City of the Dead Underground Vaults (Day)

City of the Dead are running their underground vaults tour on Tuesday 3 November, with the meeting point by the roadside wall of St Giles' Cathedral on the Royal Mile (EH1 1RE). It's a day tour that takes you down into the South Bridge Vaults, the 'Underground City' that sits beneath the South Bridge, which was built between 1785 and 1788 as Edinburgh's first purpose-built shopping street.

There's a bit of a legend attached to the place: the bridge's opening ceremony was supposedly cursed when its oldest female resident died before the day, and her coffin was carried across instead. The damp, waterlogged chambers were abandoned by 1795 and forgotten for over a century, until rugby player Norrie Rowan stumbled upon them while renovating his flat. The area they're built into, the Cowgate, was once a notorious melting pot of merchants, gamblers, thieves and 'ladies of the night', and is home to the ghosts of Burke and Hare.

The walk is researched and written by award-winning novelist and historian Jan-Andrew Henderson, author of The Town Below the Ground and Going Underground: Edinburgh, and is led by a mix of historians and thespians. Virgin Media called it the spookiest of the capital's ghost walks.

It's a 90-minute tour for £19.00, and they're running departures throughout the winter: 3.30pm daily and 8.00pm on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Bookings are open for October, November and December 2026.