Episode 3 Haunted Edinburgh: Beautiful By Day Haunted By Night

In this episode of Lights On, Still Scared, we journey to the historic streets of Edinburgh, a city often described as one of the most haunted places in the world. A place where we now call home.

From the shadowy closes of the Old Town to the infamous underground vaults, we explore the chilling legends, ghostly encounters, and dark history that have earned Edinburgh its supernatural reputation. Along the way, we share some of the city's most unsettling hauntings, eyewitness accounts, and paranormal tales that continue to intrigue visitors and locals alike.

We'll also discuss some of our own experiences and thoughts on the paranormal, examining what draws us to these stories and whether there may be more to them than mere folklore.

So dim the lights, settle in, and join us as we uncover the haunted heart of Scotland's capital.

Are the ghosts of Edinburgh simply stories from the past, or do some spirits still walk its ancient streets?

🎙️ Lights On, Still Scared — because some stories stay with you long after the lights come back on.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So far we've been talking about the places we grew up in, Leatherhead and Aberdeen, and the stories that came from there, but now we're somewhere else. These days we're both living in Edinburgh, a city that's known for its history, its old streets, and of course lots of ghost stories. So in this episode, we wanted to take a look at what's been reported here and whether it feels any different when it's happening a bit closer to home.

SPEAKER_03 0:30

I keep the hall light on, but the shadows never fade. Every corner whispers secrets of the choices that I made.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

I'm fine.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

Nice to see you back.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

So we have done Leatherhead and we've done Aberdeen. We have our hometowns. So now we are doing Edinburgh where we both live.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

Yes, yes. Current home, Edinburgh. Most haunted city in Europe.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

Indeed. I'm sure loads of people have heard stories about Edinburgh.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

Yes. Emergh's a very interesting city, of course, given its age and its history, and it's meant to be very haunted. But uh one thing I would say about Edinburgh, it's interesting is for me as a guide listening to other people's stories because the stories themselves, or some of them at least, tend to get a little exaggerated, some of them, but there's so many good things here. And I've had a few experiences here which I would say are personal experiences and definitely uh not easy to explain. So if you don't mind, I'm gonna dive into some respect stories now and see what you think. Okay. Uh so the first one tonight tonight we're gonna talk about is the witchery at the castle.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

I've been there.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

Yes, I have been there. Do you remember the room? Can I ask?

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Um, I went to the restaurant. I didn't actually go to the hotel.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

Uh was it nice?

SPEAKER_01 3:26

My husband complained about the candles because there's a lot of candles and he was very, very hot. So I was expecting a nice romance with candles, but no, he was getting very hot and sweaty. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

I didn't read that in the reviews. I'm glad you brought this up.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

But I mean, the restaurant itself has got certainly an atmosphere, isn't it? It does, it does. It's dark, and I think they do play on it a bit, so it's quite dark.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

They do play on a bit, yeah. There is there's many beams there with little witch symbols on it and all that kind of thing. Whether they are actually from the time of the witch trials or executions or not, I do not know and cannot say because I wasn't there, but that's the thing of it. But the witchery, yeah, it's an interesting place. Now, the witchery, as you're probably well aware, started off as a restaurant and subsequently became a hotel, a high-end hotel, or at least a high-end suite of rooms, if you like, and each each suite of rooms has a theme. So you've got one called a library full of books, you've got one called the rectory, I believe, which is like church paraphernalia, that's the right word to use, and such like, and you've oh, and eventually, of course, they took over Jolly's Close, which is the building opposite. So there's two parts to Witchery. Okay. And back in the 1980s, a certain guy called Charles Cameron, who owned the wax or at least ran the Embraer Wax Museum, used to work with the owner, James Thompson, and put on little witchery kind of events, I believe. And they did at one time have the effigy of a witch in the restaurant, which I did not realize, and it was meant to be spooky, and they played up in that somewhat. And on one occasion in Halloween, they decided to have I think they had like a what one would describe as a kind of medium, but I don't know if it was a I would say a real medium, but as opposed to somebody who's putting on a show of some description, and uh the person was doing some fake seance or something like it, at least this was what's recorded in the newspapers, and an incident occurred which made them stop doing that again. And what that incident was, I don't know because the paper didn't specify, but they all got scared, and the the customers got scared, yeah. So they stopped doing that kind of thing. Anyway, it's a bit of a reputation as being haunted, and I stayed there. I've actually stayed there a few times. I'm not being boastful. This is many years ago, and it was a hell lot cheaper then. So I was gonna say no, not now, Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

It's very expensive to stay there now.

