Edinburgh Vaults - Friday 24 September

Edinburgh Vaults 24/09/10

View towards High St/Queens Mile & Edinburgh Castle

After checking into our pub Dad and I got the train to Edinburgh - about 30 minutes away. We had lunch then went on a tour of the Edinburgh Vaults. Our tour started with some history of Edinburgh by our guide. He showed us where they did the hangings. There is a platform in the street that still exists today where this happened. He told us that if the crime was bad they would lay you on a table and tie ropes to your arms and legs then stretch you until your joints popped then you would be hung.

On North Bridge

Hanging Platform on High St

However if it was a really serious crime then they thought that this way was not suitable. So they lay you face down on the table and tied you down. They got a sledge hammer and smashed your ankles, knees, elbows and shoulders which left you like a rag doll unable to move. In pain they would drag you back into the cell and leave you on the floor unable to move for a couple of days. The only company in the cell were the rats who would start eating away at your skin and opening up your flesh. This must have been very painful - remember you could not move.

After that they would drag you by the platform in the main street to die, not by hanging as that as considered too cruel after the smashing of the joints. They instead tied you to the platform and left you there to die.

High St/Queens Mile intersection

He told us that this would generally take up to a week. But remember you could not move because of your smashed joints. The public would through things at you like fruit and vegetables, stones or whatever else they had when they walked past. Plus the local birds like the crow would have a feed on you.

Entry to Vaults

As our tour continued we walked down a steep cobbled street called Niddry Street. Going down the cobbles were slightly raised giving grip to our shoes. At the bottom of Niddry street we entered the Cowgate. Its a road running along the bottom of the hill. The guide advised us not to be here at night unless we liked fisty cuffs. Its a smelly area and it also has some bars that dad says men go to.

Off the Cowgate we entered a door that took us into the side of the hill. It was dark and damp. The rock above us showed signs of weeping water from the road above. The guide says after very heavy rain the vaults we are in start raining about 4 hours later because the water from above permeates (seeps through) through the volcanic rock.

Group shot in Vault 1

They claim that the ghosts of the vault are real and in fact 90-95% of physical attacks occur with our guide. Attacks are not physical but feeling cold, tingling in the feet, feeling a small child's hand in your own, feeling the need to move involuntarily. I think it is all a story.

Watching my Back

In the last vault we entered it was the darkest and in one corner once a torch came on there was a skeleton in a stock to represent the nature of the times.

Victoria Beckham according to the guide

The history of the vaults is that they were built to house stallholders supplies such as cotton, silk, tobacco, alcohol and fruit and veggies so that stall owners did not have to travel for miles to their warehouses. However within 10 years of building the vaults under the bridge the stallholders were moving out of them and returning to the warehouses some distance away. The reason is obvious - the rain that seeped through continually damaged the stock in the vaults.

In Edinburgh at the time there was an influx of immigrants that put pressure on the housing. The guide said that a lot of buildings had flat roof lines. Because they built them so high when the strong winds came through it toppled them. But alas, they just rebuilt them exactly the same. Eventually the local council made it an offence to be homeless on the street in Edinburgh. If you were caught by the local police without an address you were taken away and given one lashing across your back.

If you had the pleasure of being caught a second time then you got a lashing across the chest.

Bearing in mind the time and the disease possibility from these lashings with your skin cut open, you were now marked as having been caught twice. If you did not pick up an infection and die and and were unfortunate enough to get caught for a third time you would never be given the chance to get caught for a fourth time. The reason is that you were taken away and hung until you died. In a Jeckel and Hyde style once you were dead a local would drag you 150 metres along an alley and tunnels where the local hospital would buy your body for body parts.  That is if the police didn't catch you first.

Because of the fear of being caught homeless this drove them into the vaults around the time the 

stall holders moved out. A vault typically contained 180 people and were 3 stories high. Platforms were constructed across the walls and each tier had 60 people. This swelled sometimes to 120 people on each level when it rained or there was an influx of immigrants or peoples house collapsed.

During the great fires of Edinburgh things were relatively under control but as a precaution 60 woman and children were put into each of the 19 vaults (1,140 people) that span across the South Bridge that runs between High Street and Nicolson Street above the area known as the Cowgate. Gate being an entrance and Cow being a beast and this is why this area is unsafe - it is beastly at night with crime, fights, prostitution and drugs.

The people in the vaults were fine. The vaults were boarded up and they were safe. That is until the winds changed to the North and fueled the fire driving it across the bridge. Being volcanic rock and  permeable what happened? Each vault became an oven as they heated up. Mothers watched their children cook and die. Children watched their mothers do the same. What an experience that must have been, NOT.

After the vault tour Dad and I met up with my Godmother Kelly who is living and working in Edinburgh. We had a couple of drinks in a bar, followed by dinner then caught the train back to Bathgate.

Kelly & I

Overall I found the vaults interesting but wondered about the truth of some of the stories regarding attacks.

Watch for more photos in the next chapter.