Edinburgh Vaults

Edinburgh Vaults 

Yop guys! Today we leave England to go to Scotland, in Edinburgh exactly. The capital is famous for its castle and picturesque old town but not only. While walking in the old city, you can notice that there are numerous horror tours which permit you to discover a new facet of Edinburgh. They propose you to wandering in an old graveyard, torture exhibition or the well-known vaults. This is a place that I’ve visited (and I almost cried haha). 

This is where we’re going today, but first what are exactly these vaults? It began with the construction of the South Bridge in 1785. At this time, the Edinburgh Castle was an impenetrable fortress so townspeople wanted to live as close as possible to it. The bridge were built to connect flat areas to the castle: South Bridge consisted of 19 arches and at its highest point, it stood 31 feet above ground and had foundations that penetrated Edinburgh's bedrock as far down as 22 feet.

In 19^th century, the vaults begin the place for poverty: during famines and plague epidemic, homeless and contaminated lived in the vaults and serial killer let their victims dying in the darkness of the place. Murder, rape and death were rampant as disease and crime took hold of the area. 

At the end of the century, vaults were closed to drive the seedy activity out from the Edinburgh’s main thoroughfare and was let into obscurity.

In the 1990’s students who let a flat in the old town heard scratching at the wall and decided to destroy it (they were drunk…). Behind the wall, the vaults surfaced again. Since then, the vaults have been opened to public and ghosts reports have poured in. The most famous ghost is Mr. Boots: some said seeing a man wearing a long black coats and boots and guides of vaults tour report hearing his footstep. 

Some ghosts are bolder, like the spectral child "Jack" who grabs visitor's hands in the wine vaults. 

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How to get there: One of the most horrifying vaults tour is the Auldreekie Terror Tour, more informations HERE. This tour is only for over 18s only and will make you cry; the visit is done by night and the guides are so interesting and creepy! Well, it's worth checking out! 

Pluckley Village

The 15 ghosts of the village 

Hey guys, today we do not leave England and I take you close to London, to the most haunted village of England: Pluckley.

Pluckley, Kent, is a picturesque village surrounded by woodlands, but its reputation does not come from for the beauty of the place. Pluckley is famous to shelter between 12 and 16 ghosts who led the village into the Guinness World Records in 1989. So let’s deal with the most famous ghosts!

1 – The screaming man: years ago, a man who worked in the brickworks fell and died slowly under the bricks, and some say that you can still hear the his screaming and see his ghost wandering.

2- The Watercress woman: she is supposed to have burnt to death when, saturated in gin, she accidentally set herself alight on the lonely spot where she would sit each day with her pipe.

3- Lady Dering, the woman in red: this ghost is supposed to be the wife of Baron Dering who buried his wife in a lead coffin to conserve the corpse of his lover. She had been buried somewhere next to the church and Lady Dering still wander in the cemetery wearing a red shawl.

There are more than 15 other ghost stories on the village. Here the locations of all known ghosts:

•  Phantom Coach & Horses - various locations
• The Colonel - Park Wood
• The Highwayman - Pinnock Crossroads
• The Miller - Site of Old Mill
• The Monk - Greystones
• The Red Lady - St Nicholas Church
• The Schoolmaster - Dicky Buss Lane
• The Screaming Man - Pluckley Brickworks
• The Tudor Lady - Rose Court
• The Watercress Woman - Pinnock Stream
• The White Lady - St Nicholas Church and Surrenden Manor
• The Black Horse - The Street
• The Dering Arms - Station Road
• The Blacksmith's Arms - Pluckley Thorne
• The Screaming Woods - Dering Woods & Frith Wood
• The Devil's Bush - Frith Corner

But now, leave the village to go to the woods around. The Dering Woods, as well known as the screaming woods (I’m sure you know why). In effect people reports hearing terrifying screams coming from the forest at night or footsteps and whispers during days of fog. The forest is said to be haunted by the ghosts of the people who get lost in them, in particular the locals mention a suicidal army colonel of the 18th century and a highwayman who was captured by the villagers, pinned to a tree and beheaded. 

Newspaper after the Dering Wood Massacre 1948

But the most striking fact is the Dering Wood Massacre during the Halloween Night in 1948. Twenty bodies were found dead (11 were children) but did not present any wound. Many reported seeing strange lights coming from the forest this night during the massacre. 

The autopsies could not determine the cause of death and after times, the authorities ended the investigation. 

In 1998, during the same Halloween night, 4 students who entered in the forest went missing. The Pluckley population assure seeing the same lights in the forest than fifty years before. 

Their bodies were never found. 

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How to get there: If you want to go to this welcoming and friendly village and visit all these funny places, you can check the website of Pluckley HERE. 
Look how nice they are, they even propose you to eat in the Black Horse Pub, which is haunted. 




Sources:
The Telegraph, Pluckley city website, Creepypasta(wikia)

London Underground

The Ghosts of the Underground 

Queens Road Tube Station (Now Queesway), 1900

If you go to London, you will certainly take the mythic underground to visit the city. But the stories and testimonies below will surely make your routes more exiting. In effect, the tube would be haunted by ghosts, and souls would be prisoner of the entrails of the subway. In fact, you must know that the subway has been built on old cemeteries, mass graves and crypts. Of course, that does no help... 

Few people know it, but some passengers and technicians report seeing strange appearances. 

By night, the underground is closed and only employees are allowed to circulate in stations. 

One night, on the platforms of Liverpool Street Station, an employee sees on his CCTV a man dressed in white. He decide to contact his superior to evacuate the intruder. 

But when the station chief arrive of the platform, he does not see anyone. He called his colleague to tell him the platform his empty, but the answer he got is "He's just next to you ! how don't you see him ?"
During this period, close to the station, excavations turned up an old mass grave, vestige of a plague epidemic in the XVI century.

Passengers are also victim of strange appereance. In 1983, Karen take a picture of her nephew in the underground. After got her pictures developed, Karen notice a disturbing silhouette at the background. 

The silhouette of a man on an electric chair. To be sure of the picture authenticity, it was handed to an expert in photography who asseted the picture was real and has not been modified.

Then, an expert in paranormal discovered the identity of the silhouette : Bruno Hauptmann who has been executed in the 30's for the crime of a baby.  

The man was exposed at the Madame Tussaud Chamber of Horror Museum , there was no doubt for Karen, the man on her picture was Bruno Hauptmann. 

May be a display of advertisement ? The museum NEVER used the picture of Hauptmaan for it. 

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How to get there: If you want to visit all the haunted stations of the underground, the Brillantly British has created a map of it, and it's HERE.
And if you're brave enough to visit the Chamber of Horror of Madame Tussaud, you can get your ticket THERE.