SPEAKER_00 6:15

It's very expensive, very beautiful, but expensive. But uh back uh 30 years ago when I was married, uh we stayed there, and it was it was just about affordable. And we stayed there for one night, and uh, we stayed in Jolly's close in the armory suite, which is full of like memorabilia connected to the military. And we were leaving the second day, and this gentleman appeared, and his name was Roxy, and very lovely guy, and he'd worked there for some time, I believe, and he said, Folks, I've got a wee surprise for you, and gave me a brown envelope, and on the envelope, or in the envelope, was uh a free night, like a gift card. We got a free night from our friends in Aberdeen, which I'm mentioning again, and they were lovely, and I was so delighted. So, thank you very much, friends. I've never forgotten it, and um, I ended up uh staying the second night, but it was a bit weird because you know when you get that feeling up in the back of the neck and the hair goes up and the creepiness, that's kind of what it was like. And if my memory serves me correctly, Carol, who's quite sensitive to these things and as an spiritual healer, was not overly enamoured with the vibe of the place and had gone to bed, and I had stayed up or couldn't sleep, I can't remember, I think I'd stayed up anyhow. But what I do remember was I went to get tea, now it was quite late, and when you leave the bedroom, you head down a corridor, and on your right hand, sorry, your left hand side there are three windows or two windows overlooking kind of like like whatever's below, it's like a courtyard. On the right, you've got like a wee seating area. I think the bath was there in one of the alcoves, and then you've got the bathroom and kitchen toilet, as it were, round the corridor. And I went and got tea, and I'm coming back and I'm at the bedroom door with the tea, you know, trying to get in. And a ghost dog ran round the corner. But I could hear it first of all scraping, which kind of got me a bit thinking, what's round the corner? Okay, and this dog appeared, and it's really weird, and all I can describe it as is like a deer hound or wolf hound was bloody big, and it just literally appeared, and you know, my brain hadn't quite clicked in at that point. Like, why is there a dog in the room? But it was actually at my feet within like a nanosecond, it just went boom boom like that, and I I I remember the tea spilling everywhere because it did, because I got a shock, and the dog, of course, vanished, and I bolted into the bedroom, and um it was strange because Carol was still sleeping, and I never woke her up. I just got in the bed, I sort of lay there, like you know, peering out from the covers, a lone eye roving in the room and uh fell asleep eventually. And in the morning, um Carol said to me, How did you sleep? And I said, Well, not very well, and I explained what had happened, and she countered that with, Well, I saw a guy wandering about at the foot of the bed. It was dark, but you know, she could see the shadow moving about, and then she would stand staring, and uh that was our evening, which was you know unusual. So basically what happened was we eventually, when when the breakfast arrived, said to Roxy, Is it haunted? And he said, Well, yes, because all his associates had seen similar things. Right, not the dog, but but interestingly, um things like when you made the bed and you would go and get teas and coffees, there's kind of cupboards outside the room, you can replenish stock. They'd go back in the room and somebody'd either lain on the bed and create an imprint or the bed clothes had been pulled back, and so this was quite a regular occurrence. In fact, one mate of his seemed to just happen to this guy consistently till he actually asked it to stop, and which it did, but he was at the point of quitting his job. So this is kind of interesting. Phenomenon. He did also say that a couple had arrived in the same room that we'd been in and lasted about like half an hour before the woman got freaked out and sort of demanded, you know, a different room. I don't even know if she used that as an excuse that it was haunted, but I would imagine the concierge would have raised an eyebrow or two to thought.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

So, what was the room felt like on the first night? You were there the first night, it was it was perfectly fine.

