Penkaet Castle   
Another classical haunting is that of Penkaet a 17th century Castle in Scotland.
Footsteps, rattling’s, mysterious apparitions standing by fireplaces. The obligatory family murder. There is a legend that a former owner John Cockburn killed his relative John Seton.
On July 29th 1946 public attention was drawn to the ‘entity’ that had disturbed a party of young people.
Furniture has been seen to move, beds unmaking themselves. Water taps running.
Doors opening and closing, cold spots, quests having a feeling of being watched or never being alone. Most spectacular of all was a glass dome that protected a model of the house in the library. The dome was a bout 2 feet high, and stood on an oval base about 20 inches long. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, and with no one anywhere near it, the glass dome shattered. Could this have been a hint from ‘John Cockburn’ that he was getting a bit tired of so many visitors?
Mary Kings Close
In Edinburgh during the late 1600’s to the mid to late 1700’s a serious of plagues hit the city, the black plague, scarlet fever. Edinburgh did have the nickname of Auld Reekie.
To stop the plague spreading buildings were often boarded up then burnt or left to the elements. One such narrow street (a Scottish close) was Mary Kings Close just off the high street in the densely populated built up area of the high street. Even in those days the buildings were 6 & stories tall. When the plague came the buildings were abandoned, over time the houses were built around and over including the present Edinburgh City Chambers. The close was used as filing storage facility and no one bothered to look into the history of the close. However now the history has been explored and a few lucky people every year are allowed access into the close, which is entered into, through a stairwell just outside the main offices of the city chamber. In the close there is a butchers shop and several homes complete with hand painted wallpaper. On my visit I was exploring a small room of one of the main chambers when I felt very cold, it was a sudden and dramatic drop in temperature (it was mid June in Scotland mid summer). I left the room and joined the group after a few more rooms the guide did mention that there was a rumour of a ghost in one of the rooms he did not mention which room. However when I asked if it was the small anti room he said yes.
 Apparently the ghost is of a small child, she laughs and giggles and sits in one corner of that room.
John MacDonald
 

From: Simon Craig
Sent: Monday, March 31, 2003 10:00 PM

Hi, I was just writing to let you know, that some of the facts on your website are a little off. Only to do with Mary Kings Close in Edinburgh, the houses weren't abandoned due to the plague, they were still occupied through
the plague. Yes some of the houses were burnt, but that was their way of cleansing the place for the next tenants. The reason the houses were emptied was because of the City Chambers being build above, the houses were bought
over. The only house that wasn't bought had it's tenant living in it until 1903, when the City Chambers bought it over so they could expand the building.
Oh and the ghost of the little girl, that would be Wee Annie. I've never heard of her sitting in a corner giggling, but yes her room is the most haunted of the Close. Something that people do when they visit, is to leave
a toy for Annie, as a gesture of kindness towards her (Or bribery to leave them alone).
 

Charmaine Russell
Hi there! I loved your site and your information. I found it, whilst looking for haunted places in Edinburgh, for a friend. I live in Edinburgh...and my friend is in the states and interested in the close.
Simon Craig wasn't so hot on hitting the mark, either. Wee Annie was a girl that was hit by the plague. She stays on Allan's Close and a Japanese psychic, Gibo, made contact with the girl. She had lost her doll and was very distraught. Gibo brought Annie a doll and Annie was over the moon!!! This is the reason that people leave toys and dolls for her. Also, the money collected in "Annie's room"  is donated to the Sick Kids Hospital, in the name of Annie. By the way, Annie didn't live on the Closes....she was walking down the street when the guards came to quarantine the people, she was one of them. This is how she's lost her doll. You can read more information on this by going to a good BBC site and typing in Mary King's Close.
Just some more information, the close takes its name from a woman who lived on the Close, not the daughter of Alexander King, a wealthy advocate in the city, who owned several properties in the vicinity and, until the building of Cockburn Street, it would have reached as far as the old Nor’ Loch. I BELIEVE it's her house that has been partially renovated and you can look in the front door.
The people were not "sealed" in...the Council of Edinburgh quarantined the people and gave them coal, food, water, etc...if you read the real HISTORY and not the SPOOKY part of it, for that day and age, they were treated quite well. Doctors still came in, they had the long bird beak like masks with posies stuffed in the beaks so they wouldn't smell the horrific smells of the dying and the dead. The spooky part is still fun and interesting...however, the history is quite fascinating as well.
The next time I go, I'll be happy to send you some pictures.
 

Saddell Abbey in Scotland is said to be haunted by "giants and
beasties".

At Cortachy Castle, near Kirriemuir in Scotland, a young drummer was sealed inside his drum and hurled from the battlements after having an affair with the lady of the castle. The sound of his drumming still can be heard.

Jedburgh Castle in Scotland was once host to a chilling apparition in a cloak which when pulled away was revealed to be empty
Hermitage Castle in Scotland is haunted by the black magician Lord Soulis who was thrown into a cauldron of boiling lead after murdering the children of local villagers.

