City of the Dead Haunted Graveyard Tour

...history and discovered that York City Council boobooed on Margaret Clitheroe's house (it's not the one that it's supposed to be - it's actually a few doors up the street!).

Anyway, this time round I was able to combine business and pleasure, have a few quid in my pocket, leanr a bit of gory history and get some exercise too!

A few years ago a friend of mine told me about the under-city tours that take place beneath Edinburgh. ...
...I booked us on the City of the Dead Haunted Graveyard Tour (plus, the last under-city tour of the day left at 4pm and we were still in the office at that time).

I had to grin to myself when I called their booking number and a cheerful voice answered the phone with "City of the Dead Tours"!

On the night we went along, we were booked on the 7.30pm tour, but had to change to the later one at 8.30pm (dinner at ... more

Since being very young I have had an interest in history. The very old stuff. Incidents that happened a few hundred years before I was born. Also since being very young I have had a deep interest in the Supernatural, the Paranormal and things that go bump in the night (which you will already know if you have read my review on The Ghost That Haunted Itself). And if I have a chance to combine the two, all the better!

Over the past few years I have been on a couple of ghost walks. I say 'only a couple' because I don't always get the time when I'm away from home to go on one, or I'm a bit strapped for cash, or I didn't find out in time that there is one running. I've been on one in Whitby on Hallowe'en conducted by a bloke that claimed to be psychic. I don't know if he was or not, but the anecdotes were interesting and I had had a bit of experience from a year or so previously of one of the occurrences he told us about. I went on one in York about a year or so ago, which lacked some of the theatrics that you get on some of the ghost walks. There were no blokes in frock-coats or whatever, but we got some exercise from trekking through the city, learned a bit of history and discovered that York City Council boobooed on Margaret Clitheroe's house (it's not the one that it's supposed to be - it's actually a few doors up the street!).

Anyway, this time round I was able to combine business and pleasure, have a few quid in my pocket, leanr a bit of gory history and get some exercise too!

A few years ago a friend of mine told me about the under-city tours that take place beneath Edinburgh. Because myself and a colleague were off to Edinburgh to carry out an audit, I booked us on a ghost walk. It wasn't the one mentioned above though, because after a bit of research and a recommendation from a friend that had been to Edinburgh with her other half and been on this walk, I booked us on the City of the Dead Haunted Graveyard Tour (plus, the last under-city tour of the day left at 4pm and we were still in the office at that time).

I had to grin to myself when I called their booking number and a cheerful voice answered the phone with "City of the Dead Tours"!

On the night we went along, we were booked on the 7.30pm tour, but had to change to the later one at 8.30pm (dinner at the hotel wasn't served until 7pm and I secretly hoped that the later tour would be more atmospheric). It was very easy to change the time slot as they didn't have many bookings for that evening, I was told.

The City of the Dead Walking Tour meets outside St Giles' Cathedral on the Royal Mile. Our party consisted of about 20-30 people. including my colleague and I, mixed ages and nationalities, but on this occasion no young children. The guide (whos name I can't remember, unfortunately) told us a bit about the tour, what we might be able to expect and to take care with our footing as some of the streets in Edinburgh are very steep. we were taken to various places in the locale (I think the firat one was the old Parliament square) and told a bit about Mary King Close, which was nearby, the witch trials and Pictish tactical war maneuvres (the maneuvre didn't last long as the Romans got wise to it!)

Next we were taken down a steep street and told to imagine the street being about three feet in width, swimming ankle-deep in raw sewage and rubbish and the buildings on either side of us (that were already very tall, I hasten to add) being about ten times their modern height and made of wood. This gave us an indication of what the old Edinburgh might have been like. here we were told about the 'world's worst poet' William McGonegal (and yes, he truly WAS a terrible poet!). We wer also told about the man regarded as the world's second worst poet and his penchant for a giant cheese!

After this we went on to Greyfriar's Cemetary, an area of which, the Covenanter's Prison and Black Mausoleum, are said to be the home of the best documented cases of poltergeist activity, the Mackenzie Poltergeist.

We were told about the history of the graveyard, how once it used to be a valley, but the amount of corpses deposited there put paid to that - the street at one point is several feet lower that the cemetary at the other side of the perimeter wall, which is thirty feet above the street level. The dearly departed were interred with only a thin layer of soil to cover them and the mortality rate was very high (partly due to the fact that the city was so overcrowded). As a result, wherever you walk in the cemetary, ten to one on you'll be walking over several someones that may be marked by a stone, or maybe not because due to the number of graves and to help save room relatives were prevented from using grave markers and only the wealthy or influential were allowed to have their graves marked.

