The Residents of Edinburgh's Blair Street Underground Vaults

Explore the stories and ghosts of the Edinburgh underground — the Blair Street Underground Vaults — on an Edinburgh ghost tour. 

History is all about stories. The problem is that those stories were written by educated people, for people who could read.

Folklore, and its ghost stories, are spoken tales passed on by those who couldn’t write to those who couldn’t read.

These stories were designed to explain the world around the tellers. For the listener, the purpose of these stories is to engage, enthral and entertain.

In the twenty-first century, they provide the opportunity to delve into the history of largely undocumented individuals.

 

In the case of Edinburgh’s South Bridge Vaults (which the Blair Street Underground Vaults are part of), these stories often feature people who were overlooked by those who could afford a trip to the shopping street above. 

The Ghosts of Underground Edinburgh

If you’ve been on our Edinburgh ghost tours, you will have heard of the finely dressed man in the top hat, the boy in the expensive high school uniform and the man who was in the business of making shoes.  

What they all have in common is that their world was above the bridge: in the shops, tenements and near-by school. They had income and money to spare. 

This was not the case for another person you might have heard of, a crouched figure, huddled over his knees, with his back to the visitors who gaze up at him through a floor that has long since crumbled away. 

He has no interest in the group below him, too consumed by cold, disease and hunger to be aware of anything but retaining enough body heat to survive the night. 

He is the remnant of a dark time for the Edinburgh underground world, a time where the poorest of the city had no better place to turn to. They lived down in the vaults, in the dark and the damp.  

 

Ghostly Children in the Blair Street Underground Vaults 

The boy known as ‘Jack’ is associated with a rubber ball that is often heard by visitors bouncing around the passageways, but he is not the only child in the vaults.  

There are regular descriptions of a child pulling a tin toy cart from room to room, whilst another chases a rolling hoop with a stick. The sound of children’s laughter is one of the most frequently reported sounds down here. 

Perhaps this is surprising in a place famous for menacing footsteps and dragging chains, but it is important to remember that the site has a history that is older than the bridge.  

This is demonstrated by an encounter that might be had with a young boy named Peter. He lived in the tenements that used to be part of Marlin’s Wynd in the 1550s, before the wynd was demolished to make way for South Bridge.  

He sits on what was once his front doorstep, existing within a single snapshot of time and space. Maybe the laughter that other visitors have heard are children from that same street.  

Maybe Peter would like to play with them, but he will not, for his mother has told him the stories of the body snatchers, who might roam the area looking for their next victim. 
 

The Blair Street Underground Vaults 

Sometimes referred to as the Edinburgh catacombs or Edinburgh underground city, the Blair Street Underground Vaults are a series of chambers and corridors beneath South Bridge. 

Originally meant to act as storage and workshop spaces for the shops aboveground, they soon turned to darker uses: housing the city’s poorest residents and lawless criminals. 

While it’s tempting to call them Edinburgh catacombs, these vaults serve no religious or burial purposes. But while they might not be catacombs, they are just as haunted... 

Discover more on an underground Edinburgh ghost tour and perhaps you'll experience some of the Blair Street Underground Vaults residents for yourself. From anonymous footsteps in the dark to the cold touch of a small, reaching hand...