Edinburgh

Small Group Edinburgh Night Walking Tour with Underground Vaults

Name: Small Group Edinburgh Night Walking Tour with Underground Vaults
Brand: Mercat Tours
SKU: 2934HIDDEN
Price: 26.93 USD
Rating: 4.5 (427 reviews)

Badge of ExcellenceEdinburgh, United Kingdom

Edinburgh Night Walking Including Underground Vaults

From $26.93

Select Date and Travelers

Free cancellation

Up to 24 hours in advance.

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St. Andrews Stirling Glasgow Newcastle-upon-Tyne Inverness Middlesbrough Belfast Manchester Liverpool Dublin Birmingham Northeast Scotland North East England The Scottish Highlands

1 hour
Mobile ticket
Offered in: English

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Overview

Explore a sinister side of Edinburgh on this late-night ghost walking tour that includes the Blair Street Vaults under South Bridge. Stroll mysterious alleyways as you listen to your guide’s grim and ghastly tales of treason and torture. Then venture underground for a candlelight tour of the 18th-century chambers and hear haunting stories of supernatural forces lingering in the city's darkest corners.

Enjoy a small-group experience, limited to 18 people maximum
Experience Edinburgh’s famous haunted Blair Street Underground Vaults by candle light
Visit sites of documented hauntings, ghosts and spirits
Hear fascinating stories of crimes, hangings and mysterious legends from your expert guide
Edinburgh late-night ghost walking tour

What's Included

Exclusive access to Blair Street Underground Vaults
Award-winning local storytellers
Small group experience
TourTalk radio receiver to enjoy a more immersive storytelling experience
This is strictly an adults-only tour suitable for those aged 18+ (not at parental discretion)

Meeting And Pickup

Meeting point

Mercat Cross
High St, Edinburgh EH1 1RF, UK
You will see staff wearing black and orange clothing and lanyard as well as a Mercat umbrella.

Start time

08:00 PM

End point

28 Blair St
28 Blair St, Edinburgh EH1 1QR, UK
This tour ends at the Blair Street Vaults

What To Expect

Take a ghost walking tour through Edinburgh and discover its mysterious secrets and chilling history. Your entertaining guide leads you down side streets and alleyways, and recounts supernatural history, fiendish plots and sinister tales from the city’s darkest corners to its subterranean chambers.
 Visit sites of hangings and documented spirit hauntings; discover where Edinburgh’s disreputable characters committed crimes of passion; and hear legendary stories, such as that of a wizard who was burned at the stake. Learn, too, about the notorious ‘bodysnatchers’ who reputedly stole fresh bodies from graveyards to sell to medical schools for anatomy lectures.

Then follow your guide underground to the Blair Street Vaults, built under the 19 stone arches of the South Bridge constructed in the late 18th century. Led by candlelight flickering in the shadows, you’ll see where lively poltergeists bide their time and learn of Edinburgh’s darkest deeds before your tour ends back above ground.

Mercat Cross

15 minutes • Admission Ticket Free

St Giles' Cathedral

15 minutes • Admission Ticket Free

Royal Mile

30 minutes • Admission Ticket Free

Mercat Tours

30 minutes • Admission Ticket Included

Edinburgh Old Town

30 minutes • Admission Ticket Free

Additional Info

Confirmation will be received at time of booking, unless booked within 7 days of travel. In this case confirmation will be received within 48 hours, subject to availability
Tours are guaranteed all year round, so please dress for the weather, with comfortable shoes.
Not wheelchair accessible
Service animals allowed

Near public transportation
Most travelers can participate
This tour/activity will have a maximum of 18 travelers

Cancellation Policy

You can cancel up to 24 hours in advance of the experience for a full refund.

For a full refund, you must cancel at least 24 hours before the experience’s start time.
If you cancel less than 24 hours before the experience’s start time, the amount you paid will not be refunded.

Any changes made less than 24 hours before the experience’s start time will not be accepted.
Cut-off times are based on the experience’s local time.

Traveler Photos

Traveler Tips

Besides I liked it being at 10pm: it gave time to have supper before :

Reviews

4.5

427 reviews

Total review count and overall rating based on Viator and Tripadvisor reviews

Reviews by Viator travelers.

Showing 1-10 of 427 reviews

The guide Ross was...

FAYE_S, Sep 2023

The guide Ross was awesome but we were hoping for more actual events of the history of the vaults. Perhaps we chose the wrong tour for what we were looking for.

A ghost relative?

Kristy_M, Sep 2023

When the guide asked everyone to close their eyes and say the first name that popped in their head. A complete stranger said “Jack McPherson”. I instantly got goosebumps as this was my grandfather’s name. Made the experience that much better.

Spooky Thrilling

Emma_D, Aug 2023

We had Ross as our tour guide and WOW he was amazing. His story telling was brilliant and made the tour super spooky and also enjoyable. If you have Ross- you're in for a treat!

