The Heart in the Foundations

In 1772, St Cuthberts Church was declared to be in such a bad way that it was beyond saving. In 1773 it was knocked down. While workmen were digging in the foundations during the rebuilding, they discovered a coffin. 

When it was opened, it contained a few bones and an urn made of lead. Inside the urn was a heart.

It had clearly been there for centuries and was extremely well-preserved, but with no inscription, no-one knows for certain who its owner was. It was probably someone who died during the Crusades, as the done thing then was to return a heart to its homeland, rather than the whole body.

David Duly - Eschapit Artist

It was the law that as soon as a member of your family showed signs of the plague, you reported it to the authorities within twelve hours, so that the proper steps could be taken. In 1530, when his wife became ill, David Duly - a tailor - didn't do it until after she'd died.

Instead, he went to church, to pray with the 'cleyne pepill' (clean people).

From the records:

"The quhilk day forsamekle as it wes perfytlie vnderstand and kend that Dauid Duly, tailyour, has haldin his wife seyk in ye contagious seiknes of pestilens ij dayis in his houss, and wald nocht revele ye samyn to ye officiaris of ye toune quhill scho (she) wes deid in ye said seiknes. And in ye meyn tyme ye sayde Dauid past to Sanct Gelis Kirk quhilk wes Sonday, and thair said mess amangis ye cleyne pepill, his wife beand in extremis in ye said seiknes, doand quhat wes in him till haif inf ekkit all ye toune. For the quhilk causis he wes adjudgit to be hangit on ane gebat befor his awin durr, and that wes gevin for dome."

In other words, David had put the whole town at risk of infection, and had to be punished. He was sentenced to be hanged outside his own front door.

Perhaps someone was looking out for David, because not only did he survive the disease which took his wife, but the rope which was used to hang him snapped - and the Council took pity on him and his brood of motherless children. They let him live, although he and his family were banished from Edinburgh forever more.

"becaus at ye will of God he has eschapit and ye raip brokin, and fallin of ye gibbat, and is ane pure (poor) man with small barnis, and for pete of him, ye prouest, bailies and counsall, bannasis ye said Dauid this toune for all ye dais of his lyf, and nocht to cum thairintill in ye meyn tyme, vnder ye pain of deid."

Friday the Thirteenth

On Friday the thirteenth, 1972, Helga Konrad married Ernest Dumoulin. She was eighteen, he was twenty-one, and they had eloped to Edinburgh because their marriage was very much against Helga's parents' wishes.

After the wedding and a quick meal in a restaurant, they went back to the room that they were renting in Herbert Wood's guest house on Torphichen Street. They were only there for a few minutes before going straight back out again. Herbert thought this was a bit odd for a pair of newly-weds, but soon forgot about it. 

The next day, the alarm was raised. A man had discovered a woman's corpse at the foot of Salisbury Crags. It was Helga Konrad.

The police searched for her husband, and found him 'looking for an ambulance'. Apparently, he'd been wandering around all night, but not found a single person to help, or a phone-box, or even a door to knock on. It was put down to shock.

Arthur's Seat seen from the top of Calton Hill

Poor Ernest. He'd been out for a walk with his new bride. They'd climbed Arthur's Seat, and had been standing together looking at the city lights when she'd slipped and fallen. He returned to Torphichen Street, where he holed up in his room playing the theme tune from Love Story over and over. The very object of pity, everybody believed him.

Everybody except Herbert, who went to the police.

His wife had been in to clean the couple's room and had found documents for a life insurance policy worth £412,368 (this would be over one million pounds in today's money). The policy had been taken out on Helga's life just a few days before she died. The insurance company confirmed that Ernest had already been in to try and claim the money.

Ernest was arrested. It turned out that he was a conman who'd known Helga for just two and a half months before convincing her to come to Edinburgh with him. He claimed, however, that it was Helga who'd tried to kill him - he'd put out his hands to save himself, and had accidentally knocked her over the cliff instead.

Helga's post-mortem proved he was lying. The scrapes and bruises you'd expect on her body if she'd slipped weren't there - she'd been pushed so hard she hadn't even touched the rock face on the way down.

Ernest went to jail. He served his sentence and went on to become a Christian minister in Germany.

