put in order and used for burial immediately on the grant by the Queen, and thus it may be generally taken that persons dying in Dundee before 1565 were buried in S. Clement's, while from 1565 onwards the old churchyard ceased to be used, and burials took place in the Howff, where the Wedderburns had an important "lair." 5 PLANS OF THE WEDDERBURN BURYING GROUND IN THE HOWFF OF DUNDEE. 1 This grant is preserved among the Dundee charters, and is dated 11 Sept. 1564. See Charters, etc., Relating to Dundee, ed. W. Hay, Dundee, 1880, p. 40, where this charter is given at length and in facsimile; also A. Maxwell's History of Old Dundee, 1884, pp. 206-7. 2 Later on burials were allowed in the Cross Church. Thus Sir Alexander, the second baronet of Blackness, had a vault there, and, presumably, he and his children were buried there and not in the Howff. See ante, p. 239, and D. C.B. 161. |