The most incredible city museum you've never visited

Inside the university anatomical museum and other Doors Open Day highlights

John Howison was known as the Cramond murderer.

Shortly before Christmas in 1831, he walked into the home of widowed Marta Geddes - “an innocent and industrious old woman,” according to one contemporary court report - and brutally attacked her with a spade. There was no apparent motive for the killing, writes Euan McGrory.

Howison was hanged in the Grassmarket for the “inhuman murder”, which shocked 19th century Edinburgh due to its extreme and seemingly wanton violence.

Today, his skeleton stands - or more accurately hangs, from a metal hook in a glass cabinet - in the University of Edinburgh’s Anatomical Museum.

At first glance, the 12,000 objects in the museum collection seem to owe more to a Victorian ‘cabinet of curiosities’ than an enlightened modern educational institution. A little patience and curiosity rewards visitors with an engaging insight into 300 years of advances in our understanding of medicine.

Relatively few people outside of the world of academia know the collection even exists. Yet, climbing one of the stone staircases in the Old Medical School on Teviot Place, and a unique perspective on Edinburgh’s role in shaping the modern world unfolds in front of you.

Howison is far from the museum’s most famous resident. That distinction belongs to the former owner of the skeleton suspended in the cabinet alongside him, William Burke, of ‘Burke and Hare’ infamy.

Visitors often bypass Howison and his story for this reason which is a shame because it is at least as fascinating as the macabre tale of his neighbour.

A quirk of history

The Cramond Murderer owes his position alongside the serial killer to one of those accidents of history.

His body was the last to be handed to the medical school’s Professor Alexander Munro for dissection before the introduction of the Anatomy Act of 1832 outlawed the practice. That distinction is the reason his articulated skeleton - as the assembled remains of Howison, Burke and other such subjects are known by medics - has been retained on display 140 years after the museum was opened.

Howison also holds another unique place in Scottish history as the first person to enter a defence of insanity.

Modern medics agree he was almost certainly suffering from severe paranoid schizophrenia, with his landlady testifying to the dramatic deterioration in his behaviour in the months before the killing.

He had suffered paranoid delusions, carried out personal rituals such as salting his head and his bed in an effort to ward off malevolent spirits, and sometimes wore a bible hanging around his neck or tied to his wrist, as well as self-harming.

His condition, sadly, had not yet been recognised as an illness at the time of his trial. The defence failed due to a lack of medical evidence accepted by the court, but sparked a national debate about the legal system and its treatment of the mentally ill.

Life and death masks

Casts taken of William Burke’s face shortly before his execution and after his death are among more than 40 life and death masks on display. The museum holds one of the largest such collections in the UK. Like the rest of the items held in the museum, they were originally gathered for study and teaching purposes, in an age when our understanding of the human body advanced fantastically.

“The museum provides a fascinating insight into how anatomy has progressed from the late 1700s to the present day,” says Gordon Findlater, director of the university’s anatomy department. “What is interesting, in terms of structures of the body, is that the majority of what we know now comes from the pioneering work of the 19th century.”

Other curios include a whale’s backbone displayed alongside that of a human, demonstrating similarities between humans and other animals, an example of the work carried out in the field known as comparative anatomy. Among the other notable curios are a gorilla skeleton, a bear’s skull and - standing as if on guard at either side of the entrance to the museum - the complete reconstructed skeletons of two Asian elephants.

The Anatomy Museum is still used for teaching purposes. Those studying medicine in Edinburgh learn a lot about history and ethics as well as human anatomy. It is not normally accessible to the public, but will welcome visitors as part of this year’s Edinburgh Doors Open Day (although all tickets are now fully booked), and opens on occasional days throughout the year.

The other Scott monument

The city’s second most famous monument to one of its most famous sons is a perfect destination for an autumn afternoon walk.

Built in 1871, as a memorial to Sir Walter Scott on the centenary of his birth, the Corstorphine Hill or Clermiston Tower offers spectacular views in all directions, to the Pentlands, Fife, the upper Forth, the city centre and East Lothian. The 101 steps to the viewing gallery are well worth the effort, but that is only part of the fun.

Besides the zoo, Corstorphine Hill is home to one of the city’s biggest public parks, as well as being a nature reserve by virtue of its abundance of wildlife including resident badgers.

The tower’s construction was paid for by wealthy Victorian sugar merchant William Mcfie, who lived in the now demolished mansion Clermiston House. It was gifted to the city in 1932 and is now maintained by the city council.

Gracemount Mansion

Parts of Gracemount Mansion will be open to the public for the first time in several years.

Known locally as simply The Mansion, it has over the years been home to monks, a nursing home and Scotland’s longest-running youth club, the Gracemount Youth and Community Centre, which opened in the 1960s.

Today, the grounds and walled garden are still in use, but the main building and stable block have fallen into disrepair. The Gracemount Mansion Development Trust will use the weekend to raise awareness of its plans to renovate and reopen the Mansion, surrounding buildings and grounds, as a community hub.

Built around 1870, it was originally the rectory of the now demolished St Catherine’s Chapel, which stood near the Balm Well which survives in the grounds of the Toby Carvery on Howden Hall Road.

Stories of an underground tunnel linking the Mansion to the site of the chapel may not be entirely fanciful. Similar rumours of tunnels linking Gilmerton Cove to Craigmillar Castle raises the intriguing prospect of a network of underground routes running across the south of the city.

Tours will be given - not including the tunnels! - on demand throughout Saturday at 11am-3pm. The Friends of the Mansion will offer orienteering, slackline and circus skills as part of the event.

Try your hand at welding

Explore the fully-equipped artists studios and workshops at Leith’s Edinburgh Open Workshop, have a go at making your own creations and meet the resident makers.

There will be an exhibition of the resident crafts people’s work including furniture design, textiles and upholstery. 

Free 30-minute tours leave from reception every hour from 11am to 3pm on Saturday and include visits to the facility’s woodwork, metalwork, textile and screen printing areas. Adults and children (aged 13+) can try using some of the specialist tools and equipment, including woodwork and welding tasters. These sessions last between 60 and 90 minutes, costs £25 per person, and must be booked in advance.

Natasha Lee-Walsh, director of EOW, said: “Our talented resident makers will be on hand to present and talk about their work, and hopefully inspire some new makers to take part in our workshops on the day.”

City’s ‘lost’ walled garden

Granton Castle has long disappeared from the city landscape but almost miraculously its Medieval walled garden, overlooking the Firth of Forth, survives.

Created at the time of Mary Queen of Scots, the market garden would have been a practical part of life in the 16th century, providing food for the residents of the castle.

Today Granton Castle Walled Garden is a community space and home to a number of charities and social enterprises including Ochre Botanical Studios and MycoBee Mushrooms.

Unique in the Capital, and rare in Scotland, the garden will be open on Saturday and Sunday at 2-4pm. Starting at the gate, visitors can walk for approximately 20 minutes with a volunteer guide, who will point out significant historic and horticultural aspects. Depending on numbers, starting at 2.20pm and 3.20pm. Granton Castle Walled Garden is a stop on the historic route from Granton Station, Madelvic House, via Spiers Bruce Way to the Garden and down to the Shore.

Edinburgh’s Doors Open Day, 2024, takes place on Saturday and Sunday, 28 and 29 September.