When Thomas Riddell died in Edinburgh on November 24, 1806, at the age of 72, it is unlikely his family could have foreseen that his gravestone would eventually have its own location marker on Google Maps.
His name is said to have inspired JK Rowling’s “Tom Riddle”, the birth name of Voldemort, Harry Potter’s arch-villain.
The tombstone, alongside several other graveyard inspirations for the fantasy series, has made Greyfriars Kirkyard the third most visited free to enter attraction in Scotland. However, the council is facing calls to introduce a fee at the gate to deal with the “tacky” tourism flooding the site.
Two million tourists are estimated to visit every year, and the council has battled for years with the costs of keeping the site clean.
Though the public can walk around free of charge, tour guides have been forced to pay a £120 registration fee to take people inside the cemetery. The annual registration for companies is £150.
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But the fees have not been enough for the council, which spent about £124,000 last year on its upkeep. Officials have warned that without “radical change” to the system, “the unfunded pressure of the continued use of cemeteries for commercial purposes is unlikely to be sustainable”.
One solution had been to encourage tour guides to collect a 50p donation from each customer, but the income from this has proved too low.
The city’s culture and communities committee will meet next Thursday to discuss potential solutions.
The Greyfriars Kirk, founded in 1620, was the first church to be built in post-Reformation Edinburgh.
Before its Harry Potter fame, the kirkyard was known for the story of Greyfriars Bobby which became well known in the latter half of the 1800s. Greyfriars Bobby was a Skye terrier who guarded the grave of his master, John Gray, in the cemetery for 14 years. A statue of the dog is outside the gates.
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The National Covenant, which demanded radical changes in how Scotland was governed, was also signed in the graveyard in February 1638.
Fraser Parkinson, one of the 300 “Blue Badge” tour guides in Scotland, has called for a fee at the gate, mirroring the system at Highgate Cemetery in London, where the graves of figures including Karl Marx and George Michael can be found. The entry fee for Highgate is £10 for adults, £6 for children aged eight to 17, and free for under-sevens.
Parkinson said the kirkyard had been “trashed” in recent years due to a significant increase in visitors. The site has also suffered persistent vandalism and a large number of headstones and memorials have had to be moved from the graveyard.
“Money has been taken from vital local services to subsidise the profits of large companies running tours taking hundreds of people round per guide,” Parkinson said. “The people of Edinburgh are struggling with over-tourism, and tacky and cheap tourism.
“These big companies come in with rogue guides. Ghosts, ghouls and Harry Potter tours at Greyfriars are degrading the dignity of consecrated ground. It is a circus.”
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Finlay McFarlane, an SNP councillor for Edinburgh city centre, said staffing concerns and issues around installing technology on a Unesco world heritage site might scupper the idea of introducing a charge at the gate.
He said: “Maintaining access to these sites for residents and visitors is important, but we do need to acknowledge — especially in the category A listed and busiest site at Greyfriars — the impact that visitors are having on the monuments and paths, the conservation of which comes at significant cost to the council.
“Ultimately we need to ensure these historic sites are safeguarded for future generations while balancing open access and this may mean specific interventions in the sites at most risk.”
