Greyfriars Kirkyard

My husband is a great fan of podcasts, and one of his favorites is Mr. Ballen. In real life, Mr. Ballen is Jonathan Bartlett Allen, a former United States Navy SEAL and an amazing podcaster who focuses on “Strange, Dark, and Mysterious Stories.”  Who wouldn’t love that?

So, this week, my husband told me about a new podcast he watched. In it, Mr. Ballen tells the story about the Greyfriars Kirkyard, entitled “Homeless man accidentally creates Europe’s MOST DANGEROUS CEMETERY.”

So, I watched it – it’s totally worth the almost 20 minutes – and then did a little digging on my own.

Greyfriars Kirkyard has a terrible history. One of the comments on the podcast said, “My partner is a historian, and we live in Edinburgh. He has done a lot of research on this kirkyard at the behest of the Scottish Government. In fact, this was a graveyard before there was a kirk there. The population petitioned Mary, Queen of Scots, to build a kirk there, and she granted permission. The land has been built on and built on for hundreds of years. Every time the kirkyard was full, they would cover it in earth and start burying people again. The kirkyard abuts Candlemaker Row and used to be on the same level as that street, whereas now, it is about as high as a double-decker bus. My partner says that a conservative estimate of people buried in the kirkyard is about 250,000.”

The early history of the site revolves around the Battle of Bothwell Bridge in 1679. According to the UK Mirror, a group of Presbyterian Covenanters were routed by government forces led by the Duke of Monmouth. Around 1,200 Covenanters were captured and imprisoned in a field not far from the churchyard. Many were executed, and hundreds more died of maltreatment – the notorious judge Mackenzie was a fierce advocate of the use of torture in Scotland.

The bodies of the Covenanters were thrown into a mass grave on the site of what is now Greyfriars Kirkyard. By chilling coincidence, on his death in 1691, George Mackenzie was interred in the so-called Black Mausoleum in that very cemetery.”

So, apparently, in the late 1990s, a homeless man who was seeking shelter for the night broke into the mausoleum – he must have been pretty desperate – and fell through the floor into a pit of ancient skeletons. (Nothing worse than falling into a pit of ancient skeletons. Okay, snakes. Falling into a pit of snakes would be worse.)

And, it seems, his fall awakened the spirit of “Bloody Mackenzie,” who wasn’t all that thrilled about being woken up. What followed was a series of paranormal attacks on people visiting the kirkyard. Finally, a young woman was found outside the Black Mausoleum, looking like she had been strangled but having no memory of what happened to her when she regained consciousness.

The good city officials of Edinburgh, fearing that this kind of publicity might be harmful, begged minister and exorcist Colin Grant to visit the kirkyard.

According to Eerie Edinburgh.com, things didn’t go as planned. “In 1999, a spiritualist medium by the name of Colin Grant attempted an exorcism in the Kirkyard. It was late November; the nights were long and cold, but he was unwavering in his belief that he could put an end to the attacks. Putting his faith in his bible and crucifix and armed only with a candle and his beliefs, he entered the Kirkyard. It’s said that the ritual took hours, and when finished, he’s quoted as saying that the exorcism would: “be the death of him.” Susan Burrell, a local reporter for the Edinburgh Evening News, had accompanied him and had been busily snapping pictures. In one, it appears that a dark shape is present in a window behind Colin. Susan believed that this wasn’t as a shadow as it was witnessed moving at the time.

Ultimately, Colin’s efforts, although valiant, were unsuccessful, and the attacks continued. Sadly, his comments about the exorcism being the death of him may have foreshadowed events to come, as in January the following year, a heart attack sadly ended his life.”

Mr. Ballen goes into greater detail in his podcast about all of the paranormal occurrences of the night, which are quite spooky. However, the main takeaway is that Colin was accompanied by a journalist and a photographer, Susan Burrell. Ms. Burrell snapped a photo of Colin when he was trying to exorcise the spirit of Judge Mackenzie. In the background of the photo is the old, empty kirk, and the photo clearly shows a black figure in the window looking out at Colin.

Let’s close with one more comment from the podcast, “I grew up in Edinburgh and knew EXACTLY what cemetery this was from the title. As children, we were forbidden from entering by my Grandparents and parents. I entered once as an adult and will never do so again.”

So, would you enter the kirkyard?

Happy Friday!!!