Between the castle and Holyrood, the Royal Mile runs along the spine of a volcanic ridge. On either side, narrow alleys — closes and wynds — plunge down the cliff face between the tenements. Some are lit and signposted. Most aren't. They've been here for five hundred years, and the stories soaked into their stone walls are darker and stranger than anything in the guidebooks.
A close is a narrow passageway, usually leading off a main street into a courtyard or down the hillside. Many are roofed where they pass between tenements, making them dark even in daylight. A wynd is similar but typically open to the sky and somewhat wider — though in Edinburgh the distinction is often blurred.
The word "close" comes from the Old French clos, meaning enclosed. Edinburgh's closes were named after the families, trades, or notable events associated with them — which is why walking through the Old Town is a compressed history lesson if you know what you're looking for. Fleshmarket Close (the butchers' alley), Anchor Close (after the Anchor Tavern, where Robert Burns drank), Advocate's Close (after the Lord Advocate who once lived there).
The most dramatic close in Edinburgh. From the Royal Mile it descends steeply between tall walls of old stone, framing a view across to the New Town and the Firth of Forth. On a clear evening, the light at the bottom is extraordinary. Named after Sir James Stewart, Lord Advocate of Scotland in the late 15th century, it was subsequently home to several generations of Edinburgh lawyers and writers. The architecture is among the most intact of any close in the city.
The most famous close that is no longer fully accessible above ground. In the 17th century, during one of Edinburgh's plague outbreaks, an entire section of the Old Town — including Mary King's Close — was sealed off and built over as the Royal Exchange (now the City Chambers) was constructed above it. The close wasn't bricked up with plague victims inside, as the popular story has it — but the lower sections were preserved beneath the new building, and they remain there today. The stories attached to it grew darker with each retelling.
The close is named after Mary King, a merchant who rented a section of it in the 1630s — an unusual distinction in an era when women rarely had such commercial standing.
Hidden at the foot of the Canongate, near Holyrood, White Horse Close is a beautifully preserved 17th-century courtyard. It was once the site of the White Horse Inn, the Edinburgh terminus of the London stage coach. Jacobite supporters gathered here before the 1745 rising — Bonnie Prince Charlie's army assembled nearby. The close has been carefully restored and is now residential, but the proportions and materials of the original buildings remain largely unchanged.
The Anchor Tavern stood here for most of the 18th century, making it a meeting place for the literati of the Scottish Enlightenment. Robert Burns drank here when he came to Edinburgh in 1786. The Crochallan Fencibles — an informal drinking club — met in the tavern. It was also the location of the printing house where the first Edinburgh edition of Burns' poems was produced. The close is now ordinary, but the concentration of history compressed into it is remarkable.
Named after the Brodie family, this close is most associated with William Brodie — Deacon of the Incorporation of Wrights, town councillor, respected citizen, and by night, a burglar. Brodie's double life as a pillar of respectability who funded his gambling and mistresses by robbing the same homes he'd fitted locks for directly inspired Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Brodie was caught, tried, and hanged in 1788 on gallows he had himself improved in his capacity as a public official. The irony was not lost on Edinburgh.
Several shops and businesses in and around the Old Town's closes preserve something of Edinburgh's older occult associations — not as a performance, but as a living interest in herbalism, divination, folklore, and the city's history of witch trials. The Grassmarket area and the closes immediately around it saw some of the densest concentration of witch trials in Scotland, and the residue of that history has attracted communities of people who take it seriously.
Between the 16th and 18th centuries, Scotland executed more accused witches per capita than almost any other country in Europe. The North Berwick witch trials of 1590 — in which King James VI himself participated in the interrogations — are the most documented, but Edinburgh's closes saw arrests, trials, and burnings throughout the period. The crossroads at the Grassmarket, where the gallows stood, is where many of them ended.
Our daytime tour takes you through the closes and atmospheric corners that most visitors walk straight past — and further back in time than most Edinburgh tours dare to go. We start with the ancient mythology: the standing stones, the Pictish lore, the druids on the volcanic crag that became Edinburgh Castle. Then we follow that history forward through the hidden wynds of the Old Town, covering the real stories soaked into 500-year-old stone.
The tour runs for 90 minutes, entirely above ground, and covers the Royal Mile and the most atmospheric Old Town closes. Concession pricing is available for Over 65s, Veterans, Blue Light workers, Students, and children under 16.
90 minutes through Edinburgh's ancient mythology and hidden wynds — from Pictish lore and standing stones to the closes the guidebooks leave out.
Book This Tour — £18 →Sign up and we'll send your discount code instantly. Plus: new guides, seasonal specials, and Edinburgh stories that don't make the guidebooks.