Terrifying Ghost Stories From The Most Haunted City In The World

Some say Edinburgh has more ghosts per square foot than anywhere else on Earth. The city is believed to host a headless drummer, a demented shopkeeper, and an apparition known as the Dung Prisoner, and that's just the beginning. We’ve dug up some of the most sinister supernatural stories from Scotland’s capital. Read on, if you dare!

1. Greyfriars Bobby – the ghost dog

The tale of Greyfriars Bobby is a touching story of a man and his faithful hound. Let's first set the scene. The Greyfriars in question is a church – or kirk as they call it in Scotland – surrounded by a graveyard. Dating back to 1620, the kirk is set in Edinburgh’s Old Town, not far from the Royal Mile. Our story begins after one John Gray, a nightwatchman, was buried in the kirk’s graveyard in 1858.

Faithful 'til the end

During his life, Gray owned a Skye Terrier, Bobby, a dog that was truly devoted to him. And after Gray’s death, the loyal hound would turn up at the kirkyard every day to sit and grieve by his master’s grave. Bobby became famous in the city and continued his daily visits until he too passed away in 1872. Today you can visit Greyfriars and admire a handsome statue of the loyal hound. Best do so in daylight, though, since the graveyard’s said to be haunted by fearsome spirits of the night.

2. A ghostly bagpiper

Most Scots get a patriotic tingle up the spine when they hear the notes of a bagpipe. But there’s one Edinburgh bagpiper who’s more likely to strike fear into the hearts of listeners. He’s a young lad who, so the tale goes, came to an unfortunate end in the labyrinthine tunnels that run beneath Edinburgh Castle. These subterranean passages extend all along the Royal Mile.

Listen for the music

Apparently, some folks were curious about the extent of the mysterious tunnels. An entrance had been uncovered at the castle. It was only large enough for a child, though, so a young piper was sent down. He was to play his pipes as he progressed so those above could trace his route. But the pipes fell silent outside the Tron Kirk, about half a mile down the Royal Mile. The lad was never seen again. And ever since, many have reported hearing strains of ghostly piping coming from beneath that very street.

3. George Street Jane

George Street is a broad, handsome avenue in Edinburgh’s magnificent New Town, built in neo-classical style in the late 18th century. Today it’s best known as a swish shopping street with upmarket hotels and cocktail bars. But few of the people spending time there now will know the sorry and haunting tale of one Jane Vernelt.

Returning to the shop

Vernelt ran a dress shop on George Street. Some accounts say financial problems forced her to sell up in 1892, others that she’d lost her wits. Whatever the truth, it seems that losing the store was a tragedy for her. It’s believed that she ended her days confined to an asylum, dying early in the 20th century. Since then her ghost’s said to appear regularly on George Street. The apparition makes its way towards the site of her old shop, which is actually long gone.

4. Rosslyn Chapel

Founded in 1456, Rosslyn Chapel is an extraordinary building bedecked with elaborate stone carvings inside and out. It’s set a few miles south of Edinburgh’s outskirts in the village of Roslin. The chapel was catapulted to fame by author Dan Brown, who used it as a setting in his novel The Da Vinci Code. But it had its own eerie stories to tell long before Brown’s best-seller was published.

Ghost monks

A gaggle of ghostly monks is said to haunt Rosslyn Chapel. There have been reports of hooded apparitions praying at the altar. In one case a monk was surrounded by four ghostly knights. The monks are also said to patrol the grounds around the chapel. And when a storm breaks, a phantom dog apparently wanders the estate, barking insistently.

5. Bloody Mackenzie

In the 17th century, Sir George Mackenzie held the position of Lord Advocate, Scotland’s chief prosecutor. He gained a thoroughly unsavory reputation as a ruthless lawman because of his persecution of the Covenanters. They were religious rebels, determined that Scotland should be a Presbyterian country. Many were imprisoned in appalling conditions in Greyfriars Kirkyard, resulting in hundreds of deaths.

Plagued by a poltergeist

The Lord Advocate’s part in this cruel affair earned him the nickname of “Bloody Mackenzie.” After his death in 1691, Mackenzie was buried in a mausoleum in Greyfriars’ graveyard. But his grave was accidentally damaged by a homeless man seeking shelter in 1999. Ever since then, the kirkyard’s been plagued by a poltergeist, believed to be the ghost of Bloody Mackenzie himself.

6. The Wizard of West Bow

It was in 1670 that Major Thomas Weir, known as the Wizard of West Bow, did something very strange. At a religious meeting of the Presbyterian splinter group he worshipped with, he stood up and made an extraordinary confession. By his own account, he was guilty of a variety of hideous sins. What’s more, he claimed to be a servant of the devil himself. The most extraordinary thing was that Weir had always been regarded as an exceptionally devout man.

Never left

The plot thickened when Weir’s sister Grizel, also of previously unblemished character, confessed that she too had been involved in her brother’s dark excesses. The siblings were tried on charges of deviancy. Guilty was the verdict and both were brutally put to death. Weir proceeded to haunt West Bow and the surrounding district – and continues to do so, according to some. You can still stroll along West Bow, a cobbled street in Edinburgh’s Old Town. You might even see Weir’s ghost.