SPEAKER_00 10:27

Yeah, it's weird because you know it it did feel nice. I think it felt kind of it was interesting because all this there's a lot of old stuff in it that's also reclaimed stuff, and stuff that's obviously new but made to look old, I guess. It might be a combo, the both, I don't know. But it certainly felt okay. Right. Uh second night felt a bit kind of bristly, a bit weird. But it was strange because actually, um because I ended up, you know, years later moving here and and got a job as a guide, and and I remember, well, I don't know, four years ago or whatever it was, uh I was sort of doing Airbnb stuff, and it wasn't like you know a rip-roaring success, but I was doing a few things, and this lady had signed up for the tour, and it used to be like a two-hour ghost tour, but she was from America and she was a medium, you see. So she said quite early on, well, you know, I'm a medium, and I thought fair enough. So we went around and she was sort of saying things as we went around, you know, this would have been a such and such, or I felt this. It was interesting because you know she'd never been in Embra before, but she was certainly picking up on what historically we knew to be true. So we get to the the witchery, and I told the story, and it's quite a funny story, you know, because you know, I did I did drop the tea and screech out of me like a scalded cat and all that kind of thing, you know, as you do. And um I was explaining all this to her and she was like, Oh, this is very interesting. She said, Well, I'll tell you why the dog was there. Because she just she didn't she didn't say, 'Well, that's all crap,' you know. She said, 'I'll tell you why the dog's there.' The dog was there because there's an object in the room that belonged to its owner, and so the dog comes back because it's attracted to the object. Right. Yeah. So I thought, okay, what object? Well, it's a hat, she said, but it's the middle one of three, and it sits in a cabinet at the foot of the bed, and there were three hats, as far as I remember, at the foot of the bed, and I had been wearing one when I was drunk taking selfies, which learned me a lesson. So, folks, if you're ever in a hotel and you see a hat, don't pick it up. Don't pick the hat on. But I thought, wow, that's kind of weird and mind-blowing and random, but it kind of made me think, well, you need personal to it.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

Those kind of dogs, they're not small dogs, it's they're big dogs.

SPEAKER_00 12:37

Yeah, and I and that, I think I mentioned earlier on that's the kind of dog I want. So that maybe was why. Yeah. But it was a big dog, yeah. And it was interesting. Um, but yeah, all sorts of hijinks up there over the years from people who've said they've seen things, and uh it was really interesting to get a story a sort of corroborated, if you like, from somebody who's more spiritually inclined, shall we say?

SPEAKER_05 12:58

That was interesting. Very interesting.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

I mean the Royal Mile's got tons of stories, but obviously many you have to probably take with an enormous grain of grain of salt. I think one that does often repeat is the one about the drummer boy underneath Edra Cassie. Oh, yes, yeah, which is a difficult one to, you know, because there's obviously been no evidence of it. And also, is there a tunnel under there?

SPEAKER_01 13:18

Well, I don't know, but does any of them rumours that there's tunnels, isn't it? There are rumours of tunnels. There's meant to be rumours of tunnels from the castle down to Holyrood Palace.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

Yes. But if I was the person in charge and I had the wherefore to do it, I'd be willing to get in there and have a look. I'd be curious, but you know, it's one of these things that remains a mystery, and there are obviously tunnels that are open to the public, like Southbridge and Mary King's and all that kind of thing. And God only knows, there must be tons of other things. I mean, look at the lost close recently, which had been kind of buried under rubble for about 200 years. It's been, you know, so there are things there to be found. Interesting. But as you walk down the Royal Mile and you get to places, you know, like one of Emra's most haunted streets, which is obviously uh Nidry Street, or they assume anyway. You've got the Tron Church, and that's a really good story from the Tron Church that I was given that it was given by given personally given to by a policeman, an ex-policeman called Graham, funnily enough. And he used to do an art class, and this guy used to come along, he's from Newcastle, really sound guy, and he gave me the story and handwritten out for me, very nice guy, explaining what happened to two colleagues in the mid-90s in Edinburgh uh at the Tron, and uh basically this is it. It was two people patrolling, male, female officer, snowy night, really deep snow, uh, nobody around, and so they're plodding down the street. Uh God, I don't even know if policemen plodd about the street anymore, but they did then, and they're plodding down the street in in this god-awful weather, and there were two boys with shorts and caps in old-fashioned clothing playing in the snow at the Tron steps. And of course, they stood there and they thought, well, this is a bit unusual. One, it's you know, the middle of the night, and these boys don't look like they're wearing clothes from the from this era, and the boys were sort of apparently throwing the snow up in the air, but there was no sound. And so they sort of momentarily stopped and looked, and then thought, so they approached the boys and they took off around the corner. And of course the police followed them. But the thing is, when they got around the corner on Ridley Street, they were gone. And of course, there was no footprints and so they went back to the station and told their colleagues and got laughed out the door. So I did a talk years ago and I was speaking, I was telling a very story, in fact, and uh this person, Lindsay, came across as uh my dad was there at the police station at the time when the police came in and said this is what happened, and he just thought it was cobblers, shall we say, but he was there and this is what they reported. And he saw two boys, and that's a true story. And who they were, I have no idea, but who knows? These things just randomly happen or don't happen as you know. But that was interesting. Interesting.

