Edinburgh Past And Present - The Edinburgh Website

Edinburgh is claimed to be one of the most haunted cities in the world. There are stories associated with, not just the Old Town, but different parts of the city that have entered folklore. It is difficult to know where the reality ends and the legend begins except perhaps when dealing with hauntings that happen in the present day. Here are some of those old stories together with more up to date mysteries.

THE GHOSTLY PIPER
According to legend, many years ago some workmen discovered a tunnel while working at the castle. A piper offered to investigate and marched down the tunnel while curious locals followed the sounds down the Royal Mile. When they got to the Tron the music stopped and the piper was never seen again. The tunnel was sealed and they that ever since when it is quiet, you can still hear the faint sounds of the bag piper.

 
NAPOLEONIC GHOSTS
An article in the Scotsman from February 2003 relates a modern ghost story. In late 2002 some workmen were carrying out renovation work at the Queen Anne building in the Castle. Some of them began to feel a presence and felt that someone was looking down on them. When photos were developed showing mysterious blue orbs around the builders heads they all refused to work alone so the foreman called in a medium. She spent the night there and reported that she felt the presence of two women and a man. Beneath the room is a vault where many prisoners of the Napoleonic wars died horrible deaths.

HAUNTED UNDERGROUND CITY
Underneath South Bridge are many vaults and passageways. The bridge was built over Niddry Wynd and its cobbled street still lies under the bridge. In the past people lived in the vaults, there were even shops underground. You can visit the vaults on a tour and over the years many ghost stories have surfaced. Some scientific research has been conducted here but no hard evidence of the afterlife has been obtained. One of the most interesting stories happened early in 2003 when a radio producer was interviewing former rugby star, Norrie Rowan who owns part of the underground city. On playing the interview back there was a ghostly voice shouting Go Away in gaelic but no one else had been there at the time.

 
CHARLOTTE SQUARE
There are many legends concerning hauntings in Charlotte Square. A ghostly piano has been heard on quiet nights and a hooded figure has been seen strolling around the square in 18th century clothes. There is also said to be a ghostly carriage pulled by horses that appears when the square is free of modern traffic.

SOME HAUNTED PLACES PART 1
Playhouse: Haunted by a ghost called Albert who wears a grey coat. He is rumoured to be a stagehand who had an accident or a night watchman who killed himself.

Jamaica St: In the late 18th/early 19th century a man in a big red hat with a pale complexion was seen. A James Campbell was taken to court by the landlord of several properties in the street accused of spreading ghost stories to get the rent reduced. Campbell was fined £5 and told not to mention the ghost but on his way out he asked the court if he could still talk to the ghost as he had done on many occasions.

Scotsman Hotel: Haunted by many ghosts including a phantom printer. There were reports in the Evening News in the 1990s about this when the paper had its offices in the building.

St Mary's Street: In 1916 a young woman was brutally murdered in a random attack after someone jumped out a doorway at her. The woman is still seen at times standing in St Mary's street with blood splattered clothes, looking totally bewildered.

Holyrood Palace: Reputed to be haunted by a bald naked ghost called Agnes who was tortured in 1592 after being accused of being a witch.

Balcarres St: Haunted by the green lady, reputedly Elizabeth Pittendale who was caught kissing her step son by her husband who then stabbed her to death

Leith Corn Exchange: A story which appeared a few years ago on US television. The pub is haunted by the ghost of a 19th century publican who hanged himself there after being accused of torturing children. The television cameras apparently caught his ghost on camera.

Museum of Childhood: Reputedly built near the site of a nursery that was sealed up during the plague years with mothers and children inside. They say you can still hear the children's cries.

GREYFRIARS CHURCHYARD - THE MACKENZIE POLTERGEIST
Probably the most famous of modern hauntings and also one of the strangest. Even doubters of the supernatural can't deny that SOMETHING is happening here. Greyfriars is very old. Plague victims from the middle ages lie underneath the graves from later centuries but our story begins in the 1600s when an advocate called George Mackenzie, while working for King Charles II, persecuted Scots Presbetarians known as Covenanters. He was nicknamed Bloody Mackenzie from his apparent joy at seeing Covenanters hanging on the gallows.
When he died in 1691, he was buried in Greyfriars near to where he had condemned many covenanters to death. There is a small area at the far corner of the churchyard in which many covenanters were held for days at a time outdoors in terrible conditions. This area is now known as the Covenanters Prison. But all was quiet in that part of the graveyard until 1999!
In December 1998 on a dark rainy night, a homeless man decided he would get shelter by breaking into a mausoleum. He chose George Mackenzie's. For reasons only known to himself, the man opened the coffin and ended up falling down with the coffin ending up with George's skeleton lying beside him. He fled.
In early 1999 reports were coming in of strange things happening, not by Mackenzie's tomb, but around the corner in the Covenanter's Prison. The city council took the decision to close off that part of the graveyard and today you can only look through the railings.
Tours soon began to the Prison area when one company was given access and to date there have been many stories of strange phenomena including people being scratched, attacked, feeling sick and discovering marks on their bodies next day. A surprising number of people have also been knocked unconscious. The mausoleum that is visited is known as the black mausoleum but the person buried there is not famous for anything which just adds to the mystery. It is possible to see orbs (small round lights) dancing around the gravestones at night (I have seen this). A very fascinating place and one that is never out the headlines for long. In 2004 two teenage boys were charged with breaking into Mackenzie's tomb, ripping his head off and using it as a glove puppet. Perhaps the covenanters are gaining revenge some 350 years later!
 
