The Vaults

The Edinburgh Vaults or South Bridge Vaults are situated in tunnels built in the 18th century underneath one of the arches of the South Bridge in Edinburgh, Scotland, which was completed in 1788. For around 30 years, the vaults were used to house taverns, cobblers and other tradesmen, and as storage space for illicit material, reportedly including the bodies of people killed by serial killers Burke and Hare for medical experiments.
As the conditions in the vaults deteriorated, mainly because of damp and poor air quality, the businesses left and the very poorest of Edinburgh's citizens moved in, though by around 1820, even they are believed to have left too. That people had lived there was only discovered in 1985 during an excavation, when middens were found containing toys, medicine bottles, plates, and other signs of human habitation.



Background

Edinburgh was a growing community in the late 1700s and two bridges were built to facilitate the expansion, North Bridge and South Bridge, known locally as 'The Bridges'. The South Bridge, built to span the Cowgate gorge between High Street and the growing University of Edinburgh on the Southside, was first proposed in 1775, although work did not begin until August 1785.[2]

Edinburgh's South Bridge should be regarded as more than a simple crossing from Old Town to Southside. It was, in fact, Edinburgh's first purpose built shopping street, and as such as much space as possible was utilised. The bridge itself is a nineteen arch viaduct, although only one arch is visible today, the 'Cowgate arch.' The remaining eighteen arches were enclosed behind tenement buildings built to allow the area to serve as a commercial district. The hidden arches of the bridge were then given extra floors to allow their use for industry. In total there are approximately 120 rooms or 'vaults' beneath the surface of the South Bridge, ranging in size from two metres squared to forty metres squared. South Bridge officially opened for business on 1 March 1788.

                                                            Edinburgh Vaults Room 1

The vault rooms, used as storage space and workshops for the South Bridge businesses, operated as intended for a relatively short space of time. Construction of the bridge had been rushed and the surface was never sealed against water. The vaults began to flood. Abandonment of the vaults began as early as 1795. With the vaults being gradually abandoned by the businesses on the bridge, the empty rooms were adopted and adapted by new users. As the industrial revolution took hold of Britain, the Cowgate area had developed into Edinburgh's slum. Slum dwellers took over the vaults and they became a renowned red light district with countless brothels and pubs operating within the abandoned complex. The vaults also served as additional slum housing for the city’s poor. Living conditions were appalling. The rooms were cramped, dark and damp. There was no sunlight, poorly circulated air, no running water, and no sanitation. Many rooms housed families of more than ten people. Crimes, including robbery and murder, soon plagued the Vaults. Burke and Hare, the infamous serial killers who sold corpses to medical schools, are rumoured to have hunted for victims in the Edinburgh Vaults.

              

                                                                                                                    One of the vaults used as storage space

It is not known when the vaults complex was closed down, with some suggesting as early as c.1835 and others as late as c.1875. Written records regarding the vaults during their slum use are virtually non-existent. All that is known is that at some point tons of rubble were dumped into the vaults making them inaccessible.

The vaults were rediscovered by former Scottish rugby internationalist, Norrie Rowan, after he found a tunnel leading to them in the 1980s. From this tunnel he helped Romanian rugby player Christian Raducanu escape the Romanian secret police and seek political asylum weeks before the Romanian uprising of 1989.

The vaults were excavated by Norrie Rowan and his son Norman Rowan in the 1990s. Hundreds of tonnes of rubble were removed by hand and several interesting artifacts were dicovered including thousands of oyster shells, which were part of the staple diet of the Edinburgh working class.

The vaults on the North Side of the Cowgate arch form a series of tunnels and vaults that make up Mercat Tours and a venue called Marlin's Wynd. The vaults on the South side of the Cowgate arch form a magnificent venue called The Caves. Also the vaults here are used for tours by a company called City of the Dead

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                                                              Niddry vaults 2


Since then, the Vaults have become a popular tourist destination for professional and amateur ghost-busters, who come to explore their gloomy, candle-lit corridors in the hope of meeting a spirit.

