by: Maddie King
On the last day in Scotland and of the trip, the entire group embarked on a ghost tour. At this point, it is safe to say that some were feeling relieved at the thought that we would be home in 24 hours, some were feeling upset at having to say goodbye to this beautiful country, and some were feeling a little afraid for the night ahead of us. Our hour and a half journey led us to the Mercat Cross, tight closes, and underground vaults. As a ghost enthusiast and fan of all things haunted, this was definitely one of the events I was most looking forward to, but I will admit that even I experienced moments of brief fear that caused me to jump. Although it was a family friendly tour, there certainly were parts that were not so friendly. This is the story of our group’s haunted ghost tour and how we all made it out of the Blair Street Underground Vaults in one piece.
The night began with full stomachs as we had just finished our last group dinner at Howie’s. We fetched our sweatshirts and jackets to prepare for the chill from both the evening breeze and possible ghost encounters. Once we were all mentally prepared for the events ahead of us (or so we thought), we headed to the Mercat Cross near the center of the Royal Mile to meet our tour guide. Immediately I could sense the enthusiasm in her voice when she introduced herself as Jane in a rather loud and high pitched tone. She wanted us to remember her name in case we had to shout it our when facing a spirit. After that comment was made, I could already tell we were in for an interesting night, and I was not wrong. She was indeed too much and lots of fun
Jane opened the tour with a rather gruesome story about an event that had occurred in 1652. She told us about these two men who were publicly tortured in the center of town. The tale was not enough on its own though, and Jane looked around the members of the group before selecting Diego and Craig to help her re-enact and demonstrate the scene from her story. The only male students of the group made their way to the Mercat Cross and obeyed as Jane directed them to turn around for their lashings. Pulling a fake whip from her pocket that was to be representative of a cat of nine tails, Jane encouraged us to count to 13 as she “whipped” them. A cat of nine tails has many more strands and broken glass embedded in each, so even though she did save them from the true torture of that day, it was still enough to portray the pain of the men involved. You see, they were being tortured because of comments they made in public. The first man held a glass and said, “To the health of the King,” which caused the second to say, “Hear, hear.” At the time, there was no king as Scotland was a Republic under Oliver Cromwell. It only seemed fitting to the crowd that the first man lose his tongue and the second lose his ears. What a pleasant story to start us off!
We moved our tour from the wide open street to Advocate’s Close. It was in this tighter and more secluded area that Jane switched gears and gave us more of a brief, yet gross history lesson. We listened to her describe the “nastiness,” which is what people threw out of their buckets and chamber pots. Unfortunately for the people down below, there was not always clear communication when the nastiness came flying out of one’s 14th story window. I definitely could have lived not knowing these details. In addition, deceased animals would be put out with the nastiness, creating the phrase “raining cats and dogs” whenever the rain caused the bodies to slide down the hill. Jane decided to end the story here but not before leaving us with a bit of a mystery. She told us that when the Nor Loch, a marsh in Edinburgh’s Old Town at the foot of Castle Rock that King James III had ordered flooded to defend the castle, was drained many years later, a large amount of female skeletal remains were found. “Think about why this might be,” she said we exited one close and entered another.
Once in Anchor’s Close, an even tighter and darker alley than the one before, Jane told the story of Johnny One Arm. In the year 1688, there was a man named John Cheesely. He seemed to have no morals or good character and had only married his wife for her money. The cad! When she finally had enough and divorced him, John was temporarily relieved. That is, until Judge George Lockhart demanded John pay his ex-wife 93 pounds a year in alimony. Because that was a lot of money at the time, John threatened the life of the judge in anger before deciding on Easter Sunday to actually take it. As the judge walked in this dark close to his home, John shot and killed him. Having not been too discreet, John was charged with the murder of the prestigious judge but was not believed to have worked alone. He was tortured until he would confess the names of his accomplices, but because there none to name, he was essentially tortured to death. With one arm cut off and two broken legs, John was hanged in the center of town and left there until his body disappeared two days later. People started claiming to be haunted by Johnny One Arm until his remains were found in 1963 when the hauntings stopped. An interesting, yet disturbing tale.
We made our way to Borthwick’s Close, the tightest and darkest of the three, where we learned why there were female remains found. These women had all been accused of witchcraft. During the late 1600s, those who were accused of being a witch and confessed were given a simpler death of hanging and then having their bodies burned at the stake. Those accused who would not confess had it much worse. The women were tortured until a confession was given or until they were burned at the stake alive. In England, 1,000 accused witches were killed, but in Scotland, the number was near 4,000, according to Jane. As appalling as these numbers are, what shocked me even more was that there was a woman accused of witchcraft in 1944 in Britain because of the Witchcraft Act that was still in place. The Act got repealed in 1953, but it still seems crazy that just 75 years ago, a woman was imprisoned for being a “witch
As the stories began to grow more realistic, Jane decided it was time for us to visit the underground vaults. Hesitant, but mostly intrigued, we made our descent to the confined spaces below the surface. Down there we learned the origin of the vaults, 19 of them in Edinburgh, which were home to taverns, cobblers and shops. Storefronts were at the street level but a level below were workshops for the local tradesmen. Sources note they were officially finished in 1788 and included about 120 living spaces in a space below the workshops. When first constructed, they had no ventilation, no natural light, and smelled of burning fish because of the fish oil in the lamps. They also were not waterproof, so when it rained up above, it rained down below.
Considering the unadmirable living conditions, the legal residents made their way out of the vaults and the illegal ones – thieves, murderers and other nasty figures, according to sources – made their way in.
It was during this time that body snatching became popular. Medical students on Infirmary Street needed bodies for studies and offered money to anyone who brought them to their residence. Fresh graves were robbed of their bodies and stored underground as needed. It makes sense why there would still be spirits residing in the vaults today.
Some of the ghosts that Jane insists dwell in the vaults include a small boy and the cobbler. She claims tours in the past have seen both of them, and they had discovered that the cobbler will make one’s feet feel cold because he likes looking at shoes. There also seemed to be a slight change in temperature from room to room, which Mercat Tours attributes to different ghosts in different rooms. Personally, I believe in ghosts, but I was not afflicted by one or did not see a vision of a little boy throwing rocks at a wall. I believe the ghosts only surface when they want to do so.
Jane told one last chilling story before the conclusion of the tour. This one was about a haunted hotel room where a woman went mad and a man died. To spook us, she mentioned that our hotel could be the haunted one because no one knows the name of the original hotel, which I am sure did not help some of the people in our group sleep at night. Before sending us off, she made sure to give us one final scare by blowing out the only candle in the room. Yes, she relit it, but it certainly made me jump even though I was fully expecting it.
I have been on many ghost tours and will go on many more in the future, but it was definitely cool to say I went on one in haunted Edinburgh. After writing a paper on the topic in preparation for the tip, I can say I was not disappointed. The tour was certainly entertaining, and even though the stories were a little gross, it has my stamp of approval as a good family friendly ghost tour.