JOHNNY ONE ARM
In 1688 John Chiesly, a wealthy man who owned land in Dalry, sought divorce from his wife. When the barrister, Sir George Lockhart, pronounced that £93 per year should be granted to Mrs Chiesly and the children, Mr Chiesly swore revenge on Sir George. He had wanted to give them nothing.
On Easter Sunday 1689, John Chiesley followed Sir George from an Easter service at St Giles and shot him dead as he was about to enter Old Bank Close. Chiesley did not flee and boasted to the assembled crowd that he had taught Sir George how to do justice. He was tortured at the Mercat Cross to see if he had any accomplices then eventually sentenced to be hung at the Gallow Lee. The hand he used to fire the pistol - his right - was cut off while he was still alive and put on a spike at the West Port. The pistol was hung around his neck and he was left to rot. The body disappeared.
It was said that a ghost haunted Dalry with one arm, laughing and screaming and was seen in the area for almost 300 years until 1965. That year, workmen were removing the hearthstone of a cottage in Dalry Park when they found a skeleton of a man with broken bones. He had no right hand and there was a pistol around his neck. John Chiesley's body was found after nearly 300 years. He was buried and the ghost of Johnny one arm was never seen again.
 
SOME HAUNTED PLACES PART 2

Radisson SAS Hotel Niddry St: The hotel is on the site of Stichen's Close where Bloody Mackenzie once lived. The area has been plagued by fires (in 1992 the hotel burned down) attributed to Mackenzie's poltergeists.

Whistle Binkies bar Niddry St: Haunted by a long haired man in 17th century clothes known as the watcher. Another known as the Imp stops clocks and slams doors

Queensberry House: Said to be haunted by the ghost of a boy roasted and eaten by the mad Earl of Drumlanrig in 1707

Festival Theatre: In 1911 a famous illusionist called the Great Lafayette burned to death in a fire during a performance. His ghost is said to haunt the theatre.

5 Rothesay Place: In the 1950's the owners bought some second hand furniture from a recently deceased sailor. They were then haunted by a foot high figure called gnomey

5 Hazeldean Terrace: Around the same time as the Rothesay place haunting, this house had a poltergeist which at the time became a national phenomenon.

15 Learmonth Gardens: In the 1930s the owners took a bone from an Egyptian mummy's tomb. The house thereafter was plagued by noise, flying objects and the spectre of an Egyptian Priest

CRAIGLOCKHART GHOST?
In 1995 I worked in a modern office block in Craiglockhart. It had been built on the site of the stables of Craiglockhart House. It was mid afternoon, a calm sunny day, when I went to the gents toilet at the end of our corridor on the first floor. There was no one around and as I made my way out of the toilet the door opened as if someone was coming in. I grabbed the handle to hold it open for them but there was no one there. I was puzzled but went downstairs and got myself a cup of coffee. On the way back past the toilet I thought to myself how odd it had been that the door had opened on its own. At that moment the handle began to shake up and down quite violently. I put my coffee down on the floor and walked into the toilet. No one was there, either in the toilet or the corridor. I was quite shaken when I went back to the office but everyone just laughed when I told them what had happened.
For months after I tried to recreate the events and find a rational explanation but had no success and nothing like that happened again. However, some time later I attended a meeting for our department magazine to discuss interesting stories to put in it. Someone said that our corridor was supposedly haunted and they all thought we could write an article about that. I was gobsmacked and told them my story. Unfortunately the magazine didn't see the light of day. What happened that day in the gents? What could possibly be the rational explanation?

CHESSELS COURT
My name is John Childs and I used to live for 3 years in Chessel's Court, in the Canongate Edinburgh and I had this encounter!
"One night, I was lying in my bed when, at about 1.30am, I heard my landlady's dog growling and scratching at my door to get in. At that same moment something or someone came through the wall beside my bed and started to climb over me. I could feel it pushing down on the blankets as it climbed over me. This went on for about three minutes, with the dog growling at the door all the time. It was pitch dark. I just froze and couldn't move.
As soon as it got to the other side of my bed and climbed off me, the dog stopped growling and went back to her bed. I waited a few moments then got up, turned the light on and looked about the room and out the window, but there was nothing to be found."
History of the House
"A short time later a gentleman from the floor below mentioned how things have changed at Chessel's Court. I asked him what he meant and he said that my bathroom used to be where the kitchen was and the kitchen where the bathroom was, and that the door to my bedroom used to be at the end where my bed is now. That gave me the answer as to why whoever it was came through the wall where they did."
Ghosts
"People in the court have said that there were ghosts about the place, but in all the years I lived there this was the only encounter I have had there. (Thank you to John for submitting this story)

RADISSON BLU HOTEL (FORMERLY SCANDIC CROWN) ROYAL MILE
Submitted by a visitor who was here on business in November 2011:
"I arrived from London yesterday evening with a pack suitcase which was locked.
I had a smoke at the airport and put my lighter away in my pocket. Nothing unusual there, I hear you say...
Well I took a taxi to the hotel and checked in. As they were preparing my room, I decided I would have another smoke before I turned in for the night. I checked all my pockets and I could not find my lighter.... I assumed it must have fallen out of my pocket in the taxi.
Later as I was trying to sleep, I could hear noises coming out of the bathroom as if someone was moving my toiletries around... I thought nothing of this and tried to sleep...
This happened a few times so I just put in some ear plugs, thinking there must be something up with the aircon in the hotel.
Well this morning I took my suit out of the dry cleaners packaging... with my suit sealed in by tape. I put my hand in my pocket to put my wallet away and I found my lighter in my suit pocket....
Strange as it was in a locked suitcase and put away in a plastic bag which was taped shut by the dry cleaners..."