unknown 16:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:07

I mean, that's a very creepy place anyway, the Tron. Yeah. I'm not keen, I must admit I. I mean, it's now it's a nice little like market place. Yeah, it's not a little, but yeah, there's there's something about the Tron that's a bit Yeah, it is odd, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 16:24

It's um I remember when it used to be uh, you know, when it was when they when they found the remains of what was Marlon's wind underneath it. You remember it used to get there's a little bridge you could walk around and see excavations of of of old streets. There was a a skeletal rat. I always found that very intriguing, sort of lying there, like you know charming. But it was kind of interesting. It was interesting, and then of course the craft here, which is lovely, but I did like it as the old, it did feel creepy, it did feel creepy, but all that's still there, which I always find interesting when you're walking about thinking all that stuff is still lurking around there. I don't know. So I um I kind of segueing into here slightly as you do.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

Where are you taking us, man?

SPEAKER_00 17:08

Well, I'm in Nidry Street, I'm still there and I'm not moving because I'm at the pub. Oh where do they go at the pub?

SPEAKER_01 17:13

Let's go to the pub.

SPEAKER_00 17:14

So a lot of good pubs in Nidry Street. Bannerman's is is good. Whistlebinkies is good, but my old favourite. If you know the one, I know the one.

SPEAKER_01 17:24

Banshee Labyrinth. Banshee.

SPEAKER_00 17:26

Banshee, God bless the Banshee. It's great. The Banshee um is built partially into the vaults, you know, so you've got like uh a sort of like vaulted chambers in there, and you've got the old cinema, which is might be haunted with the like it's got 40 seats. You can watch a movie in a vaulted 1780s or there about cinema, which I think is fabulous. Not the cinema from 1780, because it didn't exist, but the but the space. I don't I don't want any pedants getting on to me about this, going, no, this is not true. There was no cinemas back then.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

Well, there wouldn't be many films going on in the 1780s.

SPEAKER_00 17:58

I don't know. Well, it's shadow puppets, probably, or something like that. But anyway, it's a creepy, who knows? But it was a creepy place, and uh I've been there a few times in investigations, which is always interesting, but I've got some uh some interesting stories from there. And there was one that I was told again a personal story told by uh a lady called Kirsty, who's who's a pal of my wife's, uh, and she um had a weird experience there. Now they say the building was built on the site of a witch torturer's house, a friend of King Charles uh the sixth sorry, King Charles, not King Charles. Forgive me, Your Majesty. You're not gonna get an item, King James the Sixth of Scotland, and uh he um yeah, he's witch obsessive. So basically, what you had going on here was this guy who was the witch torturer for the king, living in this area, and so the pub was known as the Lord Nicol Edward, because that was him. Uh now there's always a lot of debate. Is this you know is this really the case or whatever? But it was called the Lord Nickel Edward, and the ghost they think might be him is called The Watcher. And of course, anybody who knows anything about Ember Spooky stories knows that The Watcher is a kind of omnipresent spirit in the street, and he's been seen across various pubs and he's been seen in the vaults, blah blah blah. But he's always this shadowy figure that stands in the background. Interesting. But in this particular occasion, he was seen in all his full glory, if it is him, by Kirsty, uh who was cleaning glasses, you know, uh at closing time in the pub. And if you've been there, it's got about five or six rooms. So it is, as the name implies, a labyrinth.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

It is a little bit of a labyrinth, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:38

I always get lost in that.

SPEAKER_01 19:39

I always get lost. I go outside and then I turn up some kind of torture chamber, and I'm thinking, no, I've gone the wrong way.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

I think that might be the wrong pub, you're in. But we won't go into that.

