Underground Echoes: Tales from Edinburgh’s Most Haunted Pub
The pub that now occupies that site was originally going to be merely called The Labyrinth, owing to the multiple corridors, hidden rooms and disorienting staircases characteristic of the vaults. However, during the renovation in preparation to open, a couple of the men working down in the lower vaults of the venue were interrupted by a loud, bloodcurdling scream coming from inside the otherwise empty building. Coming up for air and to recover, one of the workmen received a phone-call informing him that a family member had passed away – the pub became resultantly known as The Banshee Labyrinth.
Over the 10 years Banshee has been open, the experiences of staff and customers are too numerous to describe in totality here. Of course there’s the usual haunted pub stuff, glasses sliding across perfectly dry tables – stopping, changing direction and sliding off at right angles; themselves on and off; glasses exploding when no one is anywhere near them, things moving by themselves and falling off perfectly level shelves. Customers have reported having seen a small girl walk straight through locked grates, having their chair violently shaken by an unseen force, and being followed home by a presence that eventually necessitated a second visit in order to return the offender to the premises with a weary “I think I have something of yours…”.
Ourselves, we will often feel an overwhelming sense of unease before the lights cut out in a room – even though nothing has tripped when we check. Footsteps echo down corridors when no one else is there, the heavy iron handcuffs attached to the wrought gates of Cave Bar have the unnerving tendency to swing back and forth on their own with no discernible draught or offending person nearby. Figures are visible at the bottom of the stairs, or momentarily visible standing in the doorways of the cinema or pool room when for some reason you get that creeping urge to look behind you. Burning figures engulfed in flames have been seen, a woman repeatedly walking the same path again and again just out of the corner of your eye, motion sensor hand-driers turn themselves on and cubicle doors slam in the bathrooms when no one is there. Disembodied whistling follows you around the building, and imprints of small children’s handprints appear on the inside of the windows and on low mirrors, despite being very strictly an over 18s only venue. The radios staff use to communicate are hijacked by a small girl’s voice questioning ‘hello?’, and phone and camera batteries drain without explanation.
If you would like to hear more about staff and customer experiences, check out Real Life Ghost Stories’ episode all about us on YouTube or Spotify.