Ep. 91 - The CURSE of Cleopatra’s Needle and Greyfriars Haunted Kirkyard

Summary

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My Victorian Nightmare – Ep. 91: The Curse of Cleopatra’s Needle and Greyfriars Haunted Kirkyard

Host: Genevieve Manion
Date: April 20, 2026
Podcast: My Victorian Nightmare, Daylight Media

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Episode Overview

In this chilling episode, Genevieve Manion delves deep into Victorian-era hauntings and legends, focusing on two iconic and haunted sites: London’s ancient Egyptian obelisk, Cleopatra’s Needle, and Edinburgh’s infamous Greyfriars Kirkyard cemetery. Listeners are treated to tales of curses, mysterious deaths, and ghostly encounters, as well as the morbid fascinations and dark historical undercurrents that drew Victorians—and modern enthusiasts—towards the macabre.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Victorian-Era Obsessions: Setting the Scene

• Genevieve’s Introduction sets the mood: “There’s just something especially intriguing, creepy and oddly comforting about horror and mayhem from the 19th century.” (00:50)
• The episode promises a journey into two notorious haunted places, interwoven with disturbing history and unusual ghost lore.

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2. Morbid Modern Find: The Baby in the Floorboards (New Zealand, 2024)

• Genevieve provides an update on a modern Victorian-era mystery: the discovery of a baby skeleton found under Victorian house floorboards, wrapped in a 1910 newspaper. (03:45)
  • Radiocarbon dating suggests the remains could date back to the early 1800s—or possibly the 1700s.
  • The remains were those of a full-term baby boy; cause of death inconclusive.
  • Police are researching the house’s owners from 1910 to find answers.
  • Notable quote (05:25):
    “My focus is on finding out who the baby is, what happened, and how it came to be under the floorboards of that house. ... I am determined that this little baby is given an appropriate and dignified funeral. It is my duty to be the voice of the child.” — Lead Detective
  • The baby is to be given a dignified funeral on April 27 in Auckland.

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3. Greyfriars Kirkyard: Edinburgh’s Haunted Heart (08:05)

Origins and Historical Context

• Founded in 1562, not Victorian per se, but the 19th century kept it relevant (overcrowding, relic relocating, grave robbing).
  • The term “kirkyard” stems from “kirk” (church) + “yard.”
  • Created to replace the fetid, overcrowded St. Giles churchyard. (09:06)

Notorious Residents and Gruesome Tales

• The Covenanters’ Prison (11:23):

  • In 1679, 1,200 captured Scottish Presbyterian Covenanters were held in an open-air “death trap” prison. Hundreds died of exposure, disease, and brutality.
  • “This wasn’t designed as a prison, it was designed as a death trap.” — Genevieve (12:45)

• Horrible Honorable Mentions (13:01):

  • Sir Robert Baird: merchant, landowner, slave trader, and trafficker in “undesirables” shipped to the Americas. His transport ship, the Hope, wrecked killing all on board.
  • Sir George Lockhart: murdered by John Cheesely after granting alimony to Cheesely’s wife. Cheesely had his hand cut off, was hanged, and his hand nailed to a city gate.
  • John Porteous: after ordering troops to fire into a rioting crowd, was later lynched and brutally tormented by a mob.
    • “They set his foot on fire and then he was thoroughly beaten to death.” (18:24)

• Sir George “Bloody” Mackenzie: (18:58)

  • Lord Advocate notorious for persecuting Covenanters.
  • “He delighted in the torture of prisoners... would have executed prisoners’ heads placed on the spiked gates of the prison.” (19:25)
  • Died peacefully, but his grand mausoleum became infamous for supernatural incidents.

Hauntings, Curses, and Modern Legend (22:11)

• Stories of break-ins (not always verifiable), desecration, and strange occurrences:
  • 2003: Two teens broke in, removed remains, played with a skull “like a glove puppet.” (23:13)
• Reported Phenomena:
  • Unexplained scratches and wounds, faintings, nausea, temperature drops, shadowy figures.
  • “Some visitors claim to have seen a dark shadowy form... a black dread-inducing figure standing near the mausoleum, believed to be Bloody MacKenzie himself.” (24:00)
  • Personal Accounts: (25:14, 26:17)
    • A guest on a ghost tour noticed cat-like scratches on her legs afterwards.
    • Another heard knocks from within the padlocked tomb.
• Other Noteworthy Funerary Sites:
  • John Bane of Pitkerley’s monument: Genevieve calls it, “the most black metal final resting place I have ever seen.” (27:21)
    • Monument features a hooded figure and skeletal motifs. (27:37)

Victorian Era Body Snatching and Security

• Medical schools needed cadavers, graves were routinely robbed.
  • Greyfriars was surrounded by iron mortsafes and cages to deter resurrectionists.
  • “If you don't know what those menacing cages were really for, it kind of looks like they were trying to prevent someone from getting out, rather than prevent someone from getting in. They look like vampire graves to me.” (29:40)
• Overcrowding and reburials—thousands disturbed, reburied, and presumably restless.

