The Stories of Edinburgh's Blair Street Underground Vaults
5th Feb 2026This winter, stay warm with stories of ghosts and the people who inspired them. Enter the candlelight warmth of the Blair Street Underground Vaults on an Edinburgh vaults tour.
History is all about stories. But oftentimes, those stories were written by educated people, for those who could read.
Folklore, and its ghost stories, are spoken tales passed on by Storytellers. For much of history, they were stories by those who couldn’t write for those who couldn’t read.
These stories are designed to explain the world around the tellers. For the listener, the stories engage, enthral and entertain.
In the twenty-first century, they provide the opportunity to delve into the history of largely undocumented individuals, and to cosy up in late winter and hear about those that came before.
In the case of Edinburgh’s South Bridge Vaults (which the Blair Street Underground Vaults are part of), these stories often feature people who were overlooked by those who could afford a trip to the shopping street above.
The Ghosts of Underground Edinburgh
If you’ve been on our Edinburgh ghost tours, you’ll have heard of the finely dressed man in the top hat, the boy in the expensive high school uniform and the man who was in the business of making shoes.
What they all have in common is that their world was above the bridge: in the shops, tenements and near-by school. They had income and money to spare.
This was not the case for another person you might have heard of: a crouched figure, huddled over his knees, with his back to the visitors who gaze up at him through a floor that has long since crumbled away.
He has no interest in the group below him, too consumed by cold, disease and hunger to be aware of anything but retaining enough body heat to survive the night.
He is the remnant of a dark time for the Edinburgh underground world, a time where the poorest of the city had no better place to turn to. They lived down in the vaults, in the dark and the damp.
Ghostly Children in the Blair Street Underground Vaults
The boy known as ‘Jack’ is associated with a rubber ball that is often heard by visitors bouncing around the passageways, but he is not the only child in the vaults.
There are regular descriptions of a child pulling a tin toy cart from room to room, whilst another chases a rolling hoop with a stick. The sound of children’s laughter is one of the most frequently reported sounds down here.
Perhaps this is surprising in a place famous for menacing footsteps and dragging chains, but it is important to remember that the site has a history that is older than the bridge.
This is demonstrated by an encounter that might be had with a young boy named Peter. He lived in the tenements that used to be part of Marlin’s Wynd in the 1550s, before the wynd was demolished to make way for South Bridge.
He sits on what was once his front doorstep, existing within a single snapshot of time and space. Maybe the laughter that other visitors have heard are children from that same street.
Maybe Peter would like to play with them, but he will not, for his mother has told him the stories of the body snatchers, who might roam the area looking for their next victim.
The Blair Street Underground Vaults
Sometimes referred to as the Edinburgh catacombs or Edinburgh underground city, the Blair Street Underground Vaults are a series of chambers and corridors beneath South Bridge.
Originally meant to act as storage and workshop spaces for the shops aboveground, they soon turned to darker uses: housing the city’s poorest residents and lawless criminals.
While it’s tempting to call them Edinburgh catacombs, these vaults serve no religious or burial purposes. But while they might not be catacombs, they are just as haunted...
Explore the Blair Street Underground Vaults on a history tour, or dive into a more ghostly past during the school holidays. Maybe you'll even experience some of the vaults residents for yourself. From anonymous footsteps in the dark to the cold touch of a small, reaching hand...