Ghosts · Edinburgh

The Night of Wonders in Mary King's Close

Mary King's Close, under the Royal Mile, Edinburgh

Spooky: for older readers

In Edinburgh, not long before 1685, there lived a law agent called Thomas Coltheart, who did business about the courts. At flitting time, when people moved house, he took a new house in Mary King's Close.

On the Saturday, as his maid was carrying up some of the lighter furniture, a neighbour stopped her. Was she going to live in that house? Yes, said the maid, she was hired for the half-year. “If you live there,” said the neighbour, “I assure you you will have more company than yourselves.” By the time she'd been up and down the close a few more times and heard more, the maid told her mistress she wouldn't stay in a house that was haunted, and she left.

Mrs Coltheart begged her husband not to take the house. He only smiled and moved in that very night.

On Sunday afternoon he lay down for a sleep, and his wife sat by the bed reading her Bible. She happened to look up at the door of a little room just opposite, and there was the head and face of an old man, grey-haired and grey-bearded, staring straight at her. She tried to wake her husband and fainted clean away, and didn't come round until she heard the neighbours coming home from church. Thomas said it was only her fancy.

That night they built up a big fire and went to bed. Soon Thomas himself saw the old man's head, by the chimney. He lit a candle, and they lay there praying. After an hour or more, a little child in a coat appeared, hanging in the air near the old man's head. Then came a bare arm, from the elbow down, floating towards the bed and stretching out its hand as if to shake his. Thomas called out to it in the name of God to say why it troubled his family. He had never wronged any man, he said, and if it had been wronged, he would do his best to put it right. But it should trouble him no more.

The arm only came nearer, still politely offering its hand. Then a little dog trotted out of the small room, looked about, and curled up on a chair with its nose in its tail as if to sleep. A cat came leaping out after it and began to play tricks in the middle of the floor. Then the whole room was full of tiny creatures dancing prettily, such as neither of them had ever seen and had no name for.

The couple knelt on the bed and prayed. Then came a deep, dreadful groan, like a strong man dying, and every one of the visions vanished back into the little room. The house was quiet. The Colthearts went hand in hand into that very room, where their drink was kept, and had a good draught. “My dear,” said Thomas, “God hath made me this night to bear that which would have affrighted to death the stoutest of them all.”

He lived in the house for the rest of his life, and was never troubled like that again.

No plate yet. We are still looking for an old picture of this place.

What people said

Crows of death. A few weeks later, Sinclair says, Thomas went to church at Corstorphine. Walking home, he was taken with a fit of shivering, and crows flew over him almost the whole way back to the city. “These crows, my dear,” he said, “do prognosticate that I must die shortly.” He fell ill and died.
The ghost at Tranent. At about the hour of his death, the gentleman he worked for, near Tranent, saw a figure walking in his bedroom. He asked it, “Art thou my dear friend Thomas Coltheart?” The ghost raised its hand three times, waving it towards him, and vanished.
The minister and the chair. When a minister called on the widow and heard the story, he found he was sitting in the very chair the ghostly dog had slept on. He got up and asked to see the little room too.

Other tellings

Sinclair's version, printed in 1685, is the earliest we have found. He presents it as told to him “within these few years”, and says the story reached the Duke of Lauderdale, who had the minister repeat it before many of the nobility. In the heading he gives the man only as “T. C.”, and names him as Thomas Coltheart later in the story.
Today the close is better known for other ghosts, told on the tours there. They are modern stories, and we haven't found them in the old books.

What the history says

Mary King's Close was a real street running down off the High Street. In 1753 its upper part was built over when the Royal Exchange, now the City Chambers, went up on top of it, and parts of the old close survive underground. [TODO: confirm with the City of Edinburgh Council or Historic Environment Scotland]

George Sinclair, who wrote the book, had been a university professor. His title page says he gathered these stories to prove, “against the Atheists of this present Age”, that there are devils, spirits, witches and apparitions. [TODO: Sinclair's dates and university]

Go and See

Where: The Real Mary King's Close, 2 Warriston's Close, on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh.
Access: You can only see the old close on a guided tour, which needs a ticket. The attraction is open seven days a week, and tickets can be booked online. [TODO: prices, age guidance and step-free access from realmarykingsclose.com]
Allow: About an hour for the tour.
Families: A spooky story, though nobody is hurt in the house. The underground tour is dark and close, so it's best for older children.

Visiting details checked 24 October 2026 with The Real Mary King's Close. Always check before you travel.

55.9500° N, 3.1904° W · Open in OpenStreetMap

Make a day of it

From our sister sites

Haunted Hotels UKThe Real Mary King's Close tourFor grown-ups: the one-hour guided tour of the 17th-century streets under the Royal Mile.The Name GeneratorsName a ghost of your ownPale ladies, grey monks and headless horsemen.

Sources

George Sinclair, Satan's Invisible World Discovered (1685), Relation XXXVIII, “An apparition seen in a dwelling-house, in Mary King's close, in Edinburgh”. Our main source and the earliest telling we have found. Read in the 1769 edition at the Internet Archive.
Visiting: The Real Mary King's Close, realmarykingsclose.com, checked 24 October 2026.

This is a legend, told as people told it. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.