Greyfriars Kirkyard & The Mackenzie Poltergeist

Why is it significant?

Pass through the wrought-iron gates of Greyfriars Kirkyard and pause on the damp grass between rows of moss-covered seventeenth-century headstones.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Pass through the wrought-iron gates of Greyfriars Kirkyard and pause on the damp grass between rows of moss-covered seventeenth-century headstones. While daytime visitors flock to the statue of faithful terrier Greyfriars Bobby who guarded his master's grave for fourteen years, after sundown this graveyard becomes one of the most notoriously haunted places on Earth.

Walk back toward the locked iron gate of the Covenanters' Prison. In sixteen seventy-nine, over one thousand Presbyterian Covenanters were penned up here in open-air mud for five freezing months without shelter or food, guarded by Lord Advocate Sir George Mackenzie, known to history as Bluidy Mackenzie. Hundreds died of exposure or were shipped off to Caribbean slave plantations.

In a macabre turn of fate, Bluidy Mackenzie's elaborate domed black mausoleum sits just feet away from the prisoners he tortured. In nineteen ninety-nine, a homeless man broke into Mackenzie's tomb seeking shelter and accidentally collapsed the floor into a pit of skeletons. Ever since, hundreds of nocturnal tourgoers have reported phantom burns, scratches, and unexplained fainting spells from the Mackenzie Poltergeist.

Harry Potter fans will spot familiar gravestones here too: Thomas Riddell, William McGonagall, and Mrs Elizabeth Moodie. Step back out toward the steep descent to Grassmarket.