The Top 6 Creepiest Things About Edinburgh
Edinburgh is gorgeous.
The castle. The cobblestone streets. The dramatic architecture. The pubs. The views. The fact that you can turn a corner and suddenly feel like you’ve wandered onto the set of Harry Potter.
And then there’s the other side of Edinburgh.
Because underneath all that beauty is a city with a seriously dark past. We’re talking underground vaults, grave robbers, body-snatching, plague victims, murderers, and enough ghost stories to make you question whether you really need to sleep with a night light.
So, if you’re planning a trip to Edinburgh, here are five creepy fun facts you should know.
1. There’s an Entire Underground City Beneath Your Feet
You know those lovely old streets you’re strolling along?
Yeah. There’s stuff underneath them.
Edinburgh’s Old Town was built upward and downward over centuries, creating a maze of closes, chambers and underground spaces. Some of the most famous are the South Bridge Vaults, which were originally built as storage spaces and workshops in the late 18th century.
But eventually, people started living down there.
And these weren’t exactly luxury apartments.
The vaults became home to some of Edinburgh’s poorest residents, as well as taverns, workshops and businesses. Conditions were dark, damp and overcrowded.
Eventually, many of the spaces were abandoned and forgotten.
Which is perhaps why Edinburgh has managed to maintain the slightly unsettling feeling that the city has a basement it doesn’t really want you to know about.
Today, you can take tours into some of these underground spaces.
Personally, I think this is the perfect opportunity to discover that you are, in fact, not a person who enjoys underground spaces.
2. Edinburgh Had a Grave Robbing Problem
Nothing says 18th-century Edinburgh quite like a little grave robbing.
During the Scottish Enlightenment, Edinburgh became an important center for medical education. Surgeons and medical students needed something rather important for their studies: Cadavers.
Unfortunately, the legal supply wasn’t exactly keeping up with demand.
Enter the resurrection men.
These lovely gentlemen made money by digging up recently buried bodies and selling them to medical schools.
And if you think that sounds horrifying now, imagine being an Edinburgh resident back then.
You bury Grandma on Tuesday.
By Wednesday, some dude with a shovel is thinking, “Excellent. Fresh.”
The practice became so notorious that people developed elaborate methods of protecting graves, including iron cages called mortsafes (pictured above) and watch houses where graves could be monitored.
Because apparently even death didn’t guarantee you could finally get some peace and quiet.
3. Burke and Hare Were Even Worse Than the Grave Robbers
And this is where Edinburgh’s history gets particularly unhinged.
William Burke and William Hare were two Irish immigrants living in Edinburgh in the early 19th century who discovered a much easier way to obtain bodies for medical dissection.
Why dig up a corpse when you could just…
Well…make one.
The pair murdered people and sold their bodies to the anatomist Robert Knox. As a matter of fact, they are believed to have murdered 16 people over the course of 10 months.
Their victims included vulnerable people, including a woman known as Mary Paterson, whose body was reportedly sold to Knox.
Eventually, Hare confessed and testified against Burke. Burke was convicted and executed, making the case one of Scotland’s most infamous murder scandals.
And here’s the truly macabre part:
After Burke was executed, his own body was dissected for medical study.
His skeleton was preserved.
And part of his skin was turned into a book.
Yes.
You read that correctly.
A book. Made from the skin of a murderer.
Edinburgh really looked at the concept of a souvenir and said, “Let’s make this deeply disturbing.”
4. Greyfriars Kirkyard Has One Extremely Angry Ghost
Greyfriars Kirkyard is one of Edinburgh’s most atmospheric cemeteries. It’s beautiful. It’s ancient. It’s full of elaborate tombstones, some of whose names inspired a few Harry Potter characters such as Tom Riddle.
And according to legend, it’s also home to one particularly pissed-off ghost.
Meet George Mackenzie, a 17th-century lawyer and Lord Advocate who was responsible for persecuting Covenanters during a brutal period of Scottish religious conflict.
Mackenzie was eventually buried in a mausoleum at Greyfriars.
According to modern ghost stories, disturbing his tomb can result in strange experiences, scratches, bruises, dizziness and even fainting.
The area around his mausoleum became associated with the so-called Mackenzie Poltergeist.
Whether you believe the stories or not, there’s something undeniably eerie about standing in an ancient cemetery surrounded by centuries-old graves while hearing stories about something allegedly lurking in the darkness.
And if you hear something behind you?
Absolutely do not investigate.
