Edinburgh Vaults tours, all six compared
Which cellar are you actually booking?
I grew up two closes uphill from the Niddry Street doors and spent three student years pulling pints in a Cowgate bar built into one of the arches, so I have watched a lot of people turn up at the wrong meeting point. The confusion is understandable. Both sets of rooms sit under the same bridge complex, both are sold as “the Edinburgh Vaults”, and they are held by different operators behind different street doors. A ticket to one does not admit you to the other.
The bridge itself is the reason any of this exists. Work started in August 1785 and the South Bridge opened in 1788: nineteen stone arches spanning just over a thousand feet, thirty-one feet above the ground at the highest point. Only one arch is visible today, the one over the Cowgate. Tenements went up along the other eighteen, so most people walk over the bridge thinking it is an ordinary road. Inside and beneath those arches are roughly 120 chambers, from about two square metres up to about forty. The longer version is on the history page.
The South Bridge chambers, off Niddry Street
This is where the big, long-running ghost tours go, and three of the six use these rooms. The one-hour vaults tour meets in front of 300 Lawnmarket, by the tourist information booth and the red phone box opposite Deacon Brodie’s Tavern. It is the shortest and plainest of the underground options: a live guide, English only, no audio devices, no translations, an optional torture exhibition you add at booking. Reviewers keep naming the same two guides, Ally and James.
The vaults and graveyard tour leaves from the same corner and runs half an hour longer, because it adds Greyfriars Kirkyard: Bobby, the mausoleums, the Covenanters’ ground and the trade Burke and Hare were in. It is 12+ rather than 5+. The extreme paranormal tour meets at the police box on the Royal Mile, is strictly adults only, and goes through a graveyard and the vaults after dark with a theatrically dressed guide. It is the lowest rated of the six at 4.3, and the reviews split cleanly: the people who wanted the performance loved it, the people who wanted history found it thin. That whole cluster is on the night tours page.
The Blair Street chambers
Different street door, different operator, deeper rooms, different tone. Both Blair Street listings meet at the Mercat Cross beside St Giles’ Cathedral, both guarantee a small group, and both hand out audio devices, which matters more than it sounds like it should when a guide is talking in a stone room with wet floors. Both include the small Vaults Museum, the short film the operator calls Vaults Revealed, and the Sounds of Edinburgh playlist.
The two-hour evening tour with whisky adds a walking section through the Old Town and a complimentary whisky, beer or Scottish soft drink taken by candlelight in a cellar. The 75-minute historic vaults tour drops the drink and the ghost framing and gives you the artefacts instead, including the chance to handle objects pulled out of the excavation. If you are the sort of person who reads museum labels, that is your tour. More on both on the small-group page and the Blair Street vaults page.
The one that never goes underground
The witches and history walk is street level throughout. A costumed guide takes you through the closes and wynds with the stories of Janet Horne, Geillis Duncan and Lillias Adie, past the castle and St Giles’, finishing in the Grassmarket with Half-Hangit Maggie. It is the highest rated of the six at 4.8. Every vault tour here involves a spiral staircase, and the South Bridge entrance has a two-foot step at the door, so this walk is the only one of the six with no vault stairs at all. If stairs, damp or small dark rooms are the problem, read accessibility and are the vaults claustrophobic before you book anything else.
Three of the six, side by side
These are the three people most often choose between: the history-first Blair Street tour, the most-booked South Bridge hour, and the evening one with the drink.
| Edinburgh: Multi-Sensory Small-Group Historic Vaults Tour | Top pickEdinburgh: Underground Vaults Tour | Edinburgh: Underground Vaults Evening Ghost Tour with Whisky | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Which vaults | Blair Street | South Bridge | Blair Street |
| Duration | 75 minutes | 1 hour | 2 hours |
| Group size | Small group guaranteed | Standard group | Small group guaranteed |
| Besides the guide | Museum, film, artefacts you can handle | Optional torture exhibition | Museum, film, a drink by candlelight |
| Minimum age | 5+ | 5+, or 12+ with the exhibition | 5+ |
| Stairs | Spiral stair | Two-foot step, spiral stair | Spiral stair |
| Best for | Substance over scares | A first look, quickly | Atmosphere and a dram |
| View → | Book this → | View → |
All six, with live availability
Ratings and review counts as the listings show them. Free cancellation is standard on all six, usually up to 24 hours ahead, and confirmation is instant, so the voucher lands on your phone before you have put it back in your pocket. How that works in practice is on the tickets page.
Most bookedEdinburgh: Underground Vaults Tour
Small groupEdinburgh: Underground Vaults Evening Ghost Tour with Whisky
Vaults + kirkyardEdinburgh: Haunted Underground Vaults and Graveyard Tour
History, not ghostsEdinburgh: Multi-Sensory Small-Group Historic Vaults Tour
Above groundEdinburgh: Witches & History Old Town Walking Tour
Adults onlyEdinburgh: Extreme Paranormal Underground Ghost Tour
Weekend evenings and the whole of August go first, and the evening slots on the ghost tours go before anything else. A Tuesday afternoon you can usually pick up late. A Friday at nine in August you cannot.
Check dates
The one-hour South Bridge tour is the one most visitors land on, so its calendar is the useful starting point even if you end up booking something else. If you want my honest ranking by what you actually want out of the hour, that is on which vaults tour is best.
Read the write-ups first
I have written each of the six up properly: what is included, how it runs, who it suits and who should book something else. Start with the underground vaults tour review or the historic vaults tour review, or take all six reviews in one go. Still weighing up whether any of it is worth doing? That page exists too.
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Frequently asked questions
How many Edinburgh Vaults tours are there, and how do they differ?
Six on this site. Three enter the South Bridge chambers off Niddry Street, two enter the separate Blair Street chambers held by a different operator, and the witches walk stays above ground. They run from one hour to two hours, and the minimum age runs from 5+ to strictly 18+. The full breakdown is above, and the honest ranking is on which vaults tour is best.
What is the difference between the Blair Street and South Bridge vaults?
They are separate chambers under the same bridge complex, entered from different streets and held by different operators, so a ticket to one does not admit you to the other. Blair Street has the museum, the film, the audio devices and the artefact handling; the South Bridge side has the largest and longest-running ghost tours. See the Blair Street vaults.
Can I get into the vaults without booking a tour?
No. The chambers are private property, locked and unlit, with no visitor entrance and no opening hours. What you can do for nothing is walk the Cowgate arch and look at the tenement doors on Niddry Street. The longer answer is here, and the meeting points are here.
Is any Edinburgh Vaults tour step-free?
None of the underground ones. Every vault tour on this site involves a spiral staircase, the South Bridge entrance has a two-foot step, and floors can be wet. The only one of the six with no vault stairs is the above-ground witches walk, though that has cobbles and steep closes. Details on the accessibility page.