On
a cold winter’s day with a bitter wind almost too cold to walk in, I went for a
walk around the Old Town of Edinburgh. Despite
it being freezing and not the sort of weather you would expect to attract tourists,
there were thousands of tourists around.
Maybe global warming attracts those from hotter climes to the harsher
colder ones. Personally, at this time of
year, I’d rather be somewhere warmer. As
I wandered around, I came to one of the many narrow streets off the High Street,
Bell’s Wynd. This is now a rather
non-descript street of rubbish bins, worn stairs and drab buildings, but it is
a street with a rich history.
Bell’s
Wynd is believed to be named after John Bell, who had a brewery at the foot of
the Wynd in the 1520s. At the top of the
Wynd, facing out onto the High Street, was the Clam Shell Turnpike, a church
residence that was built during the reign of James V (1512 to 1542), for George
Crichton, the Bishop of Dunkeld. The
rather strange name for this building came from the fact that there was a
turnpike stair in the tower of the residence, and on the outer wall of this
tower was carved a clamshell. The clamshell
being a piece of religious imagery that related to pilgrims having travelled to
the church of St James at Santiago de Compostella in Spain, St James being the
patron saint of Spain. Like many
buildings in Scotland, Mary, Queen of Scots once stayed in the Clam Shell
Turnpike. She had fled Edinburgh along
with her husband Darnley after the murder of her friend, David Rizzio, who had
been stabbed to death in front of her at Holyrood Palace. On returning to Edinburgh, she was a bit wary
about returning to the palace, so called in on an ally, Lord Home, who lived at
the Clam Shell Turnpike. He made her
welcome, until she felt she could safely return to the Palace.
In
1824, the Clam Shell Turnpike was destroyed in a huge fire. In the building on the site where it once
stood, there is now a fish and chip shop called the Clamshell.
At
one time there were many businesses and workshops along Bell’s Wynd. Here you could employ a chimney sweep, have
your wig made by the barbers, wigs being all the fashion at one time, buy a
harpsichord, then purchase the sheet music, and learn to play the latest tunes
on it. If you weren’t living in one of
the many houses and rooms on the Wynd, you could rent ‘chambers, fire, and a
bed for twenty-four hours…in Bell’s Wynd…(for)…tenpence.’
In
1708, Bell’s Wynd was the site of the first authorised newspaper in Scotland, The
Scots Postman, later the New Edinburgh Gazette. The publisher of the paper, James Donaldson,
also specialised in printed funeral cards with skeletons and other ‘emblems of mortality’
on their borders.
James
Johnson, who was a struggling publisher of music, had his workshop in Bell’s
Wynd. He had a pet project of collecting
traditional Scottish folk songs, and this project eventually found him fame,
and also introduced him to Robert Burns.
Burns became a dear friend to Johnson, and an enthusiastic contributor to
what became the Scots Musical Museum, a book in six volumes, that Johnson
published between 1787 and 1803.
As
well as being a home to Edinburgh publishers, Bell’s Wynd was also home to
various musicians, such as Giuseppe Puppo, a violinist from Lucca in Italy, who
was considered to be a virtuoso performer, and had been taught by Tartini. He was the leader and violin concerto player at
St Cecilia’s Hall in Edinburgh from 1778 to 1782.
Like
many of the old streets in Edinburgh, Bell’s Wynd has a ghost story attached to
it. This story takes place in the 1770s,
at a time when Edinburgh’s New Town was being built, and those with money were
fleeing to it from the now overcrowded and crumbling tenements around the High
Street, like the ones at Bell’s Wynd. Many
of the houses and rooms within the tenements were boarded up and abandoned, so
it was not uncommon for those living in a building to have empty apartments
below or above them. Apartments with the
doors chained, padlocked, and left to rot and decay.
On
Bell’s Wynd there was a house that had been abandoned and locked up years
before the flight from the Old Town had started. Above it lived a blacksmith and locksmith by
the name of George Gourlay. He had lived
there for nine years with his wife Christian, and in all that time had seen
no-one enter or leave the house below. Indeed, Christian had told him that she
had worked in that house when she was a girl, and that it was nearly twenty-one
years since the owner had left it very suddenly to travel abroad. When George tried to pry further into who had
lived there, Christian would refuse to talk any further about it, or would
change the subject. This, of course,
just made George more and more curious about the house and its history. Sometimes, as he returned from work, he would
stop outside the padlocked door of the house and listen to the silence
within. A silence in which he was sure
he could sometimes hear a faded scream, and then low and gentle sobbing.
As
time went by, George’s curiosity grew to such an extent that he knew he just
must get into the house to see what was there, and to learn its secrets. So, one night when his wife was sleeping, he
quietly got up from their bed, lit a candle, took a set of keys and lock picks,
and made his way down the stairs to the house below. There, he tried various keys on the rusting
padlock, but it would not give. Then he
tried the lock picks and eventually, click, the padlock sprung open. Gently pulling away the chains it held,
George then turned the door handle and tried to push the door open. It wouldn’t budge. Warped by age and damp, it was jammed in the
doorframe. George put his shoulder
against it and pushed and pushed with all his might. At first it wouldn’t give, but then with a
mighty scream it burst open. As it did,
George thought he saw the ghostly figure of a naked man rush past, his mouth open in a shriek of terror. Shaking the image from his head, George
convinced himself that it must just have been the flicker of the candlelight
and his mind playing tricks on him. He
did, however, feel a slight uneasiness creep over him.
