Edinburgh Historic Vaults Afternoon Walking Tour

Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Discover the underground vaults of Edinburgh city if you dare! Far below the busy, bustling Edinburgh streets there lies a dark, quiet and forgotten place. These wonderful dark rooms of arched ceilings, fireplaces and 18th century wine vaults lie beneath the South Bridge, one of the city's main thoroughfares.

The late 18th century was a time of great expansion and innovation in Edinburgh. To improve access from the Old Town to the new developments two enormous structures were built, the North and South Bridges. By 1790 there were almost one hundred businesses active on the South Bridge with their workshops in the underground Vaults below.

As well as lack of natural light, the Vaults suffered from water seeping from the South Bridge above, stalactites are evidence of this.

But, there was a darker side too. To the immediate south stands Infirmary Street, where Edinburgh's medical school used to be. It was here that the notorious pair, Burke and Hare, sold the bodies of their murdered victims. Could the vaults have stored a different sort of merchandise?

Paranormal studies have been conducted on the vaults and have indicated a high level of poltergeist activity. Several cases have been reported by tour participants who have experienced punching, bruising, scratching, hair-pulling and ankle-grabbing. If you're lucky you may even feel an icy breath on the back of your neck. An experience to remember!

USD $14.36

Traveler Reviews

Review by: k l	April 2012
Good tour, very informative.

Review by: LISA G	April 2012
Very interesting and the tour guide was very entertaining and informative.

Review by: Sophie A	April 2012
Informative information given in small doses, which was good to take in and remember. Really wanted to see the Vaults - this tour was a good introduction of that. Worth doing.

Review by: Stephen J	March 2012
An unusual trip with good guides.

Review by: Tibor M	January 2012
Roger is an excellent tour guide,without him it would have been a short and boring walk. His storytelling skill sells the whole walk.

Review by: Filipe C	December 2011
Just a historic tour like many others but interesting.

Review by: R C M	December 2011
The experience is very good but because the vaults are not very extensive the quality of the tour is down to the tour guide and mine was excellent. I rate it 4 stars.

Review by: mairi b	October 2011
was bored after the first 5mins standing in a close so left the group..not great value for money :(

Review by: Matthew T	September 2011
Living in Scotland it was really good to hear some of the history of Edinburgh, the guide was very knowledgeable. Will do a haunted tour next time. The only down side was we booked a tour for 12md, and planned our day around this. The guide didn't turn up and we had to then do the 2pm tour which messed our day up, as we didn't have much time to do anything else.

Review by: karen n	August 2011
tour was excellent, very informative, would highly recommend it

Review by: Derek H	June 2011
A family of four with 10 and 8 year olds, we all loved the tour. Roger, our guide pitched it perfect for us and kept us all interested throughout with the creation and history of the vaults. The duration was exactly right at 75 mins - our youngest was just starting to lose concentration at that point, which is probably a record, excluding computer games! Definitely recommend it for anybody who enjoys their history.

Review by: T T	May 2011
Excellent guided tour bringing lots of information to life. Thanks

Review by: archie h	March 2011
excellent guide good day out value for money

Review by: JOANNE S	December 2010
Brilliant tour, we all really enjoyed it (all 9 of us). Excellent value for money.

Review by: Anne C	December 2010
Great tour, very interesting facts of the history of the vaults and fantastic guide. Would definitely recommend!

Review by: Lee E	November 2010
A very insightful view of the historic vaults and I highly recommend. I was uncertain if I should take the ghost tour in the same area, but both were very good. The nice thing about this vault tour is you could see in greater detail the actual area (as in night it is quite dark).The history is an important part as well.

Review by: Sue L	October 2010
Informative and narrative A different way to pass some time in Edinburgh

Review by: J W	September 2010
Guide was excellent made the tour very interesting and informative

Review by: Anonymous	August 2010
The Edinburgh Historic Vaults tour didn't thrill me. It wasn't as interesting as it could have been, plus the route was so dimly lit as to be dangerous. Our guide was marginally informative and entertaining. I would skip this one in the future. However, I would give other Viator tours a much higher score than this.