SPEAKER_01 19:51

Oh, what's that? Yeah, let's go into that. No, you're right.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

It's full of full of like creepy dungeon-esque kind of things. I've got torture instruments there, yeah. Sort of pulls the room together. But anyway, this is the this is the the issue of the place. It's a lot of rooms. And she's cleaning glasses in her own, and her friends upstairs uh counting money or doing the the books as it were in the in the room where the the CCTV cameras banks are stationed. So I've been in it and you can see pretty much every shred of the building. And he's uh standing there watching Kirsty cleaning glasses until she stops and turns around and begins to look at the wall. And she's standing there for some time looking at the wall, you know, mesmerized as it were, and he's like wondering what the hell's going on, and he goes down to see what's going on, and of course, the spell, as it were, is broken, and she's been standing watching a guy watch her. And the guy had appeared behind her and had his hand on the bar and he had silver rings and great big hairy hands, and you know, he was solid, but he's wearing obviously what what she thought initially was some kind of costume, but she couldn't remember what his face was like. I don't know if that was because it didn't exist, which would be terrifying, or it was just blotted out her memory, but everything else was kind of solid and then had to go home, obviously quite upset, I would imagine, and obviously increasingly anxious because you know, would this entity go home with her, which actually people claim has has has happened. Really? Yeah. So anyway, she ends up going back and had to hand in her notice after a small you know, because you know, this idea of bumping at this figure again is pretty creepy. So that's what happened, and so the watcher is seen around there quite often. And of course, when there's been investigations, and we have been on one together some months back while we were on a tour, and this male energy, this angry voice, there's been this has been recorded frequently in certain rooms. So I do remember one instance recently where he seemed to be almost apologetic for this. Vent, but he was a sort of misogynistic spirit. So is it Laura Nickeler's? I have no clue. But that is the gist of it. Also, um, there is a haunted toilet which you know every good pub should have.

SPEAKER_01 22:17

Yes, indeed.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

Except this one, interestingly, when it became a unisex toilet recently, the hauntings have decreased. Which which is interesting.

SPEAKER_01 22:27

Now, which is interesting you say about the toilet, because when we were on that little tour there, yes, um, I did have an experience in the toilet.

SPEAKER_00 22:35

Really?

SPEAKER_01 22:36

I do believe, yes. Um, I was like wanted to go, as you do. Um, and I said to one of the ladies with and she said, Well, you can't go into the main one.

unknown 22:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:47

She said, There's loads of new morainos in there, that's the men's. She wasn't aware that it was a joint one, and I wasn't aware either. Yeah. And there's the disabled one next door. Right. So I said, Well, I'll go into there. So I went into there, and obviously done what I needed to do. And I was washing my hands, and the lights started to go.

SPEAKER_02 23:08

Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:09

And I thought, oh. And then as I was about to go out, the lock, it was it felt like it couldn't open, and then all of a sudden it opened. So I said to the manager, because she was opposite, and I went into the bar and I completely forgot that you'd said about that. And I said, Is there anything going on in the loot? Yeah. Oh, yeah. So I thought, okay, if I stayed there any longer, perhaps they would have been hijinks. There would have been hijinks.

SPEAKER_00 23:39

I would have been a man, there would have been a manifestation, which you don't want in the toilet, trust me. But the yeah, SJ's really well, she she was lovely. She's she's the manager. She gave me tons of good stories. Um, and she did talk about the toilet, of course, because it is a thing. And the lock, as you rightly mentioned, I'm glad you did mention this because I didn't know this, is one of the most common phenomena. The lock getting locked in. Or the lock opening.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:08

But I've also heard that sometimes the doors have c been unlocked and opened when people have been, you know.

SPEAKER_01 24:14

Yes, but he did say he's got this thing about women.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 24:17

That's probably why it's decreased so much because obviously there's men in there as well.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

There's men in there now. Yeah. They call him Jock, so he's might he's not maybe the watch, he's maybe another guy. But I don't know who he is, and I don't know who called him Jock to begin with. But anyway, it's him.

SPEAKER_01 24:31

I feel like he's a bit of a mischievous ghost rather than Yeah, malevolent. Malevolent, yeah. I think he just obviously likes the ladies.

