Edinburgh Old Town and Underground Vaults Historical Tour

The Edinburgh Underground Vaults

The tour begins below ground. When South Bridge was completed in 1788 to cross the Cowgate valley, its nineteen arches were enclosed by tenements and turned into a warren of vaulted chambers. Cobblers, cutlers, milliners and other traders rented the rooms as workshops and stores, but the stone was porous, water seeped through and within a few decades most businesses had moved out.

The poorest people of the city took their place, living in the dark without light or sanitation, until the vaults were filled with rubble and forgotten. They were rediscovered in the 1980s. On this Edinburgh vaults daytime tour your historian explains how the chambers were built, who used them and what life was like inside, with time to look at the brickwork, the old drainage channels and the scale of the rooms. Entry involves walking down eight steps.

The Royal Mile and the First High-Rise Tenements

Back at street level you follow the Royal Mile, the chain of streets running down the ridge from Edinburgh Castle to the Palace of Holyroodhouse. Hemmed in by its walls and by the steep slopes on either side, the medieval town could only grow upwards. By the 17th century tenements of ten storeys or more lined the street, among the tallest residential buildings in Europe at the time.

Your guide explains how these early high-rises worked: merchants and professionals on the middle floors, the poor in the cellars and attics, and everyone sharing the same stair. You also hear how fire, overcrowding and disease shaped the city, and why the wealthy eventually left for the New Town. It is a Royal Mile tour told by someone who has researched and written about its history, so expect precise detail.

Hidden Closes of the Old Town

The real character of the Old Town lies in its closes, the narrow passages that branch off the Royal Mile and plunge down towards the valleys. Each one tells a story through its name, its carved lintels and its sudden views north across the gardens or south over the Cowgate. Many visitors walk straight past them, but your historian leads you into several that are rarely included on standard walks.

Here you learn about the trades, scandals and daily routines of the people who lived in these cramped courtyards, from water carriers to lawyers. The guide also points out details such as old marriage lintels, boundary markers and the traces of buildings long gone. If you are wondering whether the Edinburgh Old Town tour is worth it, these hidden corners are the answer.

Crime, Justice and the Anatomy Trade

Edinburgh's Old Town was a place of extremes, where respected citizens and desperate criminals lived side by side. Your guide tells the story of a town councillor and cabinet-maker who led a secret life as a burglar, until he was hanged in 1788, a double life said to have inspired later writers. You also hear how public punishment worked, from the stocks and the pillory to the gallows outside the old Tolbooth prison, whose site is marked by a heart in the cobbles beside St Giles'.

The city was also Europe's leading centre for medical teaching, and the demand for bodies to dissect created a grim trade in stolen corpses. This chapter ends with the West Port murders of 1828, when two men killed to supply an anatomy school, a case that led to the Anatomy Act of 1832. The historian explains how these stories connect to the vaults you have just visited.