 

Other Scotish Tales
If the Loch Ness Monster is rarely seen it may be because it is wary of the Ghost of Annie Frazer at nearby Aultsigh Inn, who was murdered by her lover in a jealous rage.

The Scottish mountain Ben Doran is haunted by a half-man, half-goat creature called a Urisk

A "green lady" with a baby has been seen at Crathes Castle in
Scotland, where the skeleton of a women and child were found under the floor during building work.


Inverawe House in the Western Highlands of Scotland has a
houseproud spirit called Green Jean, who puts out fresh soap and
towels for guests

At Ethie Castle near Aberdeen it is said you can hear Cardinal
Beaton as he limps through its corridors with his leg in bandages

 

Glamis Castle
For centuries strange and awful events that strike horror into the hearts of all those who experience Glamis.
Standing in the great vale of Strathmore. The vast fortified house with its battlements and pointed towers.
Does it contain some horrific secret? Said to be passed to the male heirs on their 21st birthdays and known only to the Earls of Strathmore.
The historical record of Glamis goes back to 1034, when King Malcolm II was cut down by a gang of rebellious subjects armed with claymores, the large broad swords peculiar to Scotland.
It was said that every ounce of Malcolm’s blood seeped into the floorboards. Leaving a stain that is still visible to this day.
Malcolm’s killers tried to escape across the frozen ice of the loch, but the ice cracked and they were sucked under and drowned.
In 1372 King Robert II gifted Glamis, to his son-in-law, Sir John Lyon. Lyon moved from Forteviot House to Glamis taking with him a great chalice "the Cup of Luck." But luck was to run out for the Lyon’s, in 1383 Sir John was killed in a duel. 150 years later King James II burned Janet Douglas, Lady Glamis (the Grey Lady) at the stake. She is said to walk the corridors of Glamis.
In 1486: A party of Ogilvies from a neighbouring district came to Glamis begging protection from their enemies, the Lindsays. The earl led them to into a chamber, deep in the castle, and left them there to starve. They had, of course, each other to eat and began to turn cannibal - according to legend, even gnawing the flesh from their own arms.
It is said that Patrick the third earl of Strathmore and a friend played cards on the Sabbath with the Devil for their souls – and lost. They are still heard playing today.
Or is the real horror of Glamis, Patrick’s deformed son who was hidden from the world in a secret area of the house.
Other 17th and 18th century ghosts of Glamis are; Jack the Runner; a skeletally thin spectre.
A white lady is said to haunt the clock tower and a grey bearded man has appeared on several occasions. Then there’s the ghost of a black pageboy.
It is also said that Queen Elizabeth the queen mother, whose father was, the 14th Earl, Claude George Bowes-Lyon, had to be moved to another room because of the banging, thumping and rapping noises that kept her awake at night.
In the 1920’s, a party of young people staying at Glamis decided to track down the secret chamber by hanging a piece of linen out of every window they could find. When they had finished, they saw there were several windows that they had not been able to locate from the inside.
The 14th Earl was livid with rage and forbade them from further searches. To this day, the castle still stands, and stories still abound.
 

 
KIRKHILL a Scottish Keep
My wife and her ex husband had only just married and moved into their house.
 The name of the house they bought was KIRKHILL it was built in 1770 as a baronial Scottish keep. The walls were 3 feet (1m) thick and the whole area of BROXBURN was steeped in Scottish history. The grounds of the house were the camping grounds of soldiers during the Scottish covenanter wars (30 years). Were the persecution of the Catholic faith was applied with extreme religious vigour, it was illegal to practice Catholicism and it was punishable by death. A lot of old Scottish houses has secret rooms called “priest holes” were the priest would hide in times of visitations by the covenanters. It is alleged that Kirkhill had a priest-hole in the present attic.
 After a couple of months a strange fluid started to appear in the small dressing room especially on the floor and on my wife’s sewing box the fluid was thicker than water IE it had a skin but left no trace of damp and had no taste. There were no leak marks on the ceiling and there were no pipes nor gutters anywhere near the room.
 At night in the attic footsteps were heard to cross the ceiling into the divided flat next door and then return as if some one was worryingly pacing across the floor.
 In subsequent months lights that were activated by a light switch on the inside of a locked door would mysteriously switch on. After several months of these happenings my wife one night called out that “HENRY” (a name pulled out of mid air) please would you switch the lights out we are tired and so the lights would switch off.
 After about 3 years my wife and her ex husband decided that they wanted to move.
So made plans to move, they sold the house. On the last day that Anne was in the house “Henry” manifested himself, he was a Scottish highlander and wore the “true” Scottish kilt ie, a large wrap of tartan cloth that was wrapped around the waist then slung over the shoulder and pinned into the kilt. He wore the Scottish hat called a tam o'shanter and had the tail feathers of the Capercaillie in his hat. This spoke of him being a foot soldier.
 It would seem that “Henry” was a ladies man only Anne and the previous owner’s wife actually saw the apparition.
 The house KIRKHILL was also associated with the burial of several soldiers in a drinking well in the front garden of the house. These soldiers were not all dead when they were thrown into the pit; was Henry one of these or was he a priest worrying about the plight of his catholic faith? Who knows?
John MacDonald
 

