the mile edinburgh

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SOUVENIR GUIDE

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

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

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

HOLYROOD PALACEThe 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.

THE OLD TOLBOOTHThe 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.

BURKE & HAREPossibly 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.

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

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’.

MARY KINGS CLOSEMary 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

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

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.

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

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.

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

17 High StreetThe Royal Mile

EdinburghEH1 1GH

www.themile.co.uk