You have seen enough horror movies to know how this ends.
5. Edinburgh Castle Has Its Own Ghost Stories
Naturally, we can’t talk about creepy Edinburgh without mentioning Edinburgh Castle.
Because apparently one giant medieval fortress sitting dramatically on top of a volcanic rock wasn’t intimidating enough.
Over the centuries, visitors and staff have reported mysterious sounds and sightings around the castle.
One of the most famous stories involves the ghostly sound of a drummer, who supposedly appears before moments of danger.
There’s also the legend of a ghostly piper who was sent into the underground tunnels beneath the Royal Mile to investigate them.
He played his pipes as he walked so people above could follow his progress.
Then the music suddenly stopped.
They never found him.
Now, is there a perfectly reasonable historical explanation for these stories?
Probably.
Does that make me want to wander around Edinburgh Castle alone at midnight? Absolutely not.
6. Princes Street Gardens Was Once a Lake of Death
It’s hard to imagine the lush green space of Princes Street Gardens as anything other than a beautiful place to escape the bustle of Edinburgh. But beneath all that greenery is a much darker history.
Long before the gardens existed, this area was home to Nor’ Loch, a man-made body of water created in the 15th century under the orders of King James III. Its original purpose was to help strengthen the defenses around Edinburgh Castle, but the loch soon became something far less noble. It essentially became the city’s dumping ground, filled with sewage, waste, and whatever else Edinburgh’s residents didn’t want nearby.
Nor’ Loch also developed a particularly grim reputation as a place of execution. People sentenced to death could be drowned in its filthy waters, and some were reportedly locked inside chests and pushed into the loch to meet their fate. In one particularly horrifying incident in 1624, eleven women were drowned there in a single day because they were suspected of witchcraft (which is an entirely different topic that will have its own post soon!).
Eventually, the loch was drained and filled in as Edinburgh’s New Town was developed. Today, the same ground is occupied by the peaceful Princes Street Gardens, making it one of those Edinburgh locations where the beautiful scenery hides a seriously disturbing past.
So… Is Edinburgh Really Haunted?
I say a resounding YES because I have had my own experiences there that are undeniable.
While some of Edinburgh’s ghost stories are undoubtedly legends that have grown over generations, others are rooted in very real, and often extremely grim, events.
But that’s what makes Edinburgh so fascinating.
The creepy stuff isn’t separate from the city.
It’s part of the city.
The same streets where tourists sip whisky today have witnessed executions, murders, epidemics, poverty, and centuries of wild drama.
And beneath those beautiful buildings are layers upon layers of history – some of which Edinburgh probably wouldn’t mind keeping buried.
So go explore.
Visit the castle.
Wander the Old Town.
Tour the vaults.
Explore Greyfriars. (It’s one of our favorite places to visit when we’re in town!)
Listen to the stories.
Just maybe don’t volunteer to be the last person in the room when the tour guide asks: “Does anyone want to stay behind and see if the ghost appears?”
You have a plane to catch.
And besides…
Edinburgh has enough ghosts already!
Want to Explore Edinburgh’s Dark Side?
If the creepy stories have you intrigued, why not experience some of Edinburgh’s darker history for yourself? Here are seven popular ghost, underground, and spooky tours worth checking out:
1. Mercat Tours
Explore Edinburgh’s haunted history with one of the city’s oldest tour companies, including a descent into the atmospheric Blair Street Underground Vaults.
2. Auld Reekie Tours
Go beneath Edinburgh’s streets and into its notorious underground vaults while hearing tales of murder, ghosts, graveyards, and the city’s less-than-savory past.
3. City of the Dead Tours
Descend into the South Bridge Vaults and explore some of Edinburgh’s most haunted locations, including the infamous Greyfriars Kirkyard and the Mackenzie Poltergeist.
4. The Real Mary King’s Close
Step beneath the Royal Mile into a preserved network of underground streets and rooms where Edinburgh residents once lived, worked, and died.
5. The Ghost Bus Tours Edinburgh
Climb aboard a vintage double-decker bus for a theatrical, comedy-horror tour packed with Edinburgh’s grisliest stories and haunted history.
6. City of Edinburgh Tours
Choose from several spooky experiences, including underground ghost tours and an extreme paranormal tour for those who like their Edinburgh history particularly terrifying.
7. The Edinburgh Dungeon
Take a terrifying journey through Scotland’s darkest history with live actors, elaborate sets, special effects, and some seriously gruesome stories based on real historical events.
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