On
pushing the door fully open, George found himself in the kitchen of the house. In front of him there was a table covered in a
faded and dusty cloth. It was set with two
plates, two wine glasses and an opened bottle of wine, with the wine now just a
coating of red dust. Walking further in,
he saw in the fireplace the ashes and charcoal from the kitchen fire, and on
the spit above, the skeletal remains of a goose that must have been cooking
there. Whoever had lived here must have
left in some hurry, George thought to himself.
Making
his way through and out of the kitchen, George came to a hallway that led to
three doors, all of which were shut. On
opening the first of the doors he found he was in the sitting room. A room in which there were several pieces of
what would once have been luxurious furniture, but
were now all rotten and broken. They had
been nibbled by mice, which had pulled the stuffing from the chairs, and an
ornate chaise longue, to make their nests with.
In the flickering light of the candle, George saw that there were
various paintings on the walls. One was
of an attractive, young woman with long, red hair. George walked up to study the picture more
closely and was taken in by just how beautiful the woman was. Looking at the painting hanging next to it,
he saw the portrait of a handsome young man.
He wondered if these were the likenesses of those who had once lived in
the house. They must have made quite a
stunning couple.
George
left the sitting room and tried the next door. It led into a narrow bedroom,
that must have been for the family servant.
Could it have been the bedroom that his wife had slept in as a young
girl when she worked here? All that was
in the room now was a thin bed, a chair, and a table with a musty bible sitting
on it.
On
leaving that room, George walked further down the hallway, and as he did so his
candle flickered and sputtered, as if nervous at what scene it may illuminate
through the final door. On twisting the cold brass handle and pushing the door
open, George could smell a damp, sweet smell, a smell he recognised as the smell
of death. Hesitating before entering the
room, George wondered if he should go further.
There was something dark and sinister about this room, and he could feel
the bile in his stomach rise with a fear at what might be in there. ‘Get a grip of yourself man,’ he told
himself, and holding the candle up high he walked into the room.
In
the sputtering light George almost screamed as he saw the pale and translucent
figure of a woman standing beside the four-poster bed that dominated the
room. The ghostly woman looked up at
him, her ghostly cheeks wet with ghostly tears. She pointed down at the bed and
silently mouthed something to him.
Despite his fear, George found that he was walking over to the bed to
see what was there, and as he did so the ghostly woman slipped past him and out
of the room.
Slowly
approaching the bed, George felt his foot clunk against something on the
floor. Looking down he saw a large
kitchen knife, on its blade was a dark crust of something awful. George shuddered, stepped over it and walked
up to the bed. There he could see that
the mouldering bed covers were pulled up high, up to the top of the pillows,
and underneath the covers were the outlines of two people. Putting his candle down on the table beside
the bed, George took a breath, prayed silently and then taking the edge of the
cover, pulled it back. In a cloud of
dust, he saw that underneath were the mummified corpses of a man and a
woman. The leathery dark and corrupt
skin of the woman’s head was framed by long, flame red hair. Dropping the
covers, George let out a scream and stepped back. His candle on the table, then sputtered out,
leaving him in pitch darkness. In a
complete panic, George stumbled around, as he tried to find his way out.
Tripping and falling, he crawled to the bedroom door and in the hallway saw the
dim light of the entrance out of the house.
Rising to his feet he ran out, knocking over a chair in the kitchen as
he went. Out of the house, he pulled the
door closed and with shaking hands re-attached the chains and padlock. Making his way back up the stairs, George sat
for a while on one of the cold stone steps and calmed himself down. He wondered what his wife knew about what had
happened in that house, but decided that he would
not ask her or speak about what he had seen.
She had her reasons for not speaking about what had gone on there, and
maybe he would rather not know. Having
decided this, George made his way back up to their house, and back into their
bedroom where his wife lay snoring gently in their bed. Climbing into the warm bed, George decided
that when he woke it would all have just been a bad dream and easily forgotten.
George’s
resolve not to speak to his wife did not last long after he woke that
morning. Christian sensed there was
something wrong and asked him what the matter was. Before he knew what he was doing he blurted
out to her that he had broken into the locked house, seen two mummified bodies
in the bed, and that their unhappy ghosts had appeared to him. On telling her this, Christian turned pale
and became unsteady on her feet. George
sat her down and she told him a terrible tale.
‘When
I was a young girl, I worked for the husband and wife in the house below as a maid servant. They were a handsome couple, Patrick
Guthrie, a dashing young gent, and Henrietta Douglas, his beautiful, red headed
wife. At first all was well, and it was
a happy house, but then Patrick’s work took him away from home more and
more. Henrietta grew lonely and bored,
and fell for the charms of another man. A slippery chap, who presented himself
as a member of some aristocratic family from the Highlands. He oozed an oily self-assurance while
bombarding her with compliments and presents.