Bittersweet: The Tale of Bobby the Loyal Dog (30:26)

• A Skye Terrier named Bobby lived beside his master’s grave for 14 years; became the cemetery’s most beloved figure with a statue and headstone.

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4. Cleopatra’s Needle: The Cursed Obelisk on the Thames (32:18)

Victorian Egyptomania

• Victorians were enthralled by Egypt: “Victorians were obsessed with the archaeology, the empire, spirituality, and perceived mysticism of ancient Egypt.” (33:00)
• The Rosetta Stone’s decipherment (1822) exploded interest in ancient civilization, spiritualism, funerary rites, and magical relics.
• Notorious for mummy-unwrapping parties, incorporating Egyptian symbolism into art and mourning.

Obtaining the Obelisk

• Originally built 1450 BCE for Thutmose III; moved by Cleopatra to Alexandria.
• Offered to Britain by Muhammad Ali; but logistics of moving a 224-ton obelisk were staggering.
• Engineers John Dixon and Sir William James Erasmus Wilson spearheaded the expensive, dangerous journey, building a custom ship “Cleopatra” to carry it. (36:14)

Voyage Tragedy & Origins of the Curse (38:10)

• Disaster struck in the Bay of Biscay: a storm led to six crew men dying while attempting a rescue.
  • The ship was eventually recovered and the obelisk erected in London in 1878; men who died are memorialized on its base.
  • “Then they cut the tow rope to prevent the Cleopatra from sinking the tow ship and they got the heck out of there, leaving the Cleopatra and the Obelisk.” (39:46)
• Soon, the obelisk was rumored to be cursed.

Legends, Hauntings, and Uncanny Reports

• Reputation as a Suicide Magnet: (42:27)

  • “Known more than any other stretch of the river to be the most common site for river related suicides.”
  • Reports of a recurring apparition: a naked man leaping into the Thames only to vanish.
  • Legend that if you press your ear to the obelisk, you’ll hear the screams of the drowned sailors.
  • Unsubstantiated story of Ms. Davies (1800s): felt drawn to the obelisk by a “magnetic force,” leapt into the Thames, and was haunted by nightmares of a vampiric woman in red robes. (44:24)
    • “...she would use her pointed teeth to rip Ms. Davies’ face off.” (45:03)
  • Skepticism expressed by Genevieve about sourcing of some tales, but the lore persists.

• Physical Scars: (45:19)

  • During WWI, the Needle was bombed but not destroyed. Damage remains visible today.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “This wasn’t designed as a prison, it was designed as a death trap.” — Genevieve, on the Covenanters’ Prison (12:45)
• "The statue is holding something... It looks like a remote control of doom or like a chocolate bar of doom." — Genevieve, on John Bane’s tomb (27:47)
• "They look like vampire graves to me." — Genevieve, on mortsafes (29:40)
• “If you put your ear to the obelisk, you hear screaming men…” — Genevieve on the Cleopatra’s Needle mythos (43:13)
• "It arrived safely, but they still hadn't decided about exactly where it was going to go." — Genevieve, on the obelisk’s landing in London (40:18)
• “Imagine meeting your dog again on the other side after they sat beside your grave for 14 years.” — Genevieve, on Bobby the terrier (31:35)
• “If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to hear more, please rate the show…” — Genevieve’s closing, urging engagement (45:19)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:45] – Modern Victorian mystery: the baby skeleton in NZ
• [08:05] – Origin and history of Greyfriars Kirkyard
• [11:23] – The Covenanters' Prison, mass grave horrors
• [13:01] – Gruesome tales of Greyfriars residents
• [18:58] – Sir George “Bloody” Mackenzie and his mausoleum
• [22:11] – Modern desecrations and ghost stories at Greyfriars
• [24:00] – Reported hauntings and physical attacks
• [27:21] – The John Bane monument, “black metal” tomb
• [29:25] – Grave robbing, mortsafes, vampire-like cages
• [30:26] – The story of Bobby the loyal cemetery dog
• [32:18] – Introduction to Cleopatra’s Needle
• [36:14] – Transporting the obelisk, engineering, and mishaps
• [38:10] – Deaths, disaster, and genesis of the curse
• [42:27] – Spooky urban legends, ghostly apparitions near the Needle
• [44:24] – Ms. Davies’ “magnetic” leap and vampire woman nightmares
• [45:19] – WWI bombing, closing remarks

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Conclusion

Genevieve Manion’s storytelling weaves a tapestry of history and haunting, reminding listeners of the intertwined nature of Victorian morbidity and our own continued fascination with the eerie and unexplained. From cursed monuments to tragic skeletons in the walls, from tortured prisoners to loyal ghostly dogs, the episode serves up a feast for fans of true crime, folklore, and the supernatural—always with a darkly humorous, compassionate touch.

