The city of Edinburgh is located in Scotland.
It contains a separate quarter of the old city, which is located in the lowlands of its central part and is called “Mary King’s Dead End”.
The place is permeated with a depressing atmosphere and visiting it does not always bring positive emotions, but it is popular tourist route.



The name - Mary King's Dead End was given in honor of the owner of most of the buildings in this quarter, at the height of the plague epidemic in the 17th century.
central District Edinburgh was very busy at that time.

All significant institutions were located there, and naturally, outbreaks of terrible diseases such as plague, smallpox, syphilis, which were raging throughout Europe at that time, were recorded in the center.

According to the order of the municipality, citizens whose families were infected were required to notify neighbors about this in order to comply with safety rules.
It was carried out by hanging a piece of white cloth outside the window of one’s home.

After some time, almost every window in the block was decorated with a white fabric symbol, and the epidemic swept through the entire city.

Not understanding how to stop the plague, the magistrate gave the order to isolate all the sick in one place, and take out the corpses of the dead and set them on fire so that the infection would not spread further.

The night collection of corpses was carried out by monks. They took the bodies of the dead by cart outside the city, and then burned them.

A block of the central low-lying part of the city, with massive infections of the deadly disease, later called Mary King's Dead End, became a makeshift infirmary.

The dead end was fenced with a high stone wall and infected people from all over the city were brought into it.

In this “locked city” the patients lived out their last days, surrounded by the severe suffering of the dying, in the knowledge that the same awaits them.

100 years after the epidemic, the old facades of the buildings were dismantled and a new city administration building was erected.

In fact, part of the Mary King cul-de-sac was completely destroyed, and part of it was walled up and served as the foundation for a new building.

Already in the 21st century, archaeologists uncovered the preserved walled-up part, and the remains of the streets were cleared and converted into a museum.
To get to the Mary King dead end, you need to go down with a guide down a separate communications system, along narrow damp steps.

Having descended, you find yourself at the level of an empty city, extinct from the plague.

Visitors are exposed to underground labyrinths with views of narrow streets buried underground, more reminiscent of tunnels and passages.
There are the remains of stairs, blocked windows, boarded doors, behind which are hidden rooms that have been empty for centuries.
In some houses, wine cellars, stoves, cupboards, chimneys and storage rooms have been preserved. It is not surprising that the underground quarter is home to many ghosts of people who died from the plague in agony, pain and fear.

They wander through dimly lit tunnels and sometimes frighten visitors to Mary King's Dead End. There is one house that is haunted by the ghost of a teenage girl, Annie.

When Annie's parents realized that their daughter was sick, without a moment's hesitation, they isolated her from other children and took her to the “locked city” to die.
They didn’t tell the girl anything about her illness; they deceived her and locked her in one of the apartments in a dead end.

Annie died a painful death without understanding why her family abandoned her, and her soul never found peace. The girl's phantom can be seen often entering the house where her mother has locked her.

A drop in temperature is immediately felt and a particularly depressing state arises. Sometimes Annie is seen with a dog, and sometimes holding a broken doll in her hand.
Some say her face is pockmarked and her clothes are torn and dirty.
Also, visitors to the Mary King dead end claim that they sometimes felt someone’s cold touch, and naturally attribute it to the ghosts of this gloomy place.







There are many mystical and frightening places in the world. Many of them are located in places inaccessible to humans. The depths of the forest, the open ocean, among mountain peaks, in swamps or rugged jungles.

But at the same time, the number mystical places located next to human habitation are no less, and maybe even more. Perhaps the reason is partly that we ourselves create them in different ways?

If you ever come to Scotland and find yourself in Edinburgh, take the time to wander around this amazingly beautiful ancient city.

And if your goal is to find truly frightening, interesting and mystical places, then you should visit

The number of legends and rumors about this place is enormous. Many of them are known throughout Britain and even beyond its borders.

According to eyewitnesses, several ghosts live in this alley at once (or perhaps it is one ghost taking several forms?).

