Real Mary King's Close

Lonely Planet review

This medieval Old Town alley has survived almost unchanged for 250 years amid the foundations of the City Chambers, a spooky, subterranean labyrinth that gives a fascinating insight into the everyday life of 17th-century Edinburgh. The guided tour can seem a little naff, milking the scary and scatological aspects of the close's history for all they're worth.

There is something about the crumbling 17th-century tenement rooms and the ancient smell of stone and dust that makes the hairs rise on the back of your neck. Then there's wee Annie's room, where a psychic once claimed to have been approached by the ghost of a little girl. It's hard to tell what's more spooky, the story of the ghostly girl or the bizarre heap of tiny dolls and teddies left in a corner by sympathetic visitors.

Legend has it that during a plague in 1645 the disease-ridden inhabitants of Mary King's Close (an alley on the northern side of the Royal Mile) were walled up in their houses and left to perish. When the lifeless bodies were eventually cleared from the houses, they were so stiff that workmen had to hack off limbs to get them through the small doorways and narrow, twisting stairs. From that day on, the close was said to be haunted by the spirits of the plague victims.