Video: Edinburgh’s top 5 most haunted places

Is Edinburgh a hotbed of spooky goings-on?

Click below to watch each video:

1: Mackenzie Poltergeist, Greyfriars Kirkyard

To some it is the home of the master of evil – but while many flock to see the grave of Thomas Ridell, who gave his name to the Dark Lord Voldemort in JK Rowling’s Harry Potter books, the Kirkyard is also the spot where a phantom described as “the world’s most recorded poltergeist” resides.

2: Phantom of the Playhouse

The site of the Playhouse has the sort of fascinating past - at one time a Tabernacle - a religious meeting site - it also housed an insane asylum run by nuns and before that was used as a jousting ground in medieval times. But it was only in the 1950s when it was operating as a cinema that the tales of old Albert, the man in grey, began to surface.

3: Abandoned Annie, Mary King’s Close

There is no doubting the tragic history of the close. The one-packed tenement buildings of the 16th and 17th century were hit hard by the plague. Stories say the dead were often left in the street, branded and shunned, left to die alone for fear of others catching the gruesome sickness.

4: Johnny One-Arm, Royal Mile

One of the many legends to haunt the mile is the screaming figure of Johnny One-arm, a grisly tale once used as a local legend by parents to terrify their children with notions of a tortured soul grasping at those who disturb him with a spectral severed limb.

5: Blair Street Vaults

One of the Capital’s most famous supernatural sites, the historic Blair Street Vaults are an experience not for the faint hearted. One of the most commonly-sighted ghosts is the figure of a Jack, who tugs at people’s trousers or throws stones across the empty echoing chambers. Less friendly is Mr Boots, so called because of the footsteps he makes as he tramps around the afterlife. And worst of all is the Watcher, a spirit reported to instill feelings of dread in psychics.