Reported spectral tenants include the cantankerous "Mr. Boots", who nudges tourists, can be heard swearing, and tails tour groups while clomping on the stone floor. Then there’s young "Jack", a boy who giggles as he runs about the dark rooms. Tours to the areas featuring these ghosts are run by Mercat Tours. City of the Dead runs other underground tours.

The frequent reports of paranormal activity and ghost sightings resulted in the UK paranormal entertainment show, Most Haunted, to investigate the vaults in both a 24 hour investigation and for a Most Haunted Live show on Halloween 2006. The television show Ghost Adventures investigated the vaults and claimed to have numerous encounters with spirits there.

In 2001, Professor Richard Wiseman of the University of Hertfordshire invited subjects to spend time in the Edinburgh Vaults. His study concluded that people who believed in ghosts reported more supernatural experiences than disbelievers, that participants consistently reported unusual sensations in areas they were told were haunted, and that there was an increased report of incidents in Vault rooms with a decidedly more sinister visual appearance or stronger cold air flow. Professor Wiseman’s study suggests that visitors may help create the haunted experience they expect to find in the Vaults.

However in 2009 a BBC TV production team filming a one-off TV special featuring Joe Swash recorded unexplained voices in the vaults during an overnight sleepover by Swash. One voice appeared to be that of a Catholic priest reciting the Last Rites. Swash was the only person in the vaults and did not hear the voices himself at the time of recording, despite the sounds being audible on his own microphone. The voices continued to be heard on the recording for some 20 minutes before abruptly ceasing after what appears to be the sound of children yelling. BBC sound engineers initially thought the sounds may be explained by voices drifting into the tunnels from nightclubs nearby but this was found to be incorrect and no other logical explantion could be found. The recordings were broadcast as part of the finished program Joe Swash Believes in Ghosts on BBC Three in January 2010.

Links

Here's a link Mary King's Close subterranean tunnels & chambers

[URL="http://www.davidicke.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1058727657#post1058727657"]http://www.davidicke.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1058727657#post1058727657[/URL]

Mary King's Close, Subterranean Tunnels & Chambers

                          
 

                                    


Mary King's Close is the best known close on the Royal Mile thanks to its 300 years old legends and ghost stories but, until recently it has also been the least visited. In the past few years, the close not generally open to the public has been open as a tourist attraction and is now called 'The Real Mary King's Close'.

Mary King's Close is a network of subterranean tunnels and chambers running beneath the Old Town area of Edinburgh, Scotland. After being used as closes and later being closed to the public for many years, the complex has become shrouded in myths and urban legends. Tales of ghosts and murders, and myths of plague victims being walled up and left to die abandoned. However, new research and archaeological evidence has revealed that the close actually consists of a number of closes which were originally narrow streets with tenement houses on either side, stretching up to seven stories high. Mary King's Close is now a commercial tourist attraction.



The Plague


                                    
                                        Dr George Rae treats an unfortunate plague victim


During Christmas 1644 the plague, probably brought by ship from Europe via the port of Leith, and spread by fleas carried on black rats, erupted across the land. It took hold first in Edinburgh, then spread west and north, and over the following 18 months killed a substantial part of the Scottish population.

Despite the myth, victims were not walled up in the closes and left to starve.[citation needed] In fact, there had been a long tradition of organized quarantine in the town. Over many previous outbreaks, those infected with the plague enclosed themselves in their house and indicated their plight by displaying a small white flag from the window. In response, bread, ale, coal and even wine were delivered to them daily, and a plague doctor would visit to drain bubos - the pus-filled lymph nodes, which threatened to rupture and kill the patient through septicemia. Some people were quarantined in wooden huts or ‘ludges’, outside the town at Sciennes, Boroughmuir, or in the King’s Park, for anything from two to six weeks or until death, whichever came the soonest.

With the limited and often downright dangerous medical treatments of the time, doctors could do very little to help. Like others, they would have worn herb-filled, beak-like, masks to try to protect themselves; but many died. John Paulitious, Edinburgh’s first official plague doctor, was one such victim. However, the risks were not without compensation. Paulitious' salary had risen from £40, first to £80, and then to an incredible £100 Scots a month by the time his successor, Dr George Rae, replaced him on 13 June 1645.