7. Mary Queen of Scots

The imposing Borthwick Castle’s stood 10 miles south of Edinburgh for the past six centuries or so. It’s still in use today and available for hire to host weddings, conferences, and parties. But it has a rather more sinister past. And one of the people who passed through the castle over the years was Mary Queen of Scots.

Ghost in disguise

Her brief stay at Borthwick Castle came in 1567. Mary was on the run at the time, suspected of complicity in the death of her murdered husband, Lord Darnley. Desperate to escape her pursuers, she fled from the castle dressed as a page boy. Her ghost, it’s said, is still to be seen wandering the castle in that same costume.

8. Mary King's Close

Up until the 17th century, Mary King’s Close was part of a web of dank alleyways running off the Royal Mile, the road that goes all the way from Edinburgh Castle to Holyrood Palace. These houses were at the bottom of high buildings that lined the street. Living conditions inside them were abysmal, so they were reserved for the poorest of the poor.

Doomed to die

One tale has it that during an outbreak of plague the residents were locked into their Mary King’s Close slums and left to perish. And it’s the ghosts of these former residents that are said to haunt this section of the Royal Mile. Today, some of this underground labyrinth has been preserved, and you can take a tour of these eerie, abandoned streets.

9. The Canongate Tolbooth

Built in 1591, the Canongate Tolbooth on the Royal Mile’s instantly recognizable from its turrets and large clock. Originally, it was the local jail, courthouse, and venue for council meetings. Today, it’s home to the Tolbooth Tavern and a museum dedicated to the history of Edinburgh’s people. But it’s the Tolbooth’s haunting that interests us here.

Unexplained occurrences

One regularly sighted apparition is said to be the ghost of a man who climbs the stairs up to the clock tower. This unfortunate was apparently imprisoned at the Tolbooth on a charge of witchcraft. Some visitors to the building also claim to have heard the eerie voices of children. And there have been incidents in the tavern as well – glasses inexplicably flying off tables and sinister noises echoing from nowhere.

10. The Dung Prisoner

Perched atop a huge lump of volcanic rock, Edinburgh Castle has served as a prison as well as a defensive stronghold. One particular internee’s been given the unfortunate title of the “Dung Prisoner.” So just how did he earn that unsavory nickname? It’s hardly how anyone would choose to be remembered, after all. Well, this prisoner’s overwhelming urge to escape earned him his unflattering name.

Poor hiding place

So he hid in the contents of a hand cart. Unfortunately, the barrow was laden with dung. Not a great start – but things got much worse. Because the handlers of the cart dumped its foul-smelling load over the high castle walls, prisoner and all. The would-be escapee then met his demise on the rocks below. Castle visitors have reported unseen hands trying to push them off the battlements – and also an overpowering reek of dung.

11. The Grey Lady

Janet Douglas, Lady of Glamis was the victim of an angry king, James V. The king’s mother had married the Earl of Douglas, Janet’s brother, when James was an infant though already officially the ruler of Scotland. His stepfather then effectively ruled the kingdom until James came of age. But once the king took the reins of power in 1528, he turned against the Douglas clan.

Betrayal

The Earl of Douglas then fled Scotland, so James turned his attention to his sister. He seized Janet Douglas and imprisoned her at Edinburgh Castle. She was soon tried as a witch and condemned to death, a sentence that was carried out with distressing cruelty. Now the Lady of Glamis haunts the castle as the Grey Lady. Reportedly, when she appears, hammering noises echo around the ramparts. They’re said to be the sound of her gallows being erected.

12. Edinburgh Playhouse Theatre

The Edinburgh Playhouse opened as a cinema in 1929 with a capacity of more than 3,000. Set to the east of the city’s main shopping drag, Princes Street, it still operates as a theater today. But the Playhouse is no ordinary venue, as it has its own resident ghost. And for some reason, the folks who work there call him Arthur.

Meet Arthur

The origins of the ghostly Arthur aren’t entirely clear. Some say that he may be haunting the theater because he’s the spirit of a stagehand who died after a fatal mishap. Others claim Arthur was a night watchman who took his own life. Whatever the truth, this apparition appears as a man dressed in grey, and he brings with him a chilling burst of cold air.

13. Regent Terrace

Regent Terrace is a quaint cobbled street with a terrace of fine Georgian houses built in the early 19th century. Not far from Holyrood Palace – that’s where royalty stay when they visit Edinburgh – it’s a highly desirable place to call home. An estate agent dubbed it the most expensive street in Scotland in 2020. But not so long ago, it was rather down-at-heel and neglected.

Haunted basement

Back in 1979, many of the imposing houses had been split into apartments. One was a basement that was home to four students. And they were subjected to some terrifying supernatural happenings. A baby cried through the night, yet no infant was to be found. Other strange noises disturbed the peace. Eventually, the four friends were so frightened that they all slept in one bedroom.