SPEAKER_00 24:40

Well, it's weird you should say that because actually uh some years ago I sent a couple uh I recommended that pub to a couple who were on my tour, and they they I think they were from Reading, if I remember correctly, and they were all nice folk. And and I said, you know, I always give good pub recommendations. I said, Oh, you should go to the pub, blah blah blah. And they were like, Oh, we might do. You know, you f you never see them again, so you don't know what the hell they got up to. So they they'd obviously gone off and done their thing. But I do remember the next day standing at the meeting point, and the woman sort of sort of mar marched down comically towards me, like putting on a kind of bit of a show, staring at me, and said, Why did you not tell me about the haunted toilet? 'Cause we went to the pub under your recommendation. And I was a little cricky, you know, because you know it wasn't a ghost tour, and I never thought I'd, you know, I didn't think they need because I didn't think they'd go, but they did go, and she had a kind of similar experience to you. Except this time, um she had a bag wrenched off her shoulder, but it had been pinned on to her lapel by her husband. And she went with great pains and length to show me, you know, she did an operation, her hands, she was really I think it was arthritis or something, but she couldn't make a fist. So the husband had to pin the lapel uh you know, the bag onto lapel, otherwise it's gonna drop off. It's like a man bag type thing. But anyway, she's washing her hands. And something came in behind her and unclipped the old clip, and the bag was wheaked to the floor, as they say. And she left rather rapidly after that, and that's uh true story. So there you go.

SPEAKER_01 26:09

And there's also an story of a little girl there as well.

SPEAKER_00 26:13

Yes, that's correct. That's the that's the shoe up the chimney story. Which is uh so apparently the shoe was found with the name Molly in it. I don't know where the shoe is now, I've never asked to be honest, but the shoe the story is the shoe was found up a chimney, which was not an uncommon thing to World of Witchcraft, as you know. But the point being was when the shoe was found, a small spirit began to manifest in the area and was seen by certain members of staff running around. There was also a guy, I believe, who stayed overnight there, who's a manager who woke up in the middle of the night lying in one of the rooms. I think potentially one of those downstairs, was it the Mary Queen Scotch room? I can't remember offhand. There's so many different rooms. But there was uh something above him looking at him while he was sleeping, and he sprang up through whatever the figure was, and staff don't tend to sleep there anymore because he'd missed his bus. But I think the creepiest story for me was the one when I believe the current folk that own it were doing it up after it was the Lord Nicole Edwards, and I think they brought their kid with them, a wee girl. And she was insistent that there was a man on fire standing at the door and kept saying, Daddy or Mummy, who's the fireman? Who is the man on fire at the door? And of course, people said, Oh, the great fire of Embrah, blah blah blah, which was actually in the vicinity thereof. I'm not saying it was that street, but that was quite interesting. And uh she was insistent that's what was there, and apparently they downed tools and took a short yeah and legged it, yeah. I took a brief a brief lunch break, as it were, to avoid any more nastiness. But what an interesting place. And the funny thing is, a lot of people go there and they see the you know, because it's done up like a like a horror themed bar, and they see all that, like a dive bar, and they think, ah, well, this has got to be absolute rot because it's all gimmick, it's all this. But honestly, out of every pub I've been in, for me personally, looking beyond that, I think there's the most evidence I've seen, witnessed there for just stuff happening. Uh, it's definitely got a something, and it's not just all talk, there's definitely something uh fascinating place.

SPEAKER_01 28:30

Yeah, I mean when we were there, we done like a little spirit box thing, and one of the things that I found quite interesting was at the very end we actually heard a cry of a sp a girl. And we all went that's a bit weird.

SPEAKER_00 28:45

Yes, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 28:46

So that kind of like ties in with all the stories of the young girl spirit, I think.

SPEAKER_00 28:51

Yeah. It's um it is it is very, very odd. But you know, like typically any place, uh most people will go there and have a pint and not see anything, and obviously nothing much tends to happen, all the noise and rock is it's when you're on your own. And I remember Asgie told me a great story. She said she was actually in the office one night, I think it was her anyway, at least, and she was looking at the camera, you know, you could see different rooms, and she could feel something like pressing outside the door of the office, like almost like this heavy breathing sound. But she was watching it through the camera, and there's nothing there, which I thought was really disturbing, you know, it would have put me right off.

SPEAKER_01 29:27

That's definitely yeah, lights on, still scared moment.

SPEAKER_00 29:30

Indeed, it is, yeah, lights on all the time moment, I think. Yeah, but it's a great bar. Um, so looking for further further investigations and further stories. Uh yeah, they seem to just be coming thick and fast there and jolly good. But yeah, the toilet may be not so haunted these days.

SPEAKER_01 29:48

Unless you go in there on your own.

SPEAKER_00 29:50

Yeah, don't go on your own. Well, yeah, you know, you should go on your own. Well, you know. You can go in with people, but not necessarily people you know, because that'd be anyway. We won't go into that.

