With Halloween almost here, Edinburgh’s award-winning historical escape room experiences Escape the Past has researched and put together the top 10 most haunted locations in the city.
Escape the Past’s highly qualified, history-loving team of eight, are extremely well placed to give fellow city-dwellers, the capital’s most haunted locales.
The history-loving owner behind Escape the Past, Chris Wood, who studied history at Edinburgh University, said: “You just have to glance over our city’s history and you can understand why Edinburgh has such a chilling reputation. Few places on earth have packed quite so much murder, mystery and misery into just a few square miles.
“Beneath Edinburgh’s elegant spires lie forgotten vaults and buried streets once ravaged by the plague. Kirkyards that were plundered by resurrection men, the Grassmarket gallows drew crowds in their thousands to watch executions, and the city’s hilltops once blazed with the fires of the witch trials.
“We conducted research with our deeply knowledgeable team who have worked as veteran tour guides in our city, studied history and conducted a lot of research into our capital’s dark history, to create our escape rooms.
“For our research, we weighed up the number of recorded sightings, the paranormal investigations each place has attracted, and how long its legend has endured in Edinburgh literature and lore.”
Check out the top 10 most haunted Edinburgh locations in our photo gallery below.
5. Major Weir’s House
Major Thomas Weir, a respected 17th-century religious figure, shocked Edinburgh when he confessed to a series of sexual crimes and was executed in 1670. Folklore subsequently cast him as a warlock, and his former home on the West Bow became notorious for unexplained lights, eerie music and a phantom coach turning up outside. A tall, dark figure is still said to appear in the area, with sightings reportedly extending into the nearby Quaker Meeting House, with workers having seen Weir walking through walls! | Google Maps
6. The Palace of Holyroodhouse
The King’s official residence in Scotland has a dark history of royal intrigue and murder. In 1566 David Rizzio, the Italian secretary to Mary, Queen of Scots, was brutally stabbed by her second husband Lord Darnley and his band of conspirators, as rumours reached him of an affair between his wife and Rizzio. Legend claims a bloodstain repeatedly returns to the floor, while the spirits of Rizzio, Mary’s husband Lord Darnley, and the tortured and executed accused witch Agnes Sampson are said to haunt the palace. | Stock
7. The White Hart Inn
Dating back in part to 1516, the White Hart Inn in the Grassmarket is reputed to be Edinburgh’s most haunted pub. With a history linked to public executions and legends that Burke and Hare once drank there, it has attracted reports of ghostly figures, unexplained noises, flying plates, mysteriously operating beer taps and even a pair of spectral legs in the cellar. | Stock
8. Queensberry House
Now part of the Scottish Parliament, Queensberry House is associated with one of Edinburgh’s most disturbing local legends. The story goes that, in 1707, the young Earl of Drumlanrig escaped confinement and killed a kitchen boy, allegedly cooking him over the fire. The kitchen boy’s ghost is said to haunt the building, although historians have questioned whether the gruesome tale is true. | TSPL