Old Calton Burial Ground

This burial ground opened in 1718 and was cut in two in the early 19th century when Waterloo Place, the street you've just walked along, was driven through. It's small, but it gathers some of the great names of Enlightenment Edinburgh.

1Hume's mausoleum

The round tower is the tomb of David Hume, the philosopher and historian who questioned causation, miracles and almost everything else. He died in 1776, and his friend the architect Robert Adam designed this mausoleum for him, inspired by Roman tombs. Hume was so notorious for his religious scepticism that, so the story goes, his friends kept watch over the grave for days after the burial in case anyone desecrated it.

2Lincoln in Scotland

Beside the tomb stands the Scottish-American Soldiers Monument, unveiled in 1893 in memory of the Scots who fought for the Union in the American Civil War. It's topped by Abraham Lincoln, by the sculptor George Edwin Bissell, and at his feet a freed slave raises an arm. It's considered the first statue of a US president erected outside the United States.

Further back you'll also spot an obelisk: the Political Martyrs' Monument of 1844, dedicated to the reformers transported to Australia in the 1790s for demanding reform of Parliament.

3What to look out for

• Hume's mausoleum, cylindrical and roofless.
• The Lincoln statue and the bronze relief of the flag.
• The watchtower by the wall, built against the bodysnatchers.