Student Project for Interactive Ghost Walk Full project - behance.net/LauraK

1. S O U V E N I R G U I D E

2. CONTENTS
3.................... HOLYROOD PALACE
4................. THE OLD TOLBOOTH
5.......................... BURKE & HARE
6 - 7.........................THE VUALTS
8 - 9................MARY KINGS CLOSE
10........DEACON BRODIES TAVERN
11......................THE WITCHES WELL
12 - 3............EDINBURGH CASTLE

3. HOLYROOD PALACE
The palace was constructed between
1501 and 1505 containing a chapel,
gallery, royal apartments and great
hall. In 1544 The Earl of Herford
sacked Edinburgh and Holyrood was
looted and burned. Repairs were made
but the alters within the abbey were
destroyed by a reforming mob in
1559. The abbey was neglected
thereafter and the transepts were
pulled down in 1570.
The royal apartments in the north west
tower were home to Mary Queen of
scots from 1561 to her forced
abdication in 1567. She married both
of her husbands within the palace:
Henry Stewart and Lord Darnley.
Lord Darnley was the jealous type and
believed his wife to be having an affair
with her private secretary, David
Rizzio. On March 9th 1566 Darnley and
several nobles entered The Queens
apartment via the private stair from
Darnley’s own apartments below.
Bursting in on The Queen, Rizzio and
four other courtiers who were eating
supper, they dragged the Italian
secretary through the bedchamber
where they stabbed him 56 times.
Visitors to the room where Rizzio was
murdered report of unexplained
headaches and an oppressive feeling.
Many believe the unlucky Queen still
lingers at Holyrood Palace and has
been reported pacing the hallways and
palace grounds at night.

4. THE OLD TOLBOOTH
The Old Tolbooth was used as a prison
where judicial torture and executions
were routinely carried out. The roof of a
two storey extension on the west side
of The Tolbooth provided a platform
equipped with a gallows so that the
public could view hangings. Prisoners
taken to The Tolbooth were tortured
with implements such as thumbscrews
and the boot which was twisted round
until it broke many, if not all of the
bones in the shin and foot. Spikes were
also employed to exhibit body parts
from executed prisoners. The heads of
the most notorious were placed on “the
prick of the highest stone”, a spike on
The Tolbooths northern gable facing
The Royal Mile.
In 1670 Major Thomas Weir was living
with his sister Jean at the foot of The
West Bow, by Edinburgh’s Grassmarket.
Weir and his sister were placed in The
Tolbooth where Weir voluntarily
confessed of a life of fornication,
incest, sodomy, beastiality and to using
witchcraft by means of a black crooked
walking stick.
Sidestepping the issue of witchcraft,
the shocked authorities declared Weir
and his sister guilty of incest and foul
fornication with others.
Weir was hanged then burned along
with his walking stick at Edinburgh’s
Gallowlee on April 14th 1670, his sister
was hanged at the Grassmarket the
following day. Some say you can still
hear the clank of Major Weirs crooked
black walking stick along The Royal Mile.

5. BURKE & HARE
Possibly the most notorious pair in
Scottish history, most people know Irish
born William Burke and William Hare as
grave robbers but they were actually
Scotland’s most prolific serial killers.
The pair killed their victims via a way
known as ‘Burking’. Burke would sneak
up behind the victim, stick two fingers
up their nose and in would come Hare to
assist by sitting on their chest until they
suffocated to death.
In the 18th Century doctors would pay
anything up to 12 Guinneas (£12 in
today’s money) for a fresh body to
disect. They murdered 16 people over
12 months to sell for dissection to Dr
Robert Knox who was a well-regarded
anatomical lecturer in surgeons square.
When they were caught William Burke
confessed nothing, it was William Hare
who agreed to give evidence against his
colleague to avoid prosecution.
So on 28th January 1829 they hanged
Burke in the Lawnmarket in front of
20,000 eager Edinburgh citizens. His
body was disected and publicly exhibited
to 30,000 members of the public and
his skin used to make a variety of items
including a business card case that can
be seen today at the police information
point on The High Street. His skeleton
can also still be viewed today at the
Edinburgh University Museum at
Surgeons Hall.
Hare vanished, possibly changing his
name to hide from the past. His date of
death is unkown.

