CULTURAL SPOTLIGHT

Edinburgh's Ghost Walks

By Mona Awad

Beyond the cosmopolitan bustle of Edinburgh's New Town, the medieval, craggy tiers of the Royal Mile still stand tall and imposing. Once notorious for its tumultuous history, Edinburgh now revels in its ghosts ­– and ghost stories. To sample the city at its most colorful, dare to try one of the many guided ghost walks through the turreted heart of the Old City.

City underground

While a stroll along the Royal Mile is charming, you can also enjoy an amble beneath its cobbled streets. The gloomy wynds and closes (narrow alleys) that extend underground were once lined with tenement houses rising up to seven stories high. Built to accommodate the overcrowding that plagued the Middle Ages, the top stories of these medieval "high-rises" were knocked down in the 18th century. The lower sections remain intact as the foundation for the Royal Exchange (now the City Chambers) – a maze of vaults and buried streets, relics of previous incarnations of the city.

Named after the wife of a merchant burgess, The Real Mary King's Close tour offers a storied sojourn through the most infamous section of this underground labyrinth. Costumed guides tell how centuries of overcrowding and pestilence made it one of the most haunted places in Edinburgh, with sightings dating back to 1685. Mary King herself is purported to haunt the place – as is a headless gentleman. The flickering candlelight, gruesome waxwork scenarios and eerie sound effects give the impression that something wicked this way came. I was spooked enough to suspect each shadow in the grim corridor of being the famous little girl ghost, Annie, a plague victim said to wander the close in perpetual search of her lost doll…

A more unnerving subterranean experience awaits in Auld Reekie, an hour-long amble through three haunted underground vaults. We actually entered the tunnels through a hole that a student had chopped through his wall in the 1970s after discovering that one of the walls in his Old Town apartment was hollow. No bells and whistles are needed to make this tour frightening. It's more than enough to wander the 300-year-old darkness with a guide who masterfully weaves tales by a dying flashlight. Highlights include a visit to an abandoned pagan circle and a chance encounter with the active South Bridge poltergeist, allegedly responsible for numerous attacks on guides and tourists. I retreated to the torture museum to enjoy my free whisky and shortbread. Much needed, and ever so comforting.

City of the dead

Ghost stories are one thing. Edinburgh ghost stories told after dark in an Edinburgh cemetery are another. In the heart of Greyfriars graveyard, Black Hart Entertainment's City of the Dead tour provides what is undoubtedly the scariest paranormal experience to be had in Scotland. It features a visit to the Covenanters Prison and the Black Mausoleum, the bleak lair of the Mackenzie poltergeist, the ghost of a notorious 17th-century judge responsible for the imprisonment and execution of over 1,000 covenanters. Following initial sightings of the poltergeist, this site was locked by the City of Edinburgh Council, and now this is the only tour group to have access. The Discovery Channel dubbed it the most terrifying thing they ever investigated – with good reason.

Where to stay

On Castlehill stands what is, according to Cosmopolitan magazine, "one of the seven wonders of the hotel world." It's haunted, of course, but what isn't in this town? Dubbed the "perfect lust-den" by Dannii Minogue, The Witchery by the Castle epitomizes the Edinburgh balance of Gothic and modern elegance. Each of the seven uniquely campy luxury suites is fitted with a Bose sound system and roll-top bathtubs fit for two. (One suite even has a secret passageway.) Rates include continental breakfast, a bottle of champagne and the promise of things that go bump in the night…

(Mona Awad is a freelance journalist who has been previously published in Maisonneuve, Utne and Tidings. She is currently at work on a book.)

GATE: BLACK HART ENTERTAINMENT
STREET: LUIS ALVAREZ / ISTOCKPHOTO