The Craigentinny Marbles is the mausoleum of William Henry Miller (1789-1848), a wealthy landowner and Member of Parliament for Newcastle-under-Lyme, who retired to his estate at Craigentinny after losing his parliamentary seat in 1841.

Miller was childless, so upon his death in 1848, the execution of his will fell to a distant relative, Samuel Christy.

The will contained instructions to bury Miller's body in a 20-foot-deep pit above which, The Scotsman reported, would be built a monument "in commemoration of the private virtues of the deceased, for, as a public character, he was unknown."

Although the monument would originally have been a solitary structure in a moorland half a mile east of Miller's house, it is now somewhat incongruously surrounded by 1930s bungalows on Craigentinny Crescent.

[1] The mausoleum itself was designed by David Rhind and completed in 1856, with two bas relief sculptures by Alfred Gatley depicting part of the biblical narrative of the Exodus added later.