Any passerby crossing this street at almost any moment can encounter them.

The first mystical mentions of this place date back to XVII century m. The fact is that it was then that the Plague epidemic was raging in the city and this alley became an isolated part where the infected were located.

The natural and terrible consequence of this isolation was an enormous amount of suffering and death concentrated in a relatively small area. And now the first reports of ghosts are heard, the number of which only increased over time.

Add to this special architecture Puffin Mary King and several adjacent, low-lying narrow streets isolated from most of the city.

There you get a strong impression that you are no longer in the city itself, but underneath it, and a feeling of mysticism and some anxiety will overwhelm you at the moment of your first visit.

Among the people who usually appear in this place is a little girl. Her name is Anne, they say the girl was transferred to the infected area by her parents and she eventually rested there, but never found peace.

It is interesting that today the streets of this dead-end street themselves have become a real underground labyrinth, above which a huge building rises. And paranormal events can be found not only under the building, but also in it itself.

And although most mystical manifestations here are limited to the feeling of a touch, pinching a leg or holding a hand. Cases when the ghost of a little girl or a number of other people were seen by one or several people at once are not uncommon.

It’s true that it didn’t bring them any harm other than fright. But having visited, nevertheless, you can be quite scared. The atmosphere here is so oppressive in itself.

And if you meet their otherworldly inhabitant. Moreover, only a very brave person will not be afraid.

The Bringing of Mary King in Edinburgh

There are several places in old England that are well known to tourists for their mystery and mystical past. One such place is Mary King's Dead End, home to Scottish ghosts that you can encounter right in the middle of the street. The history of Mary King's Dead End, dating back to the 17th century, is inextricably linked with many deaths.

Thousands of people experienced their death throes at this place many years ago. In the 17th century, during the plague, people who fell ill with a terrible disease were closed here. Even when planning the ancient streets of Edinburgh, it was planned to create a separate small area, reliably isolated from the rest of the main Scottish city

All the narrow streets of the most mysterious area of ​​​​Edinburgh are located in the lowlands, so it seems that they are located not on the surface, but under the ancient city. In the 17th century, this area was surrounded on all sides by impregnable walls, so people who lived here could not leave its boundaries and go to other places in Edinburgh. This area is called Mary King's Dead End; it was here that all the residents of Edinburgh who fell ill with the plague were brought, and none of the townspeople saw them again. Among the sick was a little Scottish girl named Anne, whose ghost still walks around Mary King's cul-de-sac. The little girl, doomed to death, was sent to an area for plague patients by her parents, who said goodbye to their daughter forever.

There is a legend that in 1645, parents left a girl at this place to die, who soon died from martyrdom, after which the ghost of Annie settled forever among the stone streets of the city.
Rumor has it that very often you can feel how little Annie touches your hands or her spirit flies among the rooms of the building.
By the way, one of the exhibits for tourists is Annie’s room. Also here you can see exhibitions of the lives of people of that time and in what conditions they had to die from the plague.
After a while, a dead end was built on the site new house, and since 2003 they began to conduct mass excursions for foreign tourists who are interested Mystic stories about spirits and ghosts.
Mary King's Dead End in Edinburgh has always been considered a place full of poltergeists and ghosts. Many people died at this place, whose ghosts wander among the streets of the city, frightening passers-by with their invisible touches.

The dead end reminded Mary King of its secrets a century after the terrible plague that killed many residents of Edinburgh. A huge building was erected on the site of the ancient streets, and the stone labyrinths turned into a mysterious dungeon, but every person who, by the will of fate, found himself in a large building, encountered paranormal phenomena, mystical events, or simply felt the presence of something otherworldly.
Ghosts in Mary King's Dead End have been seen more than once, and in 2003 the authorities of Edinburgh opened the mystical area to tourists who want to come into contact with a parallel world and learn the bleak history of old Edinburgh. During organized excursion along the Mary King dead end, a guide will lead tourists into a terrible dungeon. Descending the ancient narrow stone stairs, tourists seem to find themselves in the 17th century, when the plague raged in Edinburgh.


