SPECTRALWhat happened here
South Bridge opened in 1788 to carry traffic over the Cowgate valley. Its nineteen arches were enclosed and built over, and the spaces inside were let to cobblers, cutlers, taverns and stores. The bridge was badly built and leaked, and within about thirty years the businesses had moved out.
The city's poorest people moved in — families, lodgers and, legend has it, illegal whisky stills and worse. Later in the 19th century the vaults were filled with rubble and abandoned. They were rediscovered in the 1980s and opened for tours.
The legends
Guides speak of several resident spirits: “Mr Boots”, an aggressive figure in heavy boots who is said to throw stones and tell visitors to get out; “the Watcher”, a shadowy man seen standing in a corner; and a boy called Jack who takes visitors by the hand.
The vaults are also tied to Burke and Hare, the murderers who sold bodies to Edinburgh's anatomy school in 1828 — some guides say they looked for victims among the people who lived there.
Fact or legend?
In 2001 the psychologist Richard Wiseman ran a study in the vaults with hundreds of volunteers, who reported more unusual experiences in some chambers than in others; he suggested that cues such as draughts, darkness and room size explained much of it. The poverty of the vaults is real history; the named ghosts come from guides and visitors, not records.
Visiting
The vaults can only be visited on guided tours, run day and night by several Edinburgh companies, some of them ghost tours.