Really fun thing to do 👍🏻🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Carrie_L, Jul 2023

Stephanie (our guide) was lovely. She was fun and interesting. She knew her stuff and presented it very well. The vaults were interesting, I wasn’t sure if I’d enjoy it as I’m a bit woosie of the dark and small spaces, but that added to the ‘scare’ 😂👍🏻😊

Silly

Linda_C, May 2023

While the tour leader worked hard and did a great job acting the part of someone terrified of the ghosts, the experience itself was just silly. Maybe children would enjoy it. We adults did not.

Great story tellers

Kayla_C, May 2023

Great time. Definitely gory, but good story tellers. Neave was very animated and enthusiastic. Very much enjoyed. Just didn’t want to eat dinner after.

Fun, informative tour

Danielle_L, May 2023

Enjoyed the tour and learned quite a bit about the ghosts and ghouls of Edinburgh. Tour guide (I believe his name was Ross) was also very interactive.

Michael is a great story...

Ilana_Z, Mar 2023

Michael is a great story teller!!! We had a lot of fun, very immersive and interacting experience!!!

Interesting

Gordon_F, Feb 2023

This was not the trip I was expecting, I expected a staged, actors jumping out scaring people, fake kind of tour but it wasn't, it was an educational, historical tour that was very interesting. Our guide Fay was fantastic, she had a very tough audience but was very informative, clear and did a great job.

Great experience!

Whitney_O, Oct 2022

Very fun and interesting way to learn more about Edinburgh’s dark history. Neave was a fantastic story teller and I loved hearing her tell the spooky tales of the past.

Underground night tour

Jeff_W, Sep 2022

Michael was a very good story teller!! Enjoyed learning about the history of Edinburgh! It was fun to see the vaults.

Great Guide

debrawagner69, Aug 2022

Our tour guide was great but wish we had walked around to some more areas. Loved going into the vaults

Ghost tour

Frank_S, Jul 2022

Storyteller was great! Would have liked to hear a bit more about the history of the vaults, but experience was great!

Plenty of shock, with no shlock.

Marshall_D, Jun 2022

While I absolutely wanted to see Edinburgh's famous underground, I had no interest in seeing costumed characters trying to scare me. This tour struck an excellent blend of history, fable, and just a little bit of drama for added effect. The tales that Maeve shared were interesting and gruesome and the sights leading up to the underground were interesting. The underground was the highlight, of course, and we spent almost exactly the perfect amount of time there, hearing about the actual history and the paranormal tales of an extraordinarily creepy setting. Less time would have been too short and longer would have started to get claustrophobic. I highly recommend it.

Not what I wanted

CharlesF_M, May 2022

I thought I was going to hear about the history of the underground vaults and their significance in Edinburgh’s past; however, unfortunately I did not. The tour was more of a “ghost tour” and guides told stories to make you think spirits dwelled in the vaults. It was not what I wanted and was disappointing in historical content.

Response from Host, May 2022

Hi Charles, Thanks for joining us. I'm sorry to hear that the tour wasn't what you wanted. We do have a history only tour of the vaults which may have been more to your tastes. The tour you booked however was a ghost tour. All the best, Kim

Great for people who like the darker side of history really good tour

Angela_H, Apr 2022

The vaults very spooky great story telling by Mark . The tour is not too long so it keeps your interest

Scam,scam,sxam

Jayne_L, Mar 2022

The 'tour'was a disaster. On arrival at the meeting point we were met by no one. Phone calls were unanswered and our night was ruined. Please people do not use this company

Response from Host, Mar 2022

Hi Jayne, I'm extremely sad to see this negative review. We sent you all of the relevant information about the meeting point and time, as we do for all of our visitors. All other fourteen visitors booked onto the same tour made it on. We had team at both the Mercat Cross and the office at the time of your tour. Our team also wait at least an additional 15 minutes in the case of a visitor not showing up incase they are running late. Hence, we are unsure how you were unable to contact anyone. Please could you send us over more information at info@mercattours.com so that we can look into this. Kind Regards, Kim

Fantastic tour

Nia_B, Jan 2022

Our guide was hilarious if he isn’t a stand up comedian when he’s not being a guide he should be! Fantastic tour, really interesting, Incredibly creepy and made me jump out of my skin on many occasions!

Crap

kieran_b, Nov 2021

If you have any sense. Max out your credit cards and wait for the bill to come in. That’ll give you a bigger fright. Avoid this bull and stay in pub.

Our Guide was lovely and...

Shelby_H, Oct 2021

Our Guide was lovely and she really did make a fun atmosphere and the headphone set was a nice touch. However if you're looking to hear any real haunted history of Edinburgh this isn't for you. There wasn't much of a walking tour which was why we booked. Whole thing altogether was short lived. The 'tour' was like a 2 minute walk down the Royal Mile, then half an hour in the vaults No real history or stories told or learned, in truth we have no idea what the vaults were really used for. It was half an hour of made up ghost stories that made no sense to the tour and a heap of ramble about other groups feeling weird chills. For the money it cost, we left with no real ghostly history about Edinburgh, just that a few people 'passed' out in the vaults feeling a 'ghostly presence'.

...