The Edinburgh Tour Guide
They both sit underground in Edinburgh's Old Town, both get sold as "haunted history," and both show up in the same "things to do" lists, but they're not the same tour, not the same building, and not really the same experience. Here's the actual difference, and which one fits what you're after. If you haven't decided on the underground at all yet, our Edinburgh ghost tours guide compares the whole category first, including the options that never go below street level.
Mary King's Close is a real 17th-century street, character-guided, more history than horror. The Vaults (South Bridge) are 18th-century storage chambers that became slum housing in the 1800s, which is where the genuinely darker, ghost-story-driven reputation comes from. Want history, go Close. Want a scare, go Vaults. Have time for both, do Close first, Vaults after dark. Between the two Vaults operators, Auld Reekie is the cheaper deal per hour and adds a graveyard walk, Mercat is the smaller, more intimate group.
History over horror
Mary King's Close
The scare
The Vaults
Cheaper per hour
Auld Reekie (£17.33/hr)
Smaller group
Mercat
One thing to settle before the comparison starts, because it is the most common mix-up in this category: the Edinburgh Dungeon is neither of these. It is a built attraction on Market Street with actors and sets, opened in 2000. If that is the one you were thinking of, it has its own page. Everything below is about the two genuinely historic sites.
What's actually underground
Mary King's Close was a real street, named after Mary King, a businesswoman who lived there in the 1630s (the name was only attached about 48 years after her death). The tenements lining it stood up to twelve storeys high and stayed open to the sky for nearly two centuries, until 1753, when the upper floors were demolished and the new Royal Exchange was built directly on top, burying the lower storeys under the city. Contrary to the popular myth, it was never sealed off to trap plague victims: the space kept a legal working life underground, as workshops and storage, for decades afterward, right up until the City Chambers took it over as an archive in 1897. It reopened as a guided attraction in 2003 and is now one of Edinburgh's most-visited sights.
The Edinburgh Vaults are a different site entirely, and about 150 years younger. South Bridge was completed in 1788, and the space underneath it was built out into roughly 120 storage chambers across several floors. Merchants used them for about thirty years until damp and poor air made them useless for storage, after which the city's poorest residents moved in, alongside illegal whisky stills, gambling dens, and, per local legend, the body-snatching trade that supplied Edinburgh's medical schools. The Vaults were abandoned and filled with rubble by the mid-1800s, forgotten for over a century, then rediscovered in the 1980s and properly excavated in the 1990s. Today only a fraction is open to visitors: Mercat Tours owns the Blair Street section outright, while other operators, including Auld Reekie Tours, run separate chambers reached from Niddry Street, off the Cowgate.
What actually happens on each tour
Mary King's Close
Character-guided: costumed actors play real historical residents of the close and tell their specific, documented stories as you move through recreated 17th-century room settings. It runs about an hour and is pitched as social history, not a scare, so it works for visitors who want the "why is this actually here" answer more than a jump scare. It sits on the Royal Mile next to the City Chambers, opposite St Giles' Cathedral, literally a few steps from the Mercat Cross where the Blair Street Vaults tour below meets, so pairing the two in one day means barely any walking between them. It drew a record 257,000+ visitors in 2023, so same-day slots do sell out, worth booking ahead rather than turning up.
The Real Mary King's Close: Guided Tour
If "underground Edinburgh" to you means real stories over horror, this is it. It drew a record 257,000+ visitors in 2023, so same-day slots do sell out.
Mercat Tours: Blair Street Vaults
Starts above ground at the Mercat Cross on the Royal Mile, where the guide sets up the history of Old Town Edinburgh and how the Vaults came to exist, before the group heads underground with headsets so everyone can hear over each other. Inside, you move room to room through several vaults in near-total darkness, including a chamber that was reportedly used as a witchcraft temple by a Wiccan coven. It is pitched as historical rather than a haunted-house script, though the darkness and the stories still unsettle some visitors, not everyone finishes the walk. Mercat also runs a separate, more overtly ghost-themed version of the tour for people who specifically want that framing.
Auld Reekie Tours: Niddry Street & Cowgate Vaults
A different stretch of the Vaults, reached from Niddry Street rather than Blair Street, and the tone leans further into deliberate scares, including a torture room where the guide explains historical interrogation devices (skippable when you book, if that's not for you). The late-evening version runs in larger groups, up to around 30 people, which changes the atmosphere from Mercat's smaller, more intimate walk. Like Blair Street, one of the vaults here is also linked to Wiccan use.
Mercat Tours: Blair Street Underground Vaults
Mercat owns this stretch of the Vaults outright, so the storytelling is built around real history rather than a generic haunted-house script.
Auld Reekie Tours: Niddry Street & Cowgate Vaults
Add Greyfriars Kirkyard for the 90-minute version, or a shorter 60-minute vaults-only tour is also available with this operator.
Price per hour, which the sticker price hides
All three look close on the sticker price. Divide by the actual time underground and the gap opens up, in the opposite direction from what the prices suggest. This table used to leave Mary King's Close out because we had not pinned its price down. We have now, from its own ticket page on 6 October 2026, and it changes the answer.
| Tour | Price | Length | Per hour |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mary King's Close: Signature Guided Tour | £28.50 | 60 minutes | £28.50 |
| Mercat: Blair Street Vaults | £29.15 | 75 minutes | £23.32 |
| Auld Reekie: Niddry St & Cowgate (+ Greyfriars) | £26.00 | 90 minutes | £17.33 |
Mary King's Close is the most expensive hour of the three, at £28.50 against Auld Reekie's £17.33, which is 64% more. It has the middle ticket price and the dearest hour, because it is also the shortest tour: a flat 60 minutes where the other two run 75 and 90.