Dr Rae dressed from head to toe in a thick leather mask, cloak and gloves when visiting plague victims. At the time, it was believed the plague was spread by miasma - what was thought to be 'bad air' - and the doctor's cloak was designed to prevent miasma from reaching his skin. It has since been shown that the plague was actually spread by flea bites, and that the leather prevented fleas from the patients biting the doctor.

By November, Dr Rae had negotiated a further £10 Scots per month but by the autumn of 1646 the worst was over in Edinburgh, though it took longer elsewhere, and the Council had second thoughts about paying him. Ten years after the last major outbreak of the "foul pestilence" in Scotland, George Rae was still fighting to be paid. He eventually won and claimed an unprecedented yearly pension of £1,200 Scots.



The story of Mary King's Close


The Close was a street back in the 17th century and much of it is still intact. It runs from the High Street northwards beneath the City Chambers Edinburgh's Local Government. Before Cockburn Street was built Mary Kings Close used to run all the way to Market Street.

The Close is said to be named after the daughter of wealthy advocate and owner of the property, Alexander King, although little evidence has been found in that respect. A woman by the name of Mary King did live there in mid 17th century.



'The Real Mary King's Close' presents tourists with a historically accurate interpretation of life in these narrow alleyways from 16th up to the 19th century.

In mid 17th century the Old Town had been infested with black rats from ships at Leith Docks and disease spread out. The local council attempted to contain the plague and the decision was made to block up the entrances to Mary King's Close. Some plague victims are thought to have been locked in.

In the following years the close had been reopened due to overcrowding in the Old Town and sightings of ghosts, mainly headless animals and disembodied men, have been reported.

       
This image gives a better idea of the set out of the buildings and shows part of the rooms and chambers underneath the City Chambers where the would inhabitants lived,

60 feet down into the forgotten streets of Edinburgh’s past. It's fascinating to see how far down below street level the passages led,


The old closes of “The Real Mary King’s Close” lie beneath what is now Warriston Close and the Town Hall. The ancient closes used to run down at right angles from the High Street right down to the Noor Loch – which was later drained and built on, forming Prince’s Street gardens and Waverley Station. These closes were fortified with vaults before being built over. The rooms we went through dated back to the 1400’s.

    
                                      You can see a few orbs in the picture above


The myth that that the Burgh council had bricked up the inhabitants in the close and left them to die of plague before "sending in butchers to dismember the bodies" was untrue. The truth was a law preventing contact between healthy and unhealthy – 12 feet the distance people should keep from one another. They also kept the doors of unwell households shut for six weeks once the plague had been found. Doctor George Rae would be the only person allowed into a plague household – and if the plague victims didn’t have a hard enough time, the guy trying to help them was dressed in head to foot black leather and wore a mask with a beak full of herbs. This was to protect him against “miasma” – or bad air – but helpfully it also stopped the plague carrying fleas from getting to him. They did send in the cleaners after most people had dies as well. They would light fires in the middle of the rooms to smoke out the bad air.

                                    
look close there's another few orbs in this pic one on the ground, and one just above the hand rail left hand side

There were two types of plague; Pneumonic and bubonic. Pneumonic you either survived or died, bubonic could be treated by cutting out the pus-filled boils and cauterizing the wounds – without any anesthetic.



There are plenty of ghost stories, the most frequent sighting in recent years has been that of a young girl, no more than 5 or 6 years old called 'Annie' by those that have seen her. with one room containing a shrine to “Annie” – supposedly a poltergeist spoken to by a medium in the early 1990’s. The plague victim was allegedly locked in a room by her parents and left to die by her parents’ before coming back to haunt the former house to look for her doll. People have left loads of toys to placate the spirit giving the room a really tacky and slightly unnerving edge. people leave dolls and soft animals.

you could see all the way up the close and peer in a workshop which was utilized as recently as the 1930’s. it was amazing to see all the rooms and staircases forming a warren below the city.



                                    
                                                             Chesney's house






                                    
                                                              The Thunder Box


Links

Check out this link!!
http://www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=6329418650

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_King's_Close

http://www.stuckonscotland.co.uk/edi...ngs-close.html