A genuinely buried street
Seventeenth-century closes and rooms left intact beneath the City Chambers: real archaeology, not a set.
Blake Patterson from Alexandria, VA, USA — CC BY 2.0 · Mario RM from Madrid, Spain — CC BY-SA 2.0
Beneath the feet of the crowds on the Royal Mile, and directly under Edinburgh's City Chambers, lies an entire seventeenth-century street that was never demolished, only buried. When the Royal Exchange went up in the 1750s the tall tenements were lopped off and their lower floors pressed into service as foundations, leaving the closes and rooms below exactly as they were abandoned, stone stairs and leaning walls included. The name honours Mary King, a fabric merchant who lived here in the 1630s, long before the place became raw material for ghost stories. You can only go in on a guided tour of roughly an hour, led by a guide in the costume of a real former resident. The story is about daily life in these overcrowded buildings: how people disposed of their waste, how the plague swept through in 1645, how whole families slept in a single windowless room. The guides enjoy their ghost tales, but what you are looking at is genuine archaeology rather than a stage set, which makes this more trustworthy than any of the 'haunted' walks touted on the street above. It is also one of the city's best answers to a wet day, since you never see the weather once you are down. Booking online in advance is a necessity, not a nicety: numbers are capped and tours sell out routinely in summer and during the August festival, sometimes days ahead. The Standard adult ticket is £28.50, children aged 5 to 15 £21, and it can be moved to another slot free of charge up to four hours beforehand. Outside the summer months a cheaper Essential ticket appears at £25 (child £18.25), but changing it carries a £15 fee. The site opens daily, 9:00 to 21:00 through summer and autumn, closing earlier in November and December (around 18:30 and 19:30). The entrance is on the Royal Mile beside the City Chambers, opposite St Giles' Cathedral, about a five-minute uphill walk from Waverley station. A plain word for families: children under five are not admitted at all, and there is no room for pushchairs. The route drops 58 steps and climbs 38 through narrow passages with uneven floors and dim lighting, and there is no lift or alternative path because the building is listed. Children of eight and over usually emerge thrilled; younger ones can find the dark and the plague talk frightening. Late-evening tours are quieter than the afternoon rush, and the light is identical at any hour because you are underground.
Seventeenth-century closes and rooms left intact beneath the City Chambers: real archaeology, not a set.
Every tour is led by a guide playing a real former resident, telling the plague and daily-life story without theatrics.
A full hour underground where the weather cannot reach you, five minutes from Waverley station.
2 Warriston's Close, Royal Mile, Edinburgh EH1 1PG
St Giles' CathedralThat stone crown floating over Edinburgh's Old Town is not a tower in the ordina1 minute walk4.7
Scott MonumentThe second-largest monument to a writer anywhere on earth, and nobody quite beli4 minutes walk4.6
Museum of ChildhoodThe man who founded the world's first museum of childhood liked to say he was no4 minutes walk4.4
Scottish National GalleryThe most famous painting in Scotland is not a king or a battle but a thin clergy4 minutes walk4.8
Royal MileOne street connects a castle to a palace and drops about 70 metres in the roughl4 minutes walk4.8It is not a haunted house: no actors jump out and the sound and lighting effects are modest, just a guide telling history with a few ghost stories folded in. Under-fives are barred anyway; five-to-sevens may be unsettled by the dark, the tight spaces and the plague talk; from eight upwards it works well and plenty of children prefer it to Edinburgh Castle.
Yes, if you want real history: the cheap walks stay on the street and live on anecdotes, whereas here you physically enter buried houses you cannot see any other way. If you only want a fright, do not spend £28 on it.