Even if you don’t believe in otherworldly forces, during an excursion it always seems that someone is standing over your shoulders, and a slight breath of wind, which can be mistaken for the touch of a ghost, can frighten even the most courageous people.
No one may see your fear, but the fact that you will feel it is a fact.

"Locked City" by Mary King

Few people know about the existence of an underground quarter in the bowels of modern Edinburgh in Scotland - the “locked city” of Mary King. Hundreds of residents were isolated here during the Black Plague epidemic that devastated the area in the 17th century. Those who walked the streets of this “city,” now dark and empty, claim to have seen ghosts and heard groans.

It has been 350 years since the plague broke out in Edinburgh.

The monks of the Order of St. Andrew took upon themselves the work of collecting corpses at night and transporting them outside the city. They were transported on carts with creaking axles, and when they heard this creaking, people shuddered and slammed the shutters.

In an open field, servants of the order burned bodies, and this was one of the few effective methods known at that time to combat the scourge. Another way to control the disease was to isolate all infected people in a special place like an infirmary.

Chronicles say that in 1645 the plague threatened to spread to all of Edinburgh, and the magistrate ordered the entire quarter to be sealed to stop the spread of the disease.

Mary King owned most of the buildings that were enclosed, and so the entire block began to bear her name. By official version, residents were moved to another location before the block was fenced off. However, this is hard to believe: how can the spread of the disease be stopped if patients are simply relocated to another place?

All this suggests that Mary King's quarter was indeed sealed... but along with all the inhabitants! That is why there are many stories about ghosts on its streets and there are so many testimonies of witnesses who claim to have seen ghost people, emaciated, in rags, wandering between houses...

The Scottish Society of Parapsychology invited journalists from Enigmas magazine to join a small group of representatives of the Spanish Society of Parapsychology, who went to the “locked city” of Mary King. (You can still cross the fence only with a special permit, and you usually have to wait several months to get it.)

Already a hundred years after the plague epidemic, the inhabitants of Edinburgh dismantled the destroyed houses of the Mary King quarter into bricks.

And in the 18th century it rose here new town, on top of the one that kept the memory of pain, the sorrow of death. Therefore, to get to the “locked” city, you need to go down into the very interior of the Royal Mile through a special communications system.

Duly counted and gathered into a group by the guide, we descended a good twenty meters along narrow steps of a staircase with damp railings before reaching the level where the ancient plague city silently rests, says Sol Branco Soler, a participant in the dungeon trek.

Its streets are now tunnels and passages without noise or light. Rows of light bulbs connected by cords stretch along the walls and ceilings, poorly illuminating the remains of stairs that lead nowhere, blocked windows from which no one looks out, and wooden doors clogged with lime and rubble, hiding rooms that have not been disturbed by the wind for many years, no human warmth, no movement or curious gaze.

Some episodes from Robert L. Stevenson's psychological novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are said to take place in these underground labyrinths, almost two hundred meters below the surface.

It is also said that Mary Stuart unsuccessfully tried to escape through them. Unsuccessfully because a little later she was caught and imprisoned, from where she was released only to the scaffold.

It is said that these passages served as a refuge for many thousands of people during the Second World War. Being in this underground city, full of reminders of the past plague, horror and death, you can guess why the feelings and fantasies of visitors are heightened when they begin to see pictures that make them shiver.

In some of these houses, wine cellars, bread ovens, cupboards and hearths, pantries and chimneys have been preserved, Saul continues his story. - There is one special house that attracts attention even before you enter it.

According to the stories of our guide, many visitors not only felt a sharp drop in temperature here, but also unanimously described a certain teenage girl in dirty, shabby clothes, flashing in the rooms.

Some saw a dog at her feet, others noticed that her face was disfigured by smallpox, and that she was holding a broken doll in her hand...

One day, a group of blind people with their guide dogs came into Mary King's neighborhood. One dog immediately dragged his owner outside, and the other, whining in panic, hid in a corner. Sometimes visitors discover that their cameras begin to twist the film on their own, and many frames then turn out to be mysteriously overexposed.

