Edinburgh’s South Bridge is a monumental, albeit fundamentally flawed, feat of 18th century engineering and design. The city itself straddles seven major hills. Only two of these high points are visible in the city centre today – Castle Hill. The original hills of this ancient fortified city are now masked by five bridges which span the resulting valleys and seamlessly integrate their undulating contours into the landscape.

One of the most fascinating of these five bridges is Edinburgh’s famous South Bridge.

As time passed, space on Edinburgh’s South Bridge started to sell at premium prices; land was fetching more per square foot than anywhere else in Europe. Businessmen started to build shops along the top of the bridge, to make the most of passing trade. To accommodate these shop fronts, tenement houses were built along both sides of 18 of the original 19 arches, leaving only the Cowgate arch visible, as it remains today. To maximise space further, floors and ceilings were built beneath the blocked-in arches constructing dark, airless, vaulted chambers. These areas were originally used as workshops for the businesses above while the vaults below ground level were used for storage.

Records from the day, recent excavations and various artefacts which have since been discovered, all point to the fact that in the early days of the bridge many businesses thrived in these man-made, “underground” spaces; taverns, cobblers, cutlers, smelters, victuallers and milliners, all left evidence of their trades. 

In the absence of legal trade and licensed businesses, the dark, damp wet vaults started to become home to only the very poorest and most disreputable sections of society. This included immigrant Irishmen and Highlanders seeking refuge from the clearances, mercenary landlords, and even body snatchers!

The vaults were filled in with rubble, both for security for the businesses still operating above on street level and also to discourage squatters making home in what was effectively a place to die, not to live… and so the vaults fell into the dim distant memory of generations past.

Over the years visitors who experience Mercat Tours’ history and ghost tours have recorded some very curious and unexplained activity. These very special overnight “Vaults Vigils” will open the doors of the Vaults to the general public every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night in August from midnight until dawn. Intrepid souls will be given the chance to brave the Blair Street vaults with a trained Mercat Guide and shown how to use the latest in “ghost hunting” equipment. EMF recorders and infrared thermometers will be made available to small groups who will conduct a series of controlled experiments with the chance to compare and contrast results at the end of the evening.