For ad-free content, extras, and more, listeners are encouraged to join the show’s Patreon and engage with Genevieve on her website and social platforms.

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Transcript

[A]

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Hello and welcome to My Victorian Nightmare. I'm your host, Genevieve Manion, and I'm here to talk about mysterious deaths, morbid fascinations, disturbing stories and otherwise spooky events from the Victorian era. Because to me, there's just something especially intriguing, creepy and oddly comforting about horror and mayhem from the 19th century. So listener discretion is adv. Foreign. S and welcome to this, my 91st episode. Goodness gracious, do I have a creepily cursed episode for you today. In the heart of London, along the banks of the Thames, an ancient monument casts a long and unsettling shadow across the foggy water. Cleopatra's Needle, a towering relic of ancient Egypt that has witnessed centuries of dark history, is believed to have carried that darkness all across the sea. Whispers of tragic deaths, disembodied voices, and a curse that followed it from the sands of Egypt to Victorian England still linger to this day. And nestled behind ancient moss covered walls in Edinburgh lies Greatfriars Kirkyard, a cemetery steeped in sorrow, violence and horrors beyond comprehension. Restless spirits stir and encounters with the malevolent dead have been known to leave scars.

[D]

Today for you, dear listener, we will

[C]

discuss the dark history of Cleopatra's Needle and the most haunted cemetery in Edinburgh, Greyfriars Kirkyard.

[D]

Okay, before we get to the creepy

[C]

stuff, thank you to everyone who has joined the Patreon. This week I talked about the South End Killer on the Victorian true crime extras. This week, that was the man whose trial Robert Coombs, skipped school to attend. The boy who in the coldest of blood, murdered his mother in 1895. That I talked about last week. That story is almost as horrifying. I also offered a guided meditation and ritual to get the most, most out

[D]

of all of this wild Aries energy

[C]

on the fan coven. So if you would like to learn some witchcraft, listen to some true crime extras and enjoy some dark poetry, join the Patreon free [e-mail] or click the link for the Patreon in the show Notes okay, before we get to the main topics of the show, I need to talk about that baby skeleton wrapped in a 1910 newspaper that they found recently in New Zealand. It's been a while since I've talked

[D]

about skeletons being found in walls and

[C]

floors, and I think it's time that I resurrect the topic. So in 2024, the skeletal remains of a baby were found wrapped in a newspaper dating back to 1910 with twine around its neck. In New Zealand, it was nicknamed Baby Auckland for the official inquest into its death at the coroner's court in Crook, County Durham in New Zealand. The remains were found under the floorboards in a Victorian house in Bishop Auckland, and it was assumed that the baby was likely born at that time in 1910. But recent radiocarbon dating of the bo bones, like in the past few weeks, have shown that the baby may be much older, perhaps from the early 1800s or even as old as the 1700s.

[D]

Now, the house itself was built in

[C]

the 1800s, so I would imagine it

[D]

would be less likely that it were the 1700s.

[C]

That aside, the cause of death is inconclusive, but they were able to determine through DNA that the baby was a boy. It appeared to be a full term baby of about 40 weeks development. The remains are simply too old for a definitive cause of death to be ascertained. Police are still trying to research who the owners of the house were in 1910, folks who would have been the ones to wrap the remains and place them in the floor.

[D]

I would imagine there might be some family stories about the baby in the floorboards that some living descendants of those folks would be aware of if the

[C]

family ever talked about it.

[D]

My family would not be able to keep that kind of thing secret if

[C]

we found a 100-year-old baby skeleton in the floor.

[D]

I know my mother would never stop talking about it until her dying day. She would tell that story at every Christmas until the end of time.

[C]

The lead detective on the case said, quote, and this is so lovely. My focus is on finding out who the baby is, what happened, and how it came to be under the floorboards of that house. As soon as we are able to, I am determined that this little baby is given an appropriate and dignified funeral. It is my duty to be the

[