Scariest Cemetery Not Kidding

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Come on. This graveyard needs its own entry. Established in the mid 1600s, Greyfriar's Kirkyard, named after the friars who wore- guess what colour? This location was deemed a more fitting location further south of the Old Town, so as not to contribute to the already squalid stench of hard living.

The gothic tombs feature skulls, morose angels, and elaborately poetic dedications. Many headstones are embedded in the original wall to enclose the old town. Some headstones lean against the walls of homes. In these apartments, regular folk can sip their tea and gaze out their wee kitchen windows over the deathscape like it's regular everyday life.

When I first walked in, I was checking out a dog's headstone (more about that later) when this screeching toothless woman sitting in an abandoned mausoleum warned visitors to leave her dogs alooooooone! Her banshee shrieks echoed across the yard, setting the air on edge. I later found some empty oven cleaner canisters where she'd been sitting.

There are rumors rhat J.K. Rowling named some characters after the interred. Elizabeth Moodie, William McGonagall and Thomas Riddle are all buried here. While she denies a conscious influence, it's easy to see how this city could have inspired her, as she wrote her first two Harry Potter books here. In fact, there's a school nearby that I swear resembles Hogwarts. I'll let you decide.

In a gated-off section of the plot sit former holding cells where prisoners of the 1679 Battle of Brothwell suffered very grim conditions - so grim that only a few survived. Guards were known for beating the men, and if they expired, their heads were thrown onto spikes. Buried next to them is their EXECUTIONER, the dreaded George "Bloody" Mckenzie. In 2004, teenagers broke into his mausoleum, took a skull and played football with it. Folks say Mckenzie now haunts the place. My lord. “Bluidy Mackingie, come oot if ye daur, lift the sneck and draw the bar!”


You guys, back in the 1800s, this sweet terrier named Bobby was good pals with an Edinburgh nightwatchman named John Grey. They were inseparable for two years until Grey succumbed to tuberculosis in 1858. Bobby spent the next *fourteen years* keeping watch over Grey's grave until he finally passed away himself. At first, the groundskeepers tried to shoo him away, but after his dogged determination, they built him a wee shelter. He never left his friend's grave, even in the worst weather. When Bobby died, he was buried just inside the gate of the kirkyard. Visitors leave sticks in front of his tombstone for him to fetch! There is now a bar adjacent to the cemetery that's named after faithful Bobby. You'd better be crying.

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