Edinburgh Vaults a spooky place

 When Edinburgh built a bridge to the south about 1788, which they called South Bridge, it had 19 arches. Across the top were shops, like many bridges did then.

Edinburgh castle and its main thoroughfare are on a volcanic outcrop. When glaciers covered the land the ice had to go around the volcanic rock, and gouged out two grooves either side of the central ‘spine’. The north sided groove, or gully, was the loch collecting all the refuse off the city:; what was called in the 1770s the ‘nasties’. On the south sided groove or gully was the cow gate, where, not surprisingly, the cows to be butchers were kept.

And beyond these gullies was higher land again, so the bridges made perfect sense.

Someone had the bright idea to build rooms into the arches, and utilize this space. Edinburgh was very tight in space. It had to build upwards within the town walls. Those highlanders could come back! There were buildings up to 14 stories high down at the lower end. 

At first these were used as workshops for the shops on the bridge above. Workshops like glovers. But there were problems. There was no ventilation, no running water, no sewerage (like the rest of Edinburgh). Soon the workshops moved out and the criminals moved in. They had a whiskey distillery down there, and body snatchers. The university was only 300m away.

After the 1820s the poor started to arrive, from the clearances in Scotland, from Ireland and even people from the continent such as Jews. Some rooms had fireplaces built in, and up to 10 people might live in a window-less stone room. But at least there was no rent.

In the 1850s the first inspector of public health was appointed in Scotland, and no surprises, he closed them to human habitation. They were blocked off and largely FORGOTTEN by the inhabitants of Edinburgh until the 1970s when the owner of the Tron Hotel broke through his basement. The Blair St ones were leased to the tour company that took us down.

Once the rubble was cleared, the stone caverns were left ‘as was’. We toured by candles in the rooms and the tour leader’s torch. But it was not tae scary. Jeanette looks slightly asleep while our big tour guide Lauren is looking a wee bit apprehensive.

Originally built as numbered storage bays, rented out for a shilling a year, these later became kids beds.

Well it was too spooky. Later the guide Linda showed some of us a photograph taken by a tourist while underground, which very clearly showed an old woman’s head. Fakery, propaganda, deceit…….. or something else entirely?