SPEAKER_01 29:59

Anyway, that's again a different podcast.

SPEAKER_00 30:02

It doesn't need they're interesting toilets. I mean they're not I suppose they're not the most luxurious, but then it's a dive bar, isn't it? You know, they're not gonna be like, you know, the writs.

SPEAKER_04 30:14

Anyway, what's next, Graham?

SPEAKER_00 30:16

What's next? Ooh, um well, I'm I'm gonna segue, not segway, I'm just gonna like spring across the cowgate and go into Gravefriars because obviously most people talk about Emerald won't hear about Gravefriars Cemetery. That's very true. Because of its reputation. Yeah, yeah. But is it as haunted as they say? Because literally there has been a multitude of books, podcasts, films, you name it, centred on what is supposed to be the most haunted area in Europe. And I don't know the answer, because honestly, uh I've heard some pretty intriguing stories and I've seen a couple of intriguing things, but I don't know if it warrants the amount of sheer terror that inspires uh the main ghost, if you like, which is actually isn't a ghost, it's a poltergeist, McKenzie poltergeist. So obviously a poltergeist is an energy, that's usually a person, which is probably created by that person rather than an actual spirit. But anyway, it's stuck. And Mackenzie, of course, was Lord Advocate of Scotland, and he was a I suppose a hanging judge we'll call him that for the sake of ease, who oversaw many well not oversaw, oversaw from a distance, because I think he was in London at the time, but was but was responsible for the deaths of many covenanters who were kept in the prison, which is still there at the back, which is now locked and gated, and owned by a uh company, I think called City of the Dead, who do the um the the kind of ghost tours there. It's an interesting area, and there's a mausoleum in there, it's meant to be very haunted, but it's got no relation to him in any shape or form. So this has been the common theory, it's him for years, and in fact, there's a great documentary by the BBC called Hauntings, which presented an hour-long programme on that very subject last year, which is interesting, and of course interviews a lot of the main players and the stories you know keep going as they do, but um I don't know. I've been there a lot in seven years. I could count a handful of times when anything remotely spooky happened. There's a couple of times when something definitely did happen, but it is interesting. Um people today think that perhaps he isn't nothing to do with it, he's not the ghost whatsoever.

SPEAKER_01 32:34

You know, I was about to say that because my experience when we went there, I've had this a few times where it's been a little bit too spooky where my spooky sense is going in, yeah, you're not going there, love. Yeah, and when we went in there, I was halfway round uh the kirkyard, and we were heading towards the Covenant prison. Right. And there's some just literally made me say, You're not going anywhere near that. No. So it's quite a strong energy there as well. And of course, they all wanted to do a photograph, didn't they?

SPEAKER_00 33:09

There they did.

SPEAKER_01 33:10

And I said, Nah, nah, yeah, yeah, and they go, Why aren't you working? Sure, the fact that there is a lot of energy there, and if there's anything that's gonna haunt that graveyard, I think it's what's coming from there rather than Mackenzie.