Hangman's Crag

The job of the common-executioner in Edinburgh was a well-paid one, and it often came with a house and some land. 

It also often came with an entire pew at church, because no-one would sit next to him. The hangman was a social outcast. 

One particular hangman had started off in life as the son of a wealthy family, but had made some financial mistakes and lost the family estate. He was penniless, and took on the role of hangman in the hope of keeping up his privileged life-style.

It wasn't to be. One evening - while trying to socialise with Edinburgh's respectable folk, who were playing golf up on Bruntsfield Links - he was recognised. A crowd formed around him, shouting and throwing stones. They chased him all the way to Arthur's Seat.

The next day, his broken body was found at the bottom of one of the crags, just above Duddingston Loch. The official verdict was suicide, but no-one knows for certain. Maybe he was pushed. The Edinburgh mob wouldn't say.

Arthur's Seat seen from Calton Hill

The Currie Kimmers

Currie was once a small village in Midlothian. It didn't become part of Edinburgh until 1975. Now a suburb of the city, it's where I grew up. 

There was the occasional bodysnatching scandal, a ghost or two, and the odd world-renowned psychic...and there were witches, known as the Currie Kimmers.

One night in 1699, 16-year-old Andrew Ransay cut through the local graveyard at Currie Kirk.

Suddenly, several cats came pouring out of the Quire window. It was clear to Andrew that these weren't really cats, they were women - and what's more, he recognised two of them, Margaret Walker and Margaret Watson!

One of them grabbed him and stole the cravat from round his neck. He reported what he'd seen to the Kirk Session of Currie, but we don't know what happened after that because the records are incomplete.

Currie's most famous witch was immortalised by the poet James Thomson, in his poem, "Mary Shanks".

Mary seems to have enjoyed her status... :D

Mary Shanks

It's braw, says Mary, to get the name of witch

For when I gang to Bootlandhill

My lappy fu' they often fill

Wi' locks a' woo and dauds o' bread

And whiles a rusky fu' a' seed

Then in my way I tak' Balleny

A shave o' bread spread o'er wi' hinny

A muckle glass, wad ha'd a gill

No for my guid, but for my ill;

Then through the water, up by Harlie

I'm sure to get a cog o' barley

And when I come in by Cowslap

They cry 'Haste Mary, ha'd your lap'

Then in they fling a cog fu' swins -

It's braw, ye see, to hae sic frien's

And when that I come into the Loan

I'm sure to get a butter'd scone

And neeps wi' taties chappid sma'

A better fare than ither twa

But when at Mid Kinleith I ca'

The fient a hait I get at a'. 

I'm not too sure if she was actually a witch or just played on her fearsome reputation!

The Colthearts of Mary King's Close

Long after the last plague outbreak, Mary King's Close was reopened because Edinburgh had a serious housing shortage problem. 

Despite the urgent need for homes, none of the locals would move in. Everybody was convinced that the street had to be haunted.

One man, Thomas Coltheart, decided it was all a load of complete rubbish and moved himself, his wife and their maid into one of the biggest houses in the close. The maid moved herself right back out again. The Colthearts, unable to find anyone to replace her, were left to fend for themselves.

One Sunday, a not-very-well Mr Coltheart was resting in his bed. His wife was reading to him when something caught her eye. She looked up from her book to see an old man's disembodied head floating in the air, staring at her. Mrs Coltheart fainted.

When she came round, Mr Coltheart managed to convince her that she'd imagined it...until he saw the head for himself. A week or so later, he woke up in the middle of the night to see the head with its long straggly hair floating over him. Shaking Mrs Coltheart awake, he got out of bed, lit a candle and began to pray.

The head stayed where it was, hovering. After about an hour, another head appeared, a child's this time. A little while later an arm appeared, and seemed to want to shake hands with Mr and Mrs Coltheart!

After that, a phantom dog turned up, and curled up in one of their chairs. More and more strange and frightening things arrived in their bedroom, and despite the couple pleading with them to tell them what it was they wanted, would do nothing but stare. Finally, there was an almighty groaning noise, and everything disappeared.

The next morning, the Colthearts made plans to move out as quickly as possible!