An addendum to this story from James Wignall of Edinburgh.
From: "James Wignall"
Subject: scottish ghosts
Date: Thursday, June 20, 2002 11:43 PM

great site full of good stories- 

but regarding scottish history- it was the covenanters (protestants) being persecuted (almost 20,000 murdered) not doing the persecuting- Scotland was Catholic for much longer than England. Although Priestholes were for catholic priests when the protestants eventually did come to power and carried on the noble traditions of terror & persecution.

Cheers
James Wignall, Edinburgh, UK 


Subject: Kirkhill Ghost
Date: Tuesday, 24 January 2006 8:16 a.m.

Just found your site with the story through pure chance, I was researching my family history and my grandmother was brought up in that house, I spent a lot of time there as a child visiting my great grandmother, its sad its all been converted to flats now

 

Ashie moor
The bleak, heather-clad expanse of Ashie moor lies four miles to the south west of Inverness in Scotland and a couple of miles from Loch Ness. Only a couple of remote crofts overlook the moor.
For at least a hundred years there have been reports that a phantom battle has been observed on the moor. In 1871, a man cycling along the road which skirts the moor glimpsed two horsemen on the road ahead of him. Rounding a bend in the road, he found himself cycling 'through' the two riders. Shocked, he crashed to the ground and standing up again saw a 'silent' battle in progress on the moor, involving bodies of warriors on foot and on horseback, all of whom faded into thin air after a few minutes.
In the 1940s a shepherd checking his sheep on the moor found himself suddenly surrounded by mist. Out of the gloom ran crowds of bearded, long-haired men dressed in ragged garments, some clutching wooden clubs, others brandishing short-bladed swords. Terror stricken, the shepherd cowered behind a large rock. It became obvious that the wild looking men were oblivious to his presence. He heard shouts and cries, the sounds of combat. After about ten minutes, the mist lifted and the men disappeared. 
In the mid-1980s a local man was fishing from a small boat on Loch Ashie, on the northern edge of the moor. It was a bright, sunny summer evening and no-one else was to be seen. Gradually, but quite clearly, he began to hear shouts and the occasional clash of metal on metal coming from the moor beside the loch, despite the fact that the area was devoid of human presence. Again, slowly but surely, the sounds faded away to silence. Alarmed, the angler made for the shore and home.
Another former resident of the area has described seeing men on horseback crossing the moor, only to vanish before his eyes... 
The battle? Well, there is no clear indication as to what actual event may have been responsible for originating these sightings. It *is* known that the vicinity experienced Viking raids, particularly around the mid-11th century when there appears to have been a Viking base at Nairn, some 12 miles away.
Certainly the reported appearance of the phantom warriors and their short swords would tend to suggest an early-medieval origin, a period when the native Picts (the name given by the Romans to the native inhabitants of northern Scotland) were under pressure from Viking raiding parties. One can only speculate. Do Pictish warriors continue to fight Vikings at Ashie moor in 2002...? All I can say is that I believe my informants to be genuine. Like so many others who see ghosts, they simply have nothing to gain from making it up.

Canongate, Edinburgh

 

My name is John and I used to live for 3 years in Chessel's Court, in the Canongate, Edinburgh in 1986.

Cheesels Court was built in the early 1700’s and in 1788 and it was where the Customs and Excise office was held in the main building where I used to live.

It was famous in this year for being the place where Deacon Brodie ( William Brodie ) who was a locksmith, Deacon by day and burgle by night, took his chance and bugled the place.

He was eventually caught and hung for his crime.

He also invented the drop in the floor on the Gallows and was the first man to hang on it.  

 "One night, I was lying in my bed when at about 1.30am, I heard my landlady's dog growling and scratching at my door to get in.  At that same moment something or someone came through the wall beside my bed and started to climb over me.

I could feel it pushing down on the blankets as it climbing over me. This went on for about three minutes, with the dog growling at the door all the time. It was pitch dark, I just froze and couldn't move.

As soon as it got to the other side of my bed and climbed off me, the dog stopped growling and went back to her bed.

I waited a few moments then got up, turned the light on and looked about the room and out the window, but there was nothing to be found." 

"A short time later a gentleman from the floor below came up and had mentioned how things have changed over the years in the Court.

I asked him what he meant and he said that my bathroom used to be where the kitchen was and the kitchen where the bathroom was, and that the door to my bedroom used to be at the end where my bed is now.

That gave me the answer as to why whoever it was came through the wall where they did, and that’s because that’s where the door used to be!!

"People in the court  have said that there are ghosts about the place, but in all the years I lived there this was the only encounter I myself have had.