SPEAKER_00 33:25

Yes, I I I I have come I have come round to that conclusion myself, mainly because my personal experiences were there at the spot, as was my wife's, as was many people's. And so the energy from there really suggests the energy of the despair perhaps of uh many people in there who died, and we obviously don't know the exact figures because well they didn't keep records, I guess. So um you know, if you're talking about 1200 men or whatever it was there for five months during winter time in the cold with barely enough to survive food wise, never mind shelter. Well, there's a lot of people gonna die before they even reach the gallows, so you know this is a pretty horrible area. Yeah. And there's been a few times when things have happened. I mean, after lockdown, when you could sort of walk more than ten yards without being arrested, we went up, me and my wife, to Greyfriars, just for a look around, and it was it was a summer's day, it was June, I remember. It was nice, you know, it was a pretty sunny day and it looked great. It was a wonder about it. And I was doing a uh YouTube thing at the time which was abandoned, but anyway, we were there doing it and um she felt somebody get grab her shoulder and quite a firm enough grasp, well enough to make her kind of scream if you like, and sort of come behind me. And the pair of us were sort of staring. And it is really weird to think because when somebody else reacts like that, I get a little scared. So we stood there like looking, thinking, what is going on? Because there's nothing, you know. What is it? What if there is something there? What's it gonna do next? If it can grab your shoulder, where what else can it do? You know, it's quite a terrifying thought. But there was nothing, so we sort of scuttled off, had a sort of con flab at the gate, came back, and then uh decided to carry on manfully with the story, all albeit slightly anxiously, and uh of course nothing happened. But that was one example, and that was a proper good old grab. And then I've been on a tour in there, you know, at the black mausoleum with again Carol and the kids, uh, or at least uh my youngest daughter remembered Jerry and at the time, and uh yeah, nothing nothing happened at that point. I can't remember if my eldest tablet was there either. I can't honestly remember, but anyway, one of them was there and it didn't happen, nothing. So it was kind of like a weird a weird scenario. Because there's an expectation you're gonna you're going on a haunted tour, you really want something to happen. Well most people do, I think. And it tends not to happen, so you come away thinking, hmm, play me. But then it just shows you that spirit, if it does exist, well I believe it does, but depends on your point of view, yeah, if it's going to manifest itself just because you want it to, you know, kind of thing. But anyway, that was the experience. Strangely, one of my friends, who's a Spanish guide, described a very different apparition because he was there apparently with two girls, friends of his, and they were on a wee drink, and he said to me that you know one of them had gone off to use the old facilities, which I might add are non-existent in the cemetery, so they're gonna find a spot as well and uh found this uh or saw uh a girl in white, like a young girl, walking amongst the the headstones and sort of had a followed for a short distance. But the girl went through the headstone and so when her friend never came back, the pair that were still waiting got a bit anxious and went looking and found that outside the mo the actual churchyard in the street very upset because of what she'd seen. So I do not know. Um but there is certainly something. Yeah. But like you say, probably graveyards tend to be the probably the least haunted places, I think.

SPEAKER_01 37:15

Well you would think so, wouldn't you? Because I mean that's that's a place where you're meant to be at rest, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 37:22

What is interesting, and I'm sure you all know this, is that the guy who initially wrote the books about you know the Mackenzie Portergeist, I think it was called the Ghost that haunted himself, I think. Jan Andrew Henderson lived on next to the cemetery, and apparently a fire broke out and destroyed a lot of his evidence he'd gathered because he was documenting supposed portergeist attacks on people, which still continue to this day, and it is an odd thing. I have a photograph on my phone that I frequently show on tours that people and I kind of laugh about it because it is a kind of vaguely amusing story, but probably not for the guy to be fair. But we were doing a tour, and at the end, this guy and his wife, who were from England, she'd come up on holiday, had claimed or he claimed he'd seen something in this open mausoleum, which is the one right next to the gated area. And would I come back and look? That's where that photograph was taken. So we went back and had a look because I thought, well, why not, you know? And he was describing, or his wife was describing, I should say, because he didn't say too much about it, but she was certainly describing seeing um a man sitting on the ground with his knees up around his chin, hugging his knees like he was trying to keep warm, but wearing a white, frilly open shirt, you know, with the cuffs, yeah, which is really interesting because that obviously would have been the kind of dress that would tie him with and they would have been huddling, I'm sure. So he saw this and then he got scratched on the back and he felt like a finger go down his spine. It wasn't particularly painful at the time, but it did freak him out and he felt ill. And then he went home, and I think when he had a shower or something like that, it stung, and he showed his wife, and the photographs you could see quite plainly, quite a great big scratch down his back. And I mean, if you want to see it, guys, go on TripAdvisor because he his wife posted the photograph on TripAdvisor, which you know and I got a five-star review. That's alright then. I know. Not for him thing, though. I was not responsible for the scratching. But it's a it's a creepy story, though. Yeah, it's quite creepy because people do get that phenomenon, and people say they do it to themselves and they Well, maybe they do, but I don't think everybody's doing it to themselves. Who knows?

SPEAKER_01 39:39

These are just some of the stories from Edinburgh, a place we're we're actually living in now. And the more we looked into it and the more we realised how many stories are tied to the place we walk past all the time. So in the next episode, we're sticking with Edinburgh and getting it into a few more that stood out to us.

SPEAKER_03 40:19

Every corner whispers secrets of the choices that I made. There's a tap in at the window, though the wind is standing still, and a chill runs down my spine like something moving at its will. I tell myself it's nothing, just a creaking love, and every night the sun feels like that. Even when I scream, the silence answers every shade. Lights on still scare some hauntings. Never fade.