The tour wound on from the Flodden Wall to the Covenanter's Prison where we were warned that people of a nervous disposition, heart conditions or pregnant women should have a private word with the guide. We were also warend about the Mackenzie Poltergeist, so named after George Mackenzie (Bluidy Mackenzie), advocate to Charles II.

In 1672, after the murder of the Archbishop of St Andrews, 1200 Covenanters (so called because they had signed the National Covenant in 1637, which laid out the goals of the Presbyterian movement) were taken prisoner after the Battle of Bothwell Bridge. Bound two by two they were marched the length of Scotland to Edinburgh.

As there was no prison big enough to hold them all in the already very overcrowded city, Edinburgh council made the decision of keeping them locked in the sout-west section of Greyfriar's Cemetary. There was no shelter at all, no cover from the rain, but they were held there for five months. Anyone foolhardy enough to try to escape was shot by snipers that kept guard to listen for people moving around in the night. The prisoners were forced to sleep on the ground through the winter, were poorly fed and not allowed contact with people on the outside that they knew. A few were lucky enough to escape under cover of darkness; some befriended the guards and got release that way, some switched allegiance and promised never to bear arms against the king again. At the end of the five months there were only 257 prisoners left from the original 1200. Most had died.

Time moved on, George Mackenzie died and was interred in a black and ugly mausoleum which can be seen from the gates of the Covenanter's Prison. Though not in the Prison itself, ironically it is at most a couple of hundred yards away. In death Bluidy Mackenzie has to stay near the place where so many people died and in which he had a hand in their deaths.

Poltergeist activity has been recorded in the area of the Covenanter's Prison since 1999. The tour guides keep a book in the gatehouse of the cemetary (which also serves as a souvenir shop) which documents any experiences that people have had on the ghost tours.

Poltergeist activity has occurred in a number of different ways - noises have been heard in the Black Mausoleum (not to be confused with the Mackenzie mausoleum. The Black Mausoleum is inside the Covenanter's Prison As mentioned earlier, the Mackenzie mausoleum isn't), people have fainted for no reason, cold spots are felt, parts of people's bodies go numb, develop cramp or pins and needles, overwhelming surges of emotion are felt, hand ar felt stroking faces and arms and on leaving the mausoleum, or on rising the next morning, scratches or lacerations have appeared where the touch was felt, only to disappear within hours of appearing.

Personally, and I'm not sure if I am relieved or not. I experienced nothing out of the ordinary on the tour that my colleague and I went on. On entering the Black Mausoleum the party are allowed to stay for a maximum of ten minutes inside the building. We were told that if anything were to happen, it would happen within ten minutes of our entering the mausoleum. At the end of the ten minutes one of the other tour guides jumps into the doorway of the mausoleum. This is apparently to disippate the tension and add to the 'pheremone effect', a theory that, with every tour party, the strength within the mausoleum builds and the poltergeist feeds off it, making it stronger. The tour guides say that the poltergeist has been getting stronger over the past few years...

The City of the Dead Haunted Graveyard Tour runs twice nightly (7.30pm and 8.30pm, though the website says three times a night - 8.30pm, 9.15pm and 10.00pm). The cost is £8.50 for adults, concessions £6.50 and £5.00 for the under 16s. Parties leave from the St Giles' Cathedral near the Mercat Cross on the Royal Mile and the tour lasts for about an hour and a quarter. If you wish to take part in one of the tours you are recommended to book. The phone number for this is 0131 225 9044. All the information you may need is available on the Black Hart Storyteller's website: www.blackhart.uk.com.

I would say that this walk isn't really recommended for the disabled or the mobility-impaired due to the steepness of some of the streets and the fact that, depending on the time of year, the graveyard itself could be quite muddy and slippery. I'd also say that if you have young children, please consider not taking them on this tour, as young children can get easily 'spooked' and also some of the past manefestations of activity have happened to some of the younger members of the tour parties. Saying this though, I would recommend this tour very highly if you have no problems with steep, cobbled streets and the possibility of mud. It's well worth it just for the night-time walk around Greyfriar's Cemetary, but you must make sure that you also wear strong footwear suitable for rough terrain and dress for the weather (and the possibility that you may have a ghostly encounter within the Black Mausoleum). If you get the willies from your walk there's always Greyfriar's Bobby's Bar a few yards down the road outside the cemetary gates.

I also must add that some of the historical notes above were taken from the book The Ghost That Haunted Itself by Jan-Andrew Henderson. Thanks for proverbially lighting my fire, Jan-Andrew!

 

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