6. THE VAULTS
In 1785 a stone bridge was built in the
centre of Edinburgh supported by 19
huge stone arches. The foundations
were divided into a set of vaults at
either end of the bridge now known as
Niddrie Street Vaults (south) and
Blaire Street Vaults (north). It wasn’t
until 1980 that these vaults were
discovered and we realised that these
people had lived in the most appaling
conditions.
The Vaults housed taverns, brothels,
workshops and storage space however
they were damp and had poor quality
of air. Some of the most horific crimes
were committed there, with a whole
community of Edinburgh’s low life
existing in this underground world,
sometimes living and dying there
without ever going up to street level.
From thieves, pimps, prostitues and
murderers, The Vaults were a
fearsome place to be.
Edinburgh’s most gruesome celebrities
Burke and Hare regularly frequented
The Vaults. Bure and Hare liked to
pray on the low life that lived within
it’s walls but also used the tunnels as
a way of secretly transporting the
bodies to Surgeons Square.
In 1824 Edinburgh had its worst fire
on record, historically known as The
Great Fire of Edinburgh. Buildings in
the South Bridge, Cowgate, and Royal
Mile collapsed and blocked off the
street at both ends meaning that the
people in The Vaults were trapped.
The Vaults are made of lime stone so
the people thought they were safe.
But no. The heat slowly made it’s way
down the walls and The Vaults began
to heat up. Masses of people began to
congregate in the largest vault which
took longer

7. to heat up, however there were too
many of them. Suffocation began to set
in and in all the panic and pushing and
shoving it seems someone accidentaly
slammed shut the big wooden exit door
which was the only way in or out of the
room. Stone conducts heat, wood
expands in it so when the door began to
swell and expand they were trapped in
the vault in the pitch black.
This location has been the site of many
stories of paranormal activity. Visitors
to the vaults report of scratches,
tugging and pulling of hair and clothing
and a general feeling of unwell.
Tour guides of The Vaults have named a
particular spirit Mr Boots. He is said to
wear black knee length boots known as
butcher boots. He has been seen glaring
at visitors, pushing them and even
recorded shouting at people to ‘get out
of his vaults’.

8. MARY KINGS CLOSE
Mary Kings Close was a 17th Century
close that was one of the many
underground streets that were built
over during the modernisation of The
Old Town. In the mid 18th Century the
council decided to build The Royal
Exchange actually on top of the close.
Nearby residents left the area and Mary
Kings Close became a subterranean
underworld.
When still in use, the sewers ran ankle
deep through the streets running
directly down to The Nor’ Loch (now
Princes Street Gardens). The tenements
were tightly packed together often up
to 7 stories high with up to 15 people
to one room, which eventually became
the perfect breeding ground for the
black death.
Over 10,000 people died when the
plague hit Edinburgh. It was so severe
and infected so many so quickly that
the Scottish Parliament actually moved
from Edinburgh to Stirling to avoid it.
The plague struck the close in 1645
and shortly after the local council
decided to quarantine the area by
incarcerating the victims, bricking up
the close and leaving them to die. The
street was then nicknamed by locals as
‘The Street of Sorrows’.
It is said that during the Christmas of
1644 a little girl of 8 years old called
Annie contracted the disease. When her
parents found out they abandoned her
in the close to die. Whether she died
from the disease or starvation is unclear
however when the close was re-opened
in 1982 she was spotted crying in the
corner of one of the rooms. Out of pitty
one of the excavators left her a small
doll with a tartan skirt. When the close
was re-opened to the public and they
heard her story, visitors to this day

9. leave Annie little presents in the
corner where she was first spotted.

