Above: The Museum of Edinburgh, Huntly House, Canongate, Edinburgh. Photo: Stefan Schäfer, Lich - CC BY-SA 3.0
Edinburgh is, without a doubt, a city of incredible history. This year, the city celebrates its 900th anniversary. The landscape has changed considerably within this time. After the Reformation, Edinburgh spent considerable effort acquiring the former abbey's lands over the following 200 years. It acquired Canongate and created a new burgh for South Leith in 1636. Edinburgh also acquired and ran the burghs of Broughton, Calton and Portsburgh. This complex system of governance was abolished in 1856 when all burghs under the management of Edinburgh were merged into a single burgh.
1833, Portobello and Leith were made independent parliamentary burghs under the Burgh Reform Act. They ran their own affairs until amalgamated into an expanded Edinburgh in 1896 and 1920, respectively. 1975 saw the last expansion of the city's boundaries, including Queensferry, which had been made a royal burgh in 1636.
Edinburgh features several fascinating landmarks. The National Museum of Scotland, situated in the shadow of Greyfriars on Chambers Street, is Edinburgh's largest and most prominent museum. Today, we shall discover a few of the city's other archives, some with a spooky story or two.
The ancient Port of Leith features the iconic Trinity House. Situated at 99 Kirkgate, the building dates to 1555. In its time, the location served as a hospital and a place of poor relief for sailors and their families. Leith would become a vibrant shipping port. In 1872, Norwegian whaling merchant Christian Salveson set up a base in Leith. The Salveson company would become a prominent franchise for many years to come. Christian Salveson introduced Arctic penguins to Edinburgh Zoo. They remain a prominent feature in the zoo today.
A recent addition to Leith's history is The Living Memory Association (THELMA). The collection of Leith-related memorabilia is housed in Ocean Terminal, deep in the heart of Leith Docks. The museum, established in 1986, continues to grow today and remains a notable resource to the community.
There are three other Edinburgh museums, all of which have connections to our very own North Edinburgh Nightmares. Co-presenter and tour guide Kerrie now relays her own experiences from her time working in three city centre museums, all with a suitably spooky legacy.
One of the worst places or incidents was when I worked in Huntly House (pictured at top), also known as the Museum of Edinburgh. The place holds Greyfriars Bobby's collar and water bowl, and many people take photos of him. You can see it in glass cabinets or smoking shapes. We've heard the dog run about like a little noise on the wooden floor, and I've seen many photos and orbs that people have taken and shown us.
However, the staff office is closer to the top of the museum. And then what used to be the staff room and bathroom. There was just a horrible, ominous feeling. Whatever was there hated us being there, making it very obvious. You could feel it was too close to you. It was full of anger and upset, and I wouldn't go upstairs. I would make staff members come upstairs when I had to do the cash flow. I didn't want to be in there and would take the shortest route up and down. I would deliberately go across the road to The People's Story Museum to use their bathroom rather than the staff bathroom because it made it so uncomfortable. It would lock you in there. It would move things in the kitchen. It would make banging noises. It would. It was just trying to make you leave. I have no idea what it could have been. But to this day, I’ve not returned since leaving that job, and I don't think you could pay me enough to make me go back there.
Another place I worked at was The Museum of Childhood. This whole building has an eerie feeling because of the number of different toys, especially the doll room, and it has so many different types of dolls. Many older dolls are made of wax, so when you go in, the room must be kept at a certain temperature, or the dolls will melt. So, if it's even a degree higher than it should be, you can come in the next morning, and it looks like the dolls have moved as the wax is melting.
Dolls have been donated, and people say it's because they want to share. But you can also feel the way they throw them over the counter at you to get away from it. Some people are just trying to get rid of something from their house. Many of the dolls do move, and I don't think they're made of wax, so it does make me suspicious.
Another one that we knew was where the staff room used to be an old mortuary, where they would keep the bodies. There's a tunnel that connects the museum of childhood to the pharmacy across the road, which used to be the morgue. So, it's always absolutely freezing down there, with weird noises and just very odd feelings.
Opening in the morning or locking up at night always felt strange. Upstairs was just a menagerie of different types of toys, some broken, some older and again, when you were sitting on your own doing the float, you would see things move. You would hear things. I refused to go into the back office where the curator used to sit, and he was fine. But again, a bit like The Museum of Edinburgh. The feeling you got up there was just heavy and oppressed and angry and just very, very negative. You'd be running up and down stairs just to get everything done and out of there before it could get you in a very spooky building.
An incident that happened to me while I was working in the People's Story Museum as a teenager was that of a school group. We used to get lots of school groups about primary school age coming in and out, learning about Edinburgh.
They would make their way around the museum and end up in the projection room, which would show stories of Old Edinburgh, and they would leave. Now, this group of schoolchildren who must have been primary school age were coming downstairs and being hurried out by their guardians looking quite upset. The teacher was looking really annoyed. They approached the desk where my friend and I were standing and told us it wasn't funny to play jokes our age. They talked about the feet they all saw dangling from behind the projection screen. We didn't quite know what she meant.
We waited until they left, locked the door, and started looking around the museum to see if anyone was causing mischief or if there was something out of place or wrong. We couldn't see anything, and there was nothing in the projection room whatsoever.
We were talking to another member of staff who'd been there longer than us. They explained that that room used to be where the prisoners were kept the night before the execution at the heart of Midlothian and it wouldn't be beyond the realm of possibility that this is where prisoners would have taken their own lives. So, we do believe now that the Children and the teacher and everyone saw the image of a prisoner being hung, but it was behind the projection screen.
Kerrie has not returned to any of the three museums since.
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John S Tantalon is an Edinburgh-based author and storyteller. He has released four books, the latest being ‘Tales from the Crypts of Auld Reekie’ (2024, Saber Press).
He runs ghost-related events throughout Edinburgh under the banner of North Edinburgh Nightmares.
www.northedinburghnightmares.wordpress.com
j.s.tantalon@outlook.com