14. The South Bridge vaults

Opened in 1788, Edinburgh’s South Bridge runs from the east end of Princes Street north to the Old Town, spanning the city’s railroad station. There are also a series of vaults beneath the bridge, which extends for around 1,000 feet across its 19 arches. And those vaults had become slum housing of the worst kind by the early 19th century. Up to 15 people were crammed into each vault in the damp darkness under the bridge.

Restless spirits

Eventually, the vaults were filled with rubble and their former inhabitants were forgotten. But they were rediscovered in the 1980s and now you can visit them. There’ve since been many reports of strange happenings and ghost sightings – sometimes even during guided tours. These are presumably the restless spirits of those who lived there centuries ago and died in the dreadful, disease-ridden conditions.

15. The Arthur’s Seat coffins

Arthur’s Seat is the whimsical name given to an 800-foot-tall volcanic outcropping that looms over Holyrood Palace. Its name may be derived from Gaelic. Or, some say, the hill has a connection with the mythical King Arthur of Camelot. In any case, perhaps the oddest incident ever to happen there came in the summer of 1836. Some lads were out on its slopes, hunting for rabbits.

Strange discovery

But the youngsters soon forgot hunting when they stumbled across something truly weird. Hidden behind some stone slabs was a small cave. Inside it were 17 tiny coffins, each containing a little wooden figure. Who’d put them there? What was their purpose? Those and other questions remain unanswered to this day. But if you’re in Edinburgh, some of the coffins are on display at the National Museum of Scotland. So go and take a look – maybe you can come up with a theory!

16. A ghost from ancient Egypt

Learmonth Gardens is a solid middle-class street to the south of Edinburgh’s New Town. If you walked along the road, ghosts and ghouls would hardly spring to mind. But this salubrious street does have its own sinister tale. To get the gist of it, we need to travel back in time to the 1930s. During that period one of the houses on Learmonth Gardens was the family home of a baronet called Sir Alexander Seton.

Haunted souvenir

The Setons took a vacation to Egypt, visiting the Temple of Luxor while they were there. Unwisely, though, Lady Seton took a piece of bone from the ancient site and brought it back to Edinburgh. The bone fragment was then mounted in a glass case. But strange things began to happen in the house. China ornaments were smashed, there were loud, unexplained noises, and furniture was overturned. An apparition in robes made several appearances. And the disturbances only ceased after the bone had been burnt.

17. Johnny One Arm

Orwell Place is in the west of central Edinburgh and one of the buildings there was known as Dalry House. This building was said to be home to one of the capital city’s most notorious ghosts: Johnny One Arm. His real name was John Chiesly and he lived during the 17th century. It seems that he had marital problems. We know that because he’d been ordered to pay his former wife a large annual sum by way of alimony.

Got what was coming to him

But Chiesly wasn’t happy with this order, so he tracked down the magistrate who’d made it and murdered him. The forces of law and order soon caught up with Chiesly and the killer lost an arm in the process. To add insult to injury, he was then hanged. Next, though, his body disappeared. And soon after, his ghost, easily identifiable by the missing limb, began to terrify the good folk of Edinburgh.

18. The witches of North Berwick

North Berwick, a seaside town about 30 miles east of Edinburgh, became notorious in the 1590s for the many witch trials conducted there. Innocent women were accused and convicted of witchcraft in the town’s court. Once found guilty, the prisoners were taken to Edinburgh Castle and imprisoned until their sentences could be carried out.

Good reason to haunt

Gruesomely, the standard punishment for a convicted witch was to be burned at the stake. As many as 200 women were convicted at trial in North Berwick at a time when a fevered hunt for witches gripped all of Scotland. As many as 4,000 witches were put to death across the country during this period. So of the many spirits that haunt Edinburgh, it’s a fair bet that some of them are the ghosts of executed witches.

19. The headless drummer boy

Edinburgh Castle has been at the center of many bitter conflicts that have divided Scotland over the centuries. But it’s said that whenever attackers were about to assault the Castle Rock, there was someone – or something – that warned of trouble on the way. And that information came in a very sinister form indeed.

A frightening warning

The castle garrison knew that an assault was imminent whenever they saw the ghostly figure of a drummer boy playing his instrument on the battlements. But this drummer boy had a very distinctive characteristic: he lacked a head. Who he was or how he lost his head remains a mystery. But he hasn’t been seen for many years. Then again, though, the Castle hasn’t come under attack since 1745.

20. The Black Dinner

Scotland’s internal politics in the 15th century could be ferocious in their violence. In 1440 James II was on the Scottish throne, an infant ruler. Scotland’s leading families were in bitter competition as to who should control the young king and by extension the nation. One particularly bitter struggle came between a faction led by Alexander Livingston and William Crichton on one side and the powerful Douglas clan on the other.

Gruesome end

Crichton and Alexander invited William, the Earl of Douglas, and his younger brother to Edinburgh Castle for dinner with the ten-year-old James II. William was 16 at the time. The two Douglas boys were then dragged from the banqueting hall and slaughtered. The incident came to be known as the Black Dinner. And it’s said to have inspired the extravagant bloodshed in the Red Wedding scene in Game of Thrones.