That is not an argument against it, and we are not going to dress it up as one. You are paying for a preserved 17th-century street that nobody else has, with a costumed guide and a conservation bill behind it, and an hour of that may be worth more to you than ninety minutes in a storage chamber. The point is that price should not be what decides this. All three sit within about £3 of each other on the ticket, so the decision is what you actually want to see, which is what the rest of this page is for.
Between the two Vaults tours, Mercat is both the pricier ticket and the pricier hour, £6 dearer per hour than Auld Reekie, which also throws in a Greyfriars Kirkyard graveyard walk that Mercat's tour doesn't include. What Mercat sells instead is a smaller, more intimate group, Auld Reekie's late-evening tour can run up to around 30 people. Cheaper and longer with a bigger group, or pricier and tighter with a smaller one, that trade-off is the real decision there, not which one is "better."
What the reviews actually tell you
What the data supports: both Vaults tours are extremely well evidenced, 1,831 reviews for Mercat and 2,045 for Auld Reekie, rating 4.73 and 4.76 respectively. That's a 0.03 gap on a huge sample each, close enough to call it a genuine coin flip on quality. Neither is the safer bet over the other.
What the data does not support: a numeric comparison against Mary King's Close. It sells direct through its own site rather than through Viator, so there's no independent review count to set against the Vaults tours here, only its own visitor numbers (257,000+ in 2023) and its own reputation as one of Edinburgh's most-visited sights. That's real evidence of popularity, not a comparable star rating.
Before you book
Before you book
- Mary King's Close will not admit a child under 5, on any tour, for safety. Children aged 16 or under have to be with an adult. This is the detail most likely to ruin a morning, because it is a flat refusal at the door rather than something a guide can wave through, and a family travelling with a four-year-old needs to know before they book, not on Warriston's Close.
- Mary King's Close sells two ticket types for the same tour. The Essential ticket is the cheaper one and charges £15 per booking to change it, up to four hours before your slot. If there is any chance your plans move, the gap between the two is worth checking at the point of booking, because £15 on a £28.50 ticket is more than half the difference between this and the cheapest Vaults tour.
- Both Vaults tours run in near-total darkness for stretches, and involve stone steps and uneven floors. Worth knowing if claustrophobia or mobility is a concern for anyone in your group.
- Mercat starts above ground at the Mercat Cross on the Royal Mile, headsets are handed out before you go underground so the guide can be heard over a full group.
- Auld Reekie's entrance is on Niddry Street, off the Cowgate, a few minutes' walk from the Mercat Cross rather than right on it.
- The torture room is Auld Reekie only, and it's skippable when you book if it's not for you. Mercat's tour doesn't include one at all.
Pairing the underground with the rest of the Old Town: both sites sit a short walk from stops on the hop-on hop-off routes, and the Scotch Whisky Experience covered in our whisky tours guide is a few minutes further up the Royal Mile. If you're building a full day around the Old Town, our things to do in Edinburgh guide covers what else is within walking distance.
Side by side
| Mary King's Close | Edinburgh Vaults | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Buried 17th-century street | 120+ storage chambers under South Bridge, built 1788 |
| Tone | Historical, character-led | Ranges from atmospheric to full horror, depends on operator |
| Torture room? | No | Auld Reekie only, skippable |
| Group size | Standard guided group | Small (Mercat) to ~30 (Auld Reekie evening) |
| Minimum age | 5, and under-16s need an adult | Under 12 on two Auld Reekie tours, under 5 on the third |
| From | £28.50 adult, £21 child 5-15 | £24 to £29 depending on operator and length |
Quick answers
Are the Vaults the same as Mary King's Close?
No, different buildings, different centuries, different history. They just both get marketed as "underground Edinburgh."
Which one is more "haunted"?
The Vaults have the stronger paranormal reputation and lean into it more in the marketing. Mary King's Close plays it more historical, less horror.
Can I do both in one day?
Yes, Close in the afternoon and a Vaults tour in the evening works well and gives you the contrast.
Was Mary King's Close really sealed to trap plague victims?
No, that's a persistent myth. The upper storeys were demolished and the site built over in 1753, more than a century after Edinburgh's worst plague outbreaks, and people kept working legally on the lower floors for decades afterward.
Is there a torture room on the Vaults tours?
On Auld Reekie's tour, yes, with a guide explaining historical interrogation devices. It's skippable when you book if that's not for you. Mercat's tour doesn't include one.
How big are the tour groups?
Mercat's Blair Street tour runs smaller groups. Auld Reekie's late-evening tour can run up to around 30 people, which changes the atmosphere quite a bit from a more intimate walk.
Which vaults tour is the better deal?
By price per hour, Auld Reekie's 90-minute tour works out cheaper than Mercat's 75-minute one, and it adds a Greyfriars Kirkyard graveyard walk on top. Mercat's edge is a smaller, more intimate group. Both rate almost identically well, so the honest answer is it depends on whether you'd rather pay less per hour with a bigger group, or more per hour with a tighter one.
About this guide
Written by Diego Fresno, Independent travel writer and researcher. Guides are based on first-hand research in Edinburgh and verified against operator and official sources for the 2026 season. Verified: August 2026. About the author →