As soon as Patrick left on his travels, this chap would appear to woo
Henrietta. Sadly, she fell under his
spell and took him to her bed. As a
lowly servant I witnessed all this, but could do and say nothing about it. One morning her lover appeared shortly after
Patrick had left. He brought with him a
goose and all the trimmings and asked me to prepare a meal for my mistress and
himself. I plucked and prepared the
goose and put it on the spit to roast, as the two of them laughed and frolicked
through in the bedroom. I set the table
for the two of them, and had just opened the bottle of wine the lover had
brought for them when in walked Patrick.
I didn’t know what to do or say and just placed the bottle on the table
as the noise of the two lovers echoed through the house. Patrick, who was always such a gentle and
kind man, stood frozen for a second or two and at first
I thought he was going to walk straight out of the door and leave, but no. His face changed from a pale white of shock
to an angry purple of rage. He suddenly
ran to the kitchen block and picked up a large carving knife, and then he flew
down the hallway and into the bedroom.
The screaming was terrible, and I stood frozen to the spot. At one point the lover ran naked into the
kitchen pursued by Patrick, who grabbed him by the hair and pulled him back
into the bedroom. The screaming then
stopped soon afterwards, and all was quiet.
Even though I was terrified, I felt drawn to see what had happened and
found myself walking down the hallway.
Slowly, slowly and as quietly as I could, I stepped around dollops of
bright red blood, and then stood in the doorway. Patrick stood in there by the bed, the knife
lay on the floor. On the bed he had
arranged the bodies of his wife and her lover lying side by side. Both were naked and bloody. Patrick glanced over to me, the rage had gone
from him, and he looked deflated and broken.
He picked the bed covers up from where they had fallen on the floor, and
covered the two bodies with them. After
that, he just stood there, silent, and lost.
Then he spoke to me saying that he would pay me forty sovereigns if I
would leave immediately and speak of this to no
one. Being young, in shock and
frightened by what had just happened, I agreed, and to this day have not ever
broken my promise…until now that is.’
George
was stunned by Christian’s story and didn’t know what to say. He opened his
mouth several times to speak, and then lost for words, closed it again, making
him look much like he was doing an impression of a goldfish in its bowl. He sat
down next to Christian and had just taken her hand in his when, RAP, RAP, RAP,
someone knocked on their door. George
got up and opened the door to find a well-dressed, but
wizened old man standing there. The
man’s face was a mass of wrinkles so deep that they almost resembled the crags
and cracks in a mountain. He asked if
George was a locksmith, to which George replied he was, and invited the man
into his home. Noticing how frail the old man seemed, George offered him a
seat. Gratefully he accepted it and sat down.
Once
seated, the old man told George and Christian that he’d been travelling abroad
for over twenty years, and had that morning returned to Edinburgh to live out
the remaining time he had, and to make peace with his past. A past in which he had done a terrible wrong
and now must face up to it.
Christian,
who had been looking intently at the old man, suddenly gasped in
recognition. ‘Patrick Guthrie’, she
cried. ‘Is that you?’ The old man sighed and said that yes that was
he, and Christian told him she had once been his servant girl. That she had kept her promise to him up until
that very morning when George had confessed to entering his long abandoned
house.
‘Ah,
so you both know of my terrible misdeeds,’ sighed Patrick. ‘Can I then please ask you to come with me to
the Fiscal, as I must hand myself in to make amends for a crime that has
haunted me and turned me into the broken old man you see before you.’
Christian
and George agreed to accompany Patrick to see the
Fiscal, and off they went. The Fiscal
listened to both the tales told by Patrick and Christian. He then ordered them to the house, and had
George open the locks so he could look inside for himself. After a short while he came out and looked
sternly at Patrick. ‘So, from what I
understand this heinous crime took place twenty one years ago?’ Both Patrick and Christian confirmed that was
so. ‘Well,’ said the Fiscal. ‘The
limitation for prosecuting a crime is twenty years, so there is nothing to be done,
but for God’s sake man, get your wife and the man who lies
beside her buried.’
And
so, there ends my ghostly tale. I can
find no evidence anywhere to back up this story, so I assume it is just a yarn
that was spun by someone long ago and has been embellished with each telling. Saying that, I have been told that on the
darkest nights of the year, if you walk down Bell’s Wynd to where the house
once stood, you can see the ghostly figure of Henrietta Douglas, standing with
her head bowed, gently weeping. And, as
she weeps the faded figure of her dead lover will run past naked, his hands
covering his manhood, and his mouth open in a silent scream.
***
I
left the Skulferatu that accompanied me on my walk
to Bell’s Wynd, in a gap in a wall.
There it can watch over the ghosts of the many past occupants of the
street.
The
coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are
Latitude
55.949749
Longitude
-3.188704
what3words:
school.bleak.nerve
I
used the following sources for information on Bell’s Wynd –
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