Sandemans Darkside Tour Edinburgh: Route, Price and Who It Suits

What Is Included and What Is Not

The verified split from the listing is short. A professional guide is included. Cancellation up to 24 hours before departure for a full refund is included, as is reserve now and pay later. The Includes list also shows hotel pickup and drop off and gratuities, but the tour starts at a fixed meeting point on the High Street, so there is no hotel pickup and you should confirm the gratuity terms with the operator. No entry ticket to any building, no drink and no transport is named as included, and the listing states none. The listing names no mandatory extras.

One open question matters more than the rest. The highlights say you descend to the South Bridge Vaults and the description says you descend into their story, but the itinerary lists only street stops. Treat it as a street walk unless you confirm otherwise, and if vault time is the point of the evening, a vaults tour is the safer buy.

Places You Pass and What They Cost Alone

The listing names no admission charges on this route. Old Calton Burial Ground and Canongate Kirkyard cost nothing to enter, and Calton Hill is free. The South Bridge Vaults, if the group goes in, are normally a paid visit sold through the vault operators rather than a walk-in site.

If you want to add a paid attraction to the same evening, Edinburgh Castle sits at the top of the same mile, where Historic Environment Scotland lists adult tickets at £23.50 online and £26 at the gate, with children 7 to 15 at £11.50. That is a separate ticket and nothing to do with this tour.

Meeting Point: 130 High Street

You meet at 130 High Street, on the corner with Stevenlaw's Close, two doors up from the Starbucks, and you look for the SANDEMANs team with a red umbrella. The meeting point is on the High Street stretch of the Royal Mile, which runs almost exactly one mile from Edinburgh Castle down to Holyrood. The Old Town and New Town around it have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1995, and the closes and wynds running off the Mile are the steep alleys between the tall tenements the locals call lands.

Edinburgh Old Town, 20 Minutes

The first 20 minutes set the scene in the cramped Old Town, where the guide talks about the thousands who once lived packed into closes amid disease, poverty and crime. Tall residential buildings became standard here from the 16th century because the city walls left no room to spread out. The nickname Auld Reekie, meaning Old Smoky, comes from the coal and peat smoke that hung over the roofs, and Walter Scott wrote in 1820 that the smoke could be seen hovering from twenty miles away.

Royal Mile, 20 Minutes

Twenty minutes on the spine of medieval Edinburgh, where the guide describes punishment as public theatre. Hangings drew crowds, and the stocks, the pillory and the Town Guard kept order. The Heart of Midlothian mosaic in the High Street marks the site of the Old Tolbooth, a prison built between 1386 and about 1400 and demolished in 1817, where public hangings took place from a rooftop platform from 1785 and the heads of executed prisoners were displayed on the north gable.

Deacon Brodie, Agnes Sampson and Captain Porteous were all held there. The Mercat Cross beside St Giles', where executions and punishments also took place, dates in its present form from 1885 with an original cross from 1365.

South Bridge, 15 Minutes

The walk turns to South Bridge, where the guide tells the story of the vaults beneath. South Bridge opened to foot traffic in 1786 and was completed in 1788, with 19 arches, the largest where it crosses the Cowgate. The vaults under the arches held about 120 rooms and worked as intended, housing taverns, workshops and storage, for only about 30 years.

Businesses began leaving from 1795, and in the 1800s the rooms became slum housing for the city's poorest, later hosting illegal gambling taverns and an unlicensed whisky distillery. The legend of a figure called Mr Boots is told here as the listing describes, a menacing presence said to haunt the vault rooms. Most stories about who lived in the vaults are folklore, because written records from the slum period barely exist.

The rooms were rediscovered in the 1980s and excavated in the 1990s, when finds included thousands of oyster shells, toys and medicine bottles.

Old Calton Cemetery, 10 Minutes

Ten minutes among the weathered graves of Old Calton Burial Ground, which opened in 1718 on land bought by the Society of Incorporated Trades of Calton. The guide teaches you to read the skulls and hourglasses carved into the Victorian headstones. Philosopher David Hume is buried here, and the ground was split in two when Waterloo Place was built between 1815 and 1819.

Look for the Political Martyrs' Monument, an obelisk for reformers sentenced to deportation in 1793, and the Lincoln statue dedicated in 1893, which is Scotland's only statue of Abraham Lincoln and the only American Civil War monument outside the United States.

Calton Hill, 30 Minutes

The longest stop, 30 minutes on Calton Hill, where the guide covers the Scottish witch trials. An estimated 4,000 to 6,000 people were tried for witchcraft in Scotland under the Witchcraft Act of 1563, which made it a capital crime until its repeal in 1736. Estimates put executions at more than 1,500, and about 75 percent of the accused were women, with the main waves of prosecution in 1590-91, 1597, 1628-31, 1649-50 and 1661-62.

King James VI attended the North Berwick trials and published his own book on the subject, Daemonologie, in 1597. Most convicted witches were strangled at the stake before burning, and in 2022 Scotland's First Minister formally apologised to people accused under the Act. The hill also gives you the wide night view over the Old Town rooftops.

