one4review | On 27, Aug 2014

Peter Berry is our tour leader for the day, in a sweeping black coat, with a Spanish cap on for holding high to avoid losing the group as we head for our caves. It would be hard to lose them, however, once into the Niddry Street building that leads from a museum of torture instruments, to the rooms under South Bridge.

These rooms are where the poor of Edinburgh lived, with smelly chamber pots and dripping ceilings. Now they’re used mainly for these tours, but also by a Wicca Coven, who have one chamber set up with grotesques to guard the door, a statue of Venus, and a broomstick to symbolically clear out evil.

It’s interesting being in the dark, dank vaults, with stalactites descending, and learning a child-friendly history of those times, and of building South Bridge.

Thankfully, the large numbers of excited children scared off any spirits that legend has it haunt these secret spaces, deep below the pedestrians and cars overhead.

Reviewed by Gill

Meet outside Tron Kirk at Auld Reekie Tours Boards
15:00 to 15:45