10. DEACON BRODIE
Deacon William Brodie was a
respectable citizen of old town
Edinburgh. He worked as a cabinet
maker and was the top of his
profession. His father died in 1780
and Brodie inherited the family
business, the home and £10,000. This
amount should have set him up for
life, however Brodie had many bad
habits: drink, gambling and not one
but two mistresses along with five
ilegitimate children which swallowed
up the majority of his fortune. So by
night Brodie would rob the houses and
businesses in the area to allow him to
keep his dirty lifestyle.
As a cabinet maker he often had
reason to go into people’s homes to
measure up a space. This proved to be
the perfect opportunity to make an
impression of the home owners key
which he would later use to break in.
After a while his ambitions grew and
he decided to rob the excise office.
After being spotted he fled the scene
of the crime but was eventually
caught and sentenced to hang on 1st
October 1788.
Always an inventive man he even now
tried to cheat justice. He employed a
surgeon to insert a metal pipe inside
his throat, the idea being that his
windpipe would not be crushed as the
rope tightened around his neck. When
his body was cut down his friends
rushed him to the surgeon but his plan
had failed and they could not revive
him. Ironically it was the very gallows
that he designed that sealed his fate.
The double life of Deacon Brodie as a
respectable tradesman and daring
theif is said to be the inspiration
behind the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde.

11. one being that she had made a woman
blind - and she was executed on Castle Hill
in 1645.
THE WITCHES WELL
A cast iron wall fountain commemorates
the place where over three hundred
women were burned at the stake accused
of being witches.
In the 16th century more witch burnings
were carried out at Castle Hill than
anywhere else in the country. The victims
often suffered brutal torture before being
put to death at the stake. They often
nearly drowned by being ‘douked’ in the
Nor’ Loch.
In 1591 Scotland was gripped by a
climate of religious paranoia which
manefested itself in a fear of witches.
Torture was often regarded as a fair
means of extracting the truth. If a witch
still refused to confess, it was seen as
evidence not innocence and that the devil
ran too deep. If they were found guilty
they faced being burned at the stake
which was a public spectacle, although
they were usually strangled first.
Perhaps one of the most famous witches
of old Edinburgh is Agnes Finnie. She sold
goods at Potterrow port in Edinburgh and
one day threatened a boy with lameness
because he was rude to her. The next day
the boy lost power to his left side,
doctors reported it was a clear case of
witchcraft and soon the boy died. Agnes
then sold a woman herrings that weren’t
fresh. When the woman returned to ask
for her money back, Agnes cursed her
and told her she would never eat again.
The woman died shortly afterwads. Not
long after Agnes had a fallings out with
another woman who fell and broke her leg
from a horse as a result. Agnes was
shocked by her growing ‘powers’ however
unable to resist using them. New charges
were brought against her

12. EDINBURGH CASTLE
The Castle is also home to Mons Meg
cannon, the enormous medieval
supergun made around 1449. This
cannon fired huge solid stone cannon
balls three times the size of your head
onto attacking forces. Each weighed
400 pounds and could be fired as far
as 2 miles.
Edinburgh Castle sits on top of a 700
million year old in-active volcano
called Castle Rock. It is just one of the
most important strongholds in
Scottish history and is the home to
the Scottish Crown Jewels and The
Stone of Destiny. There has been a
royal castle on this spot since at least
the 12th century and there is believed
to be a labyrinth of secret tunnels
that run underneath. Throughout the
ages the castle has was used as a
royal residence, a prison and an army
garrison. Many dark dungeons exist in
the castle, where prisoners were
locked up and forgotten some of
which you can still enter as a tourist.
One very deep, nasty pit-prison is
hidden below the floor of King James’
birth chamber. Nobody knows who
may have been thrown down there
and left to die.
The most famous legend from the
castle tells that a secret tunnel
opening was once discovered in the
castle that they believed ran directly
underneath The Royal Mile down to
Holyrood Palace. They decided to send
a lone piper through the tunnel and
followed the sound of his pipes at
street level to see where it lead. The
sound of the pipes grew fainter until
they could no longer hear them. The
piper was said to be lost within the
tunnels forever and sometimes on a
quite day along the mile you can still
hear the faint sound of his pipes as he
tries to find his way back out.

13. The ritual of the firing of the 1 o’clock
gun began in 1861 as a signal for ships
and still continues to this day

14. 17 High Street
The Royal Mile
Edinburgh
EH1 1GH
www.themile.co.uk