Unfortunately their plans fell through, but because they hadn't seen any more ghosts they decided to stay and see how things went. They lived there for many years and were never bothered again.

Mr Coltheart - a legal advisor - went on to do a bit of haunting himself. Years later, a client of his woke up to see a weird cloud of mist in his room...and in the mist he recognised Thomas Coltheart. The next day he set off for Mary King's Close, and discovered that Mr Coltheart had passed away in the night.

The Deadly Doctor

There used to be a hospital near Edinburgh called the St. Giles. Two doctors worked there, Dr Mackie and Dr McGowan. They'd been good friends until a woman named Hilda Reid came along. Both fell in love with her, and they became rivals.

One day Dr Mackie was hit by a car, and wound up in the St. Giles as a patient. He needed an operation and was put in Ward D, under the care of a surgeon, Mr Warren, and an anesthesiologist - Dr McGowan.

Dr McGowan seized the opportunity. He administered too much anesthetic on purpose and Dr Mackie died on the operating table. Not long after that, Dr McGowan married Hilda Reid.

The murderous doctor got what he deserved, though - a few days after his marriage he died in an accident.

For years afterwards, patients on Ward D reported ghost sightings.

Noisy Neighbours

The Gordon family moved into one of the flats on Buckingham Terrace. After about a week, they were utterly fed up of the noise from the stairwell. Somebody kept running up and down it in the wee small hours, waking them all up.

The strange thing was, the upstairs flat was unoccupied, and downstairs was all offices. There was no reason for anyone to be in the stairwell at night at all. Mrs Gordon decided if it happened again she would complain to the landlord.

A couple of nights later, Mrs Gordon woke up around 2am with the horrible feeling that something bad was about to happen. There was no sound, no-one was outside on the stairs - in fact, it was the total lack of any sound at all that was scaring her most. It seemed unnatural, ominous.

Mrs Gordon decided the sensible thing to do was to go wake up one of her daughters, Diana, through in the next room. Diana would tell her she was daft, imagining things. That would make her feel better and then she'd go back to bed. She stuck her foot out from under the sheets - and snatched it straight back under again.

There was something there.

Rigid with fear, Mrs Gordon lay in her bed and listened as whatever it was clumped away from her across her bedroom, seeming to pass through the closed door, out of the flat and into the stairwell. It clumped up the stairs into the flat above, where it thumped around for half an hour before suddenly, everything became quiet.

For the next month or so, nothing happened. Mrs Gordon was away visiting friends and Diana had taken over her bedroom, glad of the chance of a room to herself for once. One evening, she was just going in there when the door swung open and a blurry figure pushed past her. It went right through the flat, out into the stairwell and off up the stairs. Diana ran after it.

She found the flat upstairs unlocked, and crept in. Standing in the room directly above what was now her bedroom, stood the blurry figure. It wasn't in the least bit interested in her, though. It was busy winding up an old fashioned clock. As she stood there, the figure seemed to become clearer - less blurry, more distinct.

Done with the clock, it began to turn round. Diana ran back downstairs. She moved back into her sister's room that same night.

Mrs Gordon came home a few nights later. She was just getting into her bed when the door clattered open. The figure of a man stood there, short but wide, wearing a peacoat, blue trousers and great big jack-boots. He had a large head with balding blonde hair...and where his face should have been, there was nothing but a blur. He was holding a bundle of red and white rags in one hand and lard in the other. He turned and ran out into the stairwell and up the stairs again.

That was it. Mrs Gordon had finally had enough. She and her daughters moved out the next day.

Still curious though, she researched the history of the building. It turned out that long before she'd lived there, a retired Captain of the Merchant Service had been the tenant. Above him lived a young family with a newborn baby. The baby cried constantly, and the Captain was an angry drunk. He often ran up the stairs to hammer on the door, shouting for them to stop the baby crying. One day, at the end of his wits, he barged into the flat, grabbed the baby and decapitated it with his knife. He shoved its head and body into a near-by grandfather clock, went back downstairs, locked himself into his flat and drank himself unconscious.

The Captain was arrested and then declared insane. He was put into an asylum where he later committed suicide by opening an artery in his leg with his fingernails.