Haunted Places in Scotland: Spooky Day Trips & Ghostly Tours

Located in the charming town of Falkland (hence the name), Falkland Palace is a Renaissance masterpiece and a favourite of Mary, Queen of Scots. However, this beautiful spot also has its own ghostly residents: the Grey Lady, the first Duke of Rothesay, and even the ghost of Mary, Queen of Scots herself are said to linger around its halls.

Visit Falkland Palace on our Outlander, Palaces and Jacobites Experience or on our brand new tour from Glasgow: The Kelpies, Fife and St Andrews Adventure!

You might recognise Blackness Castle from Outlander if you’re a fan of the show. It was built on the site of a fort that stood in the same place to protect the main port of Linlithgow and is often known as “the ship that never sailed” due to its pointed tip that sticks out into the Forth.

It's easy to see why you would think this place could be haunted. Its high, thick walls certainly have a dark, oppressive atmosphere. There have been plenty spooky activity over the year, with one recorded sighting being of an angry-looking man in a full suit of armour who pursued a woman and her sons down a set of stairs.

I think most of us would rather it was Jamie Fraser chasing us down the stairs.

You can visit Blackness Castle on our Outlander, Palaces and Jacobites Experience! 

The ancestral home of the Duke of Argyll is also home to a few floating inhabitants. One chilling story is that of a young Irish harpist that was murdered by the men of the Marquess of Montrose who found the boy in the castle as they stormed it during a civil war. As many the army were Irish, they weren’t best pleased that one of their own would work for a Campbell – and I’ll not go into too much detail of what happened next. Apparently though, harp melodies can still be heard coming from the room in which the young boy was murdered.

You can visit Inveraray Castle on our West Highlands, Mountains and Lochs tour or our Oban, Glencoe and West Highlands Castles tour!

Rosslyn Chapel is probably most well known due to the myth that the Holy Grail is held somewhere there and thanks to the Da Vinci Code. However, its not just Tom Hanks that you might see walking around. Many sightings of ghostly monks have been spotted, and actors rehearsing in the space have experienced a lot of activity. A group of builders who once had to spend the night working in the chapel also came out the next morning and refused to ever work there overnight again, as one felt an intense sensation of being watched, before turning around and being confronted by a ghostly monk.

You can visit Rosslyn Chapel, surprisingly, on our Rosslyn Chapel, Scottish Borders and Glenkinchie Distillery tour!

Just outside of Inverness, Culloden Moor was the site of the last battle on British soil in which the Jacobite army of Bonnie Prince Charlie were all defeated in less than an hour.

It’s said that on the anniversary of this battle, on 16th April, the souls can rise again, and you will be able to hear cries of soldiers and the noises of their weaponry.

Maybe you’ll be fine if you just don’t visit on that day!

You can visit it as an option on our Loch Ness, Inverness and the Highlands tour!

Apparently St Andrews has over 400 haunted locations, so if you’re wanting to ghost hunting it could be the place for you. There’s a few spooks that stand out though. One is the White Lady of St Andrews Cathedral who was been spotted on several occasions with many reports claiming she is a beautiful woman with long hair, dressed all in white with a veil and is very luminous. So if you were going to bump into any ghost, you’d probably want it to be her.

Especially rather than one of the other main ghosts, who is said to be a woman with a horribly disfigured face who is thought to be a nun, who will lift her veil if she encounters you and reveal her face!

You can see St Andrews' Cathedral on our St Andrews and the Fishing Villages of Fife tour from Edinburgh or our brand-new The Kelpies, Fife and St Andrews Adventure from Glasgow.

If you’ve been to Stirling Castle, you’ll have more than likely heard all about its history. After being attacked 16 times, you can imagine it’s seen its fair share of bloodshed – so it’s no surprise that there’s a few ghouls hanging about here as well.

With footsteps heard often by military officers who used the castles, to a male ghost in a highland kilt. There are also two ladies who haunt the castle, one of whom is the Pink Lady (not an apple), who is seen leaving the castle grounds to head to the nearby Church of the Holy Rude. Some believe her to be a survivor of a 1304 siege of the castle – in search of her lost husband. The other is the Green Lady, often seen as a precursor of trouble to come, as she has been seen before fires or other incidents.

You can visit Stirling Castle from Edinburgh on our Loch Lomond, Stirling Castle and the Kelpies tour, or from Glasgow on our Loch Lomond, the Trossachs and Stirling Castle tour!

Situated on the west coast of Scotland, between Turnberry and Ayr, Culzean (pronounced Cull-ane) is a beautiful castle that sits on top of a cliff surrounded by a lovely stretching beach and a huge park to explore and go for a wee picnic. It is apparently home to several ghosts, one of whom is a young woman in a ballgown, but perhaps the most well-known is the piper. Many people have reported, on stormy nights, you can hear a piper play his pipes amongst the noise of the storms.

Whilst none of our scheduled tours go here, you could always look into getting one of our Private Tours. And if ghosts aren’t your cup of tea, there’s a brilliant ice cream shop in the park at the castle.

Glencoe is one of the most haunting places you can visit on tour, not only in terms of ghosts, but just based on the atmosphere. It’s hard not to feel that the deep valleys and huge mountains imposing on you when you are there – especially if it’s a rainy day or one where the clouds are hanging low.

With the Massacre of Glencoe taking place there, I think it’s safe to assume that there’s a spirit or two hanging about and this autumn and winter could be the perfect time to visit, especially on our Glenfinnan, Glencoe and Fort William adventure. As the sun sits lower in the winter, the valleys will feel even more atmospheric – see if you can experience the reports of people heard wailing in the glens for yourself.

You can visit Glencoe on our winter Glenfinnan, Fort William and Glencoe Adventure from Edinburgh or Glasgow.