Jacob's Ladder, 10 Minutes

Ten minutes descending Jacob's Ladder, the steep stepped path the listing describes as once part of the old road to the dead. The operator advises against wheelchair users because of narrow stairways and steep hills.

Canongate Tolbooth, 15 Minutes

Fifteen minutes at the Canongate Tolbooth, a former courthouse and prison where the guide describes torture and harsh justice.

Last Stop: Canongate Kirkyard

The walk ends in Canongate Kirkyard, deep in body-snatching country. The guide traces Burke and Hare, who killed 16 people over about ten months in 1827 and 1828, smothering poor lodgers and selling the bodies to anatomist Robert Knox for around 8 to 10 pounds each. Their last victim, Margaret Docherty, was killed on 31 October 1828, and lodgers found her body and raised the alarm.

Burke was hanged on 28 January 1829 before a crowd estimated at 25,000, and the scandal forced through the Anatomy Act of 1832. The kirkyard itself is quiet history too. Canongate Kirk was founded in 1688 and completed in 1691, and economist Adam Smith is buried here, along with the poet Robert Fergusson, for whom Robert Burns arranged a monument in 1828.

The tour finishes here, so plan your route back to your room from the bottom of the Royal Mile.

Wheelchair Users and Anyone with Mobility Limits

The operator does not advise wheelchair users or guests with mobility impairments to join, because of narrow stairways and steep hills. If you need a step-free evening, the Edinburgh Dark History Tour is listed as wheelchair accessible and costs $24.23 for 2 hours.

Families with Young Children

The tour is recommended for ages 10 and up. There is no stated minimum age and no adults-only rule, but the content covers murder, witch trials and body snatching through storytelling. The operator calls it spooky and atmospheric but not graphic, and suggests parents of younger children ask their guide about content in advance.

For a proper family option, the Afternoon Old Town and Underground Ghost Tour runs 60 minutes at $21.53 with a minimum age of 5.

Travellers Who Want Underground Time or Real Scares

Whether the group enters the vaults is unclear in the listing, and the tone is history over horror. If you want guaranteed vault entry, the Haunted Underground Vaults and Graveyard Tour at $34 includes it, and the Late-Night Underground Vaults Terror Tour at $34 is strictly for ages 18 and over. For pure dark history at a lower price, the $24.23 Dark History Tour is billed as history rather than a ghost tour and holds a 5.0 rating from 917 reviews.

Non-English Speakers and Late Arrangers

The guide speaks English and no other languages are listed. If you need French or German, the Old Town Ghost Walking Tour runs in English, French and German for $26. And because the tour finishes at Canongate Kirkyard at the bottom of the Royal Mile rather than back at the start point, budget the walk back up the Mile at the end of the night.

What Is Free to Walk Alone

Old Calton Burial Ground, Calton Hill and Canongate Kirkyard are all free to enter, and the Royal Mile and South Bridge are public streets. By day you can stand at Hume's grave, read the Victorian memento mori carvings, find Adam Smith's tomb and take in the hill view without spending anything. Greyfriars Kirkyard is also free to walk in its open part, with self-guided information boards in several languages and entry to Greyfriars Kirk itself free, though donations are encouraged.

For the full DIY picture, see the pages on haunted places in Edinburgh, the Burke and Hare story and Greyfriars Kirkyard.

• Old Calton Burial Ground, Calton Hill and Canongate Kirkyard: free, no hours printed, check gates locally
• Greyfriars Kirkyard open part: free, boards in several languages
• Royal Mile and South Bridge: public streets, walkable any time

What You Cannot Do Alone

Two parts of this world are locked. The underground vaults under South Bridge and Blair Street are entered only on an operator's tour, and the companies each claim their own patch, so you cannot buy a single ticket at a door. The Covenanters' Prison in Greyfriars Kirkyard is sealed and can be entered only on a City of the Dead tour or by arrangement with the kirk, with the Friends of Greyfriars opening it on set special days that need no booking.

If underground rooms are the reason you came, a vaults tour is not optional, it is the only way in.

Paid Attractions You Can Visit on Your Own

The Real Mary King's Close at 2 Warriston's Close runs an hour-long guided tour underground seven days a week, with the homepage showing 9:30am to 10:30pm. The official site shows no price, so check the official booking page. Surgeons' Hall Museums on Nicolson Street, where Burke's death mask and a pocketbook said to be made from his skin are displayed, costs £10 for adults, £6.50 for concessions and £5.50 for children 5 to 15, open 10am to 5pm with last entry at 4:30pm.

Edinburgh Castle tops the same mile at £23.50 adult online, open 9:30am to 6pm from April to September and 9:30am to 5pm from October to March.

So Where Does the Guide Earn the $29?

On the facts behind the stones. Knowing which headstone skulls mean what, that Burke and Hare's victims sold for around 8 to 10 pounds, that South Bridge has 19 arches and about 120 vault rooms beneath it, and which 16th-century trials King James VI attended takes research you will not do standing in a dark kirkyard. If you are happy with the history boards, a free daytime walk of these three sites plus Greyfriars is genuinely enough.

If you want the night atmosphere with someone who knows the ground, the $29 is fair. If you want the locked places, book a vaults or graveyard tour instead of a street walk.