I visited eerie Edinburgh tomb at Greyfriars Kirkyard that's 'haunted' by poltergeist - here's what happened

I’m standing in a lesser-known corner of Greyfriars Kirkyard in Edinburgh — a flat grassy field steeped in mountains of history — with about a dozen historic stone mausoleums looming over either side hidden from the flocks of camera-bearing tourists in the main graveyard area. Locked behind a tall gate, after the Battle of Bothwell Bridge, this corner kept 1,200 Covenanters as prisoners during 1679 under the orders of Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh in what is now often referred to as the world’s first concentration camp.

Now, almost 350 years later, there’s an eerie feeling as I listen to City of the Dead Tours manager and guide Jamie Corstorphine, 46, explain that it is believed by many that the infamous Mackenzie is said to haunt the very graveyard I was idly roaming in. Perhaps even stranger was that Jamie had an interaction with the Mackenzie Poltergeist phenomenon only a week prior to my own visit. Dundee-born Mackenzie was a judge and Lord Advocate in the 17th century and, upon his demise, was entombed in his family mausoleum only a few metres away from the still gated and locked Covenanters Prison.

The origins of ‘The Mackenzie Poltergeist’

Some believe his spirit was awakened in 1999 when, on a stormy day, a homeless man sought shelter in the mausoleum and ended up falling through the floor into an assembly of decomposing corpses.

City of the Dead Tours founder and owner Jan-Andrew Henderson believes this moment was the “trigger point” that then set off all the paranormal experiences as, from that point forward, visitors reported scratches, bruises and many were even witnessed being knocked unconscious. Mr Henderson was the first person to dub the paranormal entity as the ‘Mackenzie Poltergeist’ in his book The Ghost that Haunted Itself though many are sceptical on if it is actually the spirit of Mackenzie that remains in Greyfriars.

Perhaps the largest surprise of my visit was that all of these experiences aren’t even reported at the Mackenzie Mausoleum. They are instead at the nearby Dundas Mausoleum in the Covenanters' Prison blocked off to the public.

In this exact spot, a week before my visit, Jamie had been showing a journalist inside the mausoleum.

“I know what can go wrong so I tend to stand just outside of the mausoleum so there’s an easy exit,” he tells me.

“There was a lot of background noise out here but the journalist wanted to do an audio clip so she asked me to go inside the mausoleum which I reluctantly did.

“I was only in for about a minute or two and I started feeling the pins and needles. It’s the same pins and needles I warn people about when they come on a tour. If you feel that, you need to leave because you’re about to be interacted with something you cannot see.”

Jamie then left the mausoleum to find long drawn-out ‘cat-like’ scratches on his arm. In an even more peculiar twist, he had been wearing three layers of clothing and had even shown me his short nails from a lifelong habit of biting them which seemed to rule out the idea some may have that he inflicted the scratches upon himself.

City of the Dead Tours are the only ones with keys to enter the mausoleum and Jamie, who has worked there since 2007, tells me they have documented over 3,500 visitor encounters with the paranormal entity so far.

The morning of my trip to the Black Mausoleum I’m speaking to Krista Essevius, a woman from Finland, who believes she had an encounter with ‘Bloody Mackenzie’.

‘We’re too scared to go back to Edinburgh’

Krista, 46, last visited Edinburgh in 2007 and hasn’t been back to Scotland because of her terrifying experience after a City of the Dead tour.

“We went to the cemetery and as soon as I arrived I had a feeling that I wanted to run away,” she tells me over the phone.

“When we entered the mausoleum, one woman who we were with actually ran out. I felt fine at the moment and nothing happened so it all seemed okay but then our guide said that even if you feel fine, you may find scratches or bruises on yourself later in the day.

“I thought nothing of it but the next day I woke up and had a shower at the hostel then I spotted a bloody bruise that looked like it was made up of three fingers.

“Me and my housemate were so scared we took the next flight back to London and we’ve never been to Edinburgh since.”