Review by: Anonymous, United Kingdom	June 2010
Excellent tour, great history, we may go for the ghosts & ghouls one next time, though we did manage to get some pictures of orbs. Tour guide was excellent too.

Review by: Anne C, United States of America	June 2010
We really enjoyed this tour, especially my nine year old. We learned so much about old Edinburgh and the guide was wonderful. This is an easy walking tour, low stress, and very informative. We have a whole new appreciation of Edinburgh that we never would have if we hadn't done this walking tour.

Review by: Mary Jo M, United States of America	April 2010
It was interesting and informative.

Review by: Mary jo M	April 2010
It was interesting and informative.

Review by: ruth j, United Kingdom	November 2009
the tour was good interesting you don't really get alot of time to realy have a look yourself it would be good to see other parts of the vaults also as we went on two tours and they were the same only in different names i picked up a few interesting pictures with something on it and also a sound like a dog barking who knows

Review by: BRENDON S, United Kingdom	November 2009
The instructions of where to meet were very clear and the guide was there on time or early.The guide was very informative and as we really enjoy history we loved his stories and information about the vaults. We will use you again as in the past,keep up the good work!.

Review by: Ruth J	November 2009
the tour was good interesting you don't really get alot of time to realy have a look yourself it would be good to see other parts of the vaults also as we went on two tours and they were the same only in different names i picked up a few interesting pictures with something on it and also a sound like a dog barking who knows

Review by: Yvonne D, United Kingdom	October 2009
Really knowlegable tour guide who made the tour come to life!

Review by: Deanna M, United States of America	August 2009
The history lesson was great.

Review by: Londa N, South Africa	June 2009
Very informative.

Review by: Anonymous, Netherlands	June 2009
This was a bit disappointing. We had expected to be taken on a socio-historical tour of the vaults, which is what this was. But we had not expected to see only four underground rooms and spend the rest of the time standing in them, talking about how people used to live in Edinburgh. Although this was very interesting in its own right, we think the tour would be much better if it was an actual walk.

Review by: Rikke P, United Kingdom	March 2009
I went with 3 of my friends a couple of weeks ago, and we all found it very interesting! The historical background is very exciting, and the tour guide was very good! He mentioned at the beginning of the tour that this was not a ghost tour - but the ghosts wouldn't know that! And we did hear a couple of unexplained noises down there that made even the guide stop and re-think what he was doing! Even if you don't believe in ghosts, it's still very exciting to learn about the past of Edinburgh.

Review by: Anonymous, United Kingdom	February 2009
It was very disappointing. We thought we had booked a ghost tour and at 4pm because it was winter, but at the end it was mentioned ghost tour I believe at 7pm.

Review by: Graham S, United Kingdom	August 2008
The guide was very knowledgeable on the history of Edinburgh and brought the vaults to life with his interesting tales of days of yore. He had a good strong voice being a retired school teacher, so all could hear him. He was also very safety conscious throughout the tour, however, the ground was uneven therefore good walking shoes would be recommended. The lighting is very poor for atmosphere so if you are nervous of the dark don't go. The group we were with was rather large for the space in the vaults, our guide commented upon this several times. We thought that the whole idea of pre-booking was to avoid this situation by the company supplying sufficient guides. About half the group were people who had not pre-booked which spoilt the tour as our guide advised that we could not enter various area because of the amount of people. Not recommended for people with walking difficulties or young children.

Review by: Eric P, United States of America	August 2008
Interesting, but it wasn't what I thought it would be, and I'm not sure if I'd recommend it. If you have only 1-2 days in Edinburgh, I wouldn't do it.

Review by: Michael V, Germany	July 2008
The guide was highly knowledgeable, open to questions and very inspiring. I am very glad I booked this!!!

Review by: Anonymous, United States of America	October 2006
This tour was very good.