This is probably the custom among ghosts: leave no traces.

Several streets with a dark past hidden beneath Edinburgh's medieval Old Town. The place where plague victims were locked up and left to die in the 17th century is famous for poltergeists. Tourists here are touched on the hands and feet by something invisible. It is believed to be the ghost of Annie, a young girl abandoned there by her parents in 1645. A hundred years later, a period so beloved in scary fairy tales, a large new building was built on the site of Mary King's Dead End. In 2003, the cul-de-sac was opened to tourists, who were attracted by tales of its supernatural spirits.

The city of Edinburgh is located in Scotland. It contains a separate quarter of the old city, which is located in the lowlands of its central part and is called “Mary King’s Dead End”. The place is permeated with a depressing atmosphere and visiting it does not always bring positive emotions, but it is a popular tourist route.

The name - Mary King's Dead End was given in honor of the owner of most of the buildings in this quarter, at the height of the plague epidemic in the 17th century.

Edinburgh's central area was very busy at the time. All significant institutions were located there, and naturally, outbreaks of terrible diseases such as plague, smallpox, syphilis, which were raging throughout Europe at that time, were recorded in the center. According to the order of the municipality, citizens whose families were infected were required to notify neighbors about this in order to comply with safety rules. It was carried out by hanging a piece of white cloth outside the window of one’s home. After some time, almost every window in the block was decorated with a white fabric symbol, and the epidemic swept through the entire city.

Panorama City of Chambers - Edinburgh

Not understanding how to stop the plague, the magistrate gave the order to isolate all the sick in one place, and take out the corpses of the dead and set them on fire so that the infection would not spread further. The night collection of corpses was carried out by monks. They took the bodies of the dead by cart outside the city, and then burned them.

A block of the central low-lying part of the city, with massive infections of the deadly disease, later called Mary King's Dead End, became a makeshift infirmary.

The dead end was fenced with a high stone wall and infected people from all over the city were brought into it. In this “locked city,” the sick lived out their last days, surrounded by the severe suffering of the dying, in the knowledge that the same thing awaited them.

100 years after the epidemic, the old facades of the buildings were dismantled and a new city administration building was erected. In fact, part of the Mary King cul-de-sac was completely destroyed, and part was walled up and served as the foundation for a new building.

Already in the 21st century, archaeologists uncovered the preserved walled-up part, and the remains of the streets were cleared and converted into a museum.

To get stuck in Mary King, you need to go down with a guide down a separate communications system, along narrow steps. Having descended, you find yourself at the level of an empty city, extinct from the plague. Visitors are exposed to underground labyrinths with views of narrow streets buried underground, more reminiscent of tunnels and passages. There are the remains of stairs, blocked windows, boarded doors, behind which are hidden rooms that have been empty for centuries. In some houses, wine cellars, stoves, cupboards, chimneys and storage rooms have been preserved.

Coordinates: 55° 57′ 1″ N, 3° 11′ 25″ W

It is not surprising that the underground quarter is home to many ghosts of people who died from the plague in agony, pain and fear. They wander through dimly lit tunnels and sometimes frighten visitors to Mary King's Dead End.

There is one house that is haunted by the ghost of a teenage girl, Annie. When Annie's parents realized that their daughter was sick, without a moment's hesitation, they isolated her from other children and took her to the “locked city” to die. They didn’t tell the girl anything about her illness; they deceived her and locked her in one of the apartments in a dead end. Annie died a painful death without understanding why her family abandoned her, and her soul never found peace. The girl's phantom can be seen often entering the house where her mother has locked her. A drop in temperature is immediately felt and a particularly depressing state arises. Sometimes Annie is seen with a dog, and sometimes holding a broken doll in her hand. Some say her face is pockmarked and her clothes are torn and dirty.

Also, visitors to the Mary King dead end claim that they sometimes felt someone’s cold touch, and naturally attribute it to the ghosts of this gloomy place.