The Stirling Ghostwalk is a guided tour of Stirling's historic Old Town, led by actors in the guise of the spooks themselves, mixing drama, comedy and storytelling. Meet Jock Rankin the Happy Hangman, Blind Alick Lyon - the original Manic Street Preacher, the amorous Auld Staney Breeks, the mysterious and deadly Green Lady and a host of other worthies and weirdies. Fear, Fun and Frights for Boys and Ghouls of all ages.
Meeting at the gates of the Stirling Old Town Jail, St John Street, in the heart of the historic Old Town, the Stirling GhostWalk leads audiences in and around a variety of local landmarks - from the historic Erskine Marykirk, now the local SYHA Hostel and Tollbooth, to Mar's Wark and the atmospheric Holy Rude Kirk-yard.
You can also join our acclaimed character based tours of Stirling's Old Town with Stirling WalkingTours, a guided tour of Stirling's historic Old Town, led by actors in the guise of the spooks themselves, mixing drama, comedy and storytelling.
One-man Ghostwalks led by the Burghs notorious Hangman, Jock Rankin run each Friday and Saturday at 8.00pm, from September to June - and at 8.30pm, Tuesday to Saturday, in July and August. Tickets available from The Hangman fifteen minutes before each show, or 10am to 5pm from the Visitor Information Centre, St John Street.
Special group bookings are available throughout the year - any evening other than Sundays
The route can be varied, to some extent, to accommodate the needs of patrons with mobility problems.
Drivers, please remember that St John Street is a One-Way Street with limited public parking, so drivers are reccomended to park in the heart of town, We're only a few minutes walk from the Town Centre car-parks or Bus and Train Stations.
Childrens and Concessions: OAPs/ Students/ Disabled)
Family tickets: 2 Adults and 2 Children
contact:happy_hangman@btinternet.com for details
The Stirling Ghostwalk has been a popular attraction in the Royal Burgh's Old Town area for nearly twenty years, offering a distinctive mix of comedy, drama and storytelling to thousands of visitors to Stirling. Fear, Fun and Frights for all the Family. The Stirling Ghostwalk was originally a means to profile the culture and characters of the Old Town within a developing tourist market
Employing a mixture of seasoned professional performers and enthusiastic locals in the scripting, development and production, a guided tour with a difference was born. From this 1989 pilot project, it was clear that the show was as popular with locals as with visitors, and it quickly became one of the key night-time attractions in the town's Royal Stirling tourism promotions.
A new script and characters are developed each July and August, resurrected for the Halloween spook-season, ensuring that visitors are guaranteed something new each year
Private group-bookings are available throughout the year. 10% Discount for groups of 20 or more. E-mail or telephone us for details. HALLOWEEN AND CHRISTMAS SHOWS
Patrons of local hotels, BandBs and hostels, Darnley Coffee House, Hermann's Restaurant, and most major local visitor attractions are offered 10% Discount as well as The Police Federation, the Argylls' regimental association and the Friends of the Smith Art Gallery and Museum.
By David Kinnaird
Get yourself ready for the Ghostwalk by reading David Kinnaird's Haunted Stirling available from all good booksellers.booksellers.
From heart-stopping accounts of apparitions, poltergeists and related supernatural phenomena, to first-hand encounters with phantoms and spirits, this collection of stories contains both new and well-known spooky tales from around Stirling. A whole chapter is dedicated to the mysterious goings-on at Stirling Castle, where cleaners in the King's Old Building claimed to have heard footsteps coming from the third floor, which hasn't existed since a fire in the nineteenth-century; while a 1930s photograph purports to capture the shadow of a phantom guardsman, possibly the same Highland Soldier often reportedly mistaken by tourists for a castle guide.
The town itself has no shortage of fascinating tales, including the story of the Old Town's most famous phantom, seventeenth-century merchant John Auld Staney Breeks Cowane, whose spirit is said to inhabit his statue each Hogmanay. A playful ghost supposedly throws pots and pans around the kitchens of the Darnley Coffee House, while frequent power failures and mishaps in the Tolbooth Theatre - originally the eighteenth-century Burgh jail - are blamed upon the malicious spirit of the last man hanged, Alan Mair.
Drawing on historical and contemporary sources, Haunted Stirling is guaranteed to intrigue and chill both believers and sceptics alike.
By David Kinnaird
Also by the Ghostwalk's David Kinnaird, read this account of crime and punishment in Stirling. From the murder of James I and the brutal torture of his betrayers to the beheading of Radical Weavers Baird and Hardie, the history of crime and punishment in Stirling's Royal Burgh has reflected the passions and prejudices of the Scottish nation. Here are shocking tales of the brutal and the bloody, the sad and the seditious, of the thieves, traitors, murderers and martyrs who shaped the destiny of those who dwell upon the Castle Rock.
Richly illustrated, and filled with victims and villains, nobles, executioners and torturers, this book explores Stirling's criminal heritage and the many grim and ancient punishments exacted inside the region's churches, workhouses and schools. It is a shocking survey of our nation's penal history.