It was safe to say that Krista’s experience didn’t make me any less nervous for my trip to the graveyard. It also didn’t help that halfway through our call, when we had started talking about the poltergeist, Krista’s cat started attacking her which was apparently a “totally out of character” move.

Make sure you keep up to date with news from across Scotland by signing up to our free newsletter here.

I prepared to head out myself while being quite amused that I had only moved to Edinburgh a few days prior and was already heading out to allegedly the world’s most haunted graveyard and documented poltergeist. If there was anything that could scare me away from living in Edinburgh, it would have to be this.

When I stepped through the gates of Greyfriars, I entered Bobby’s Bothy which is also the office for City of the Dead Tours. Decked out on the walls is a range of spooky memorabilia as well as books by Jan-Andrew Henderson who has spent his life documenting the spooks and scares of Edinburgh.

Meeting Jamie outside, his bubbly personality immediately stuck out to me as he enthusiastically told me about the history of Greyfriars and we headed into the locked Covenanters Prison. I looked back and saw various tourists peering in through the gated bars, probably wondering how we even had access to the area.

His attitude greatly contrasted the gloomy stereotype I had in my head of someone who has spent years working in a place as haunted as Greyfriars. It was perhaps even more interesting that, like me, Jamie was also a sceptic.

The targets of the poltergeist phenomenon are “completely random” and Jamie emphasised that the cat-like scratches many people received “weren’t sore” and “certainly were not human”. He told me that he didn’t believe that the paranormal entity was Sir George Mackenzie - but he was clear he thought it wasn’t human.

As I stood at the gates of the Black Mausoleum, Jamie told me the story about the time, in 1999, a Mackenzie Poltergeist exorcism was conducted in the graveyard by spiritualist medium Colin Grant and witnessed by local journalists.

“He collapsed halfway through the exorcism and had to be carried out by his son. He [Colin] said ‘it’s too strong, it will kill me’.

“A week later he was doing a reading for a private client and his heart stopped. His last words were: ‘Greyfriars. There is no good news, there’s just bad.’

“Step inside,” Jamie then tells me, while I’m stood at the entrance of the Black Mausoleum, still taking in the terrifying story.

After I gained enough courage, I walked inside the stone mausoleum and I don’t know what I was expecting. Despite how stupid it sounded, the terrified part of me partially entertained the idea that the poltergeist was going to materialise from thin air and jump out at me.

As I continued chatting to Jamie from within the mausoleum, I felt a pins and needles sensation run up my hand and I remembered the advice he gave me earlier.

“If you feel a pins and needles sensation, move out of the area.”

And so I did. I remarked to him that I wasn’t sure if I was genuinely feeling it or if it was because of the power of suggestion. He noted that it was possible this could be the case.

It felt as though I was perhaps taunting the alleged entity as I started pacing the entire room - perhaps part of me wanting something to happen in the hopes of a shocking headline. As I took various pictures and videos of my surroundings I wondered if a face or figure would appear in them later.

Nothing, from my knowledge, had happened but as I left the mausoleum, I definitely understood the ‘heavy’ feeling many reported within the area. I also felt a head-achey feeling when I was inside which ended up manifesting into an actual headache that would irritate me for the next few days. Again, I wasn’t sure on how much could be a paranormal entity rather than just myself unknowingly responding to the power of suggestion.

When my tour concluded and I said goodbye to Jamie, I went on a walk around Greyfriars myself. As I saw tourists flock to Thomas Riddell’s gravestone and, on my departure, witnessed dozens rub the nose of Greyfriars Bobby, I wondered how many were aware of the poltergeist phenomenon right under their noses and the extensive eerie history that exists within the Edinburgh graveyard.

And, as I eventually arrived home and hastily checked for any bruises and scratches from a poltergeist, I realised I was left unscathed other than the fact that I now couldn’t fall asleep without the fear of having been followed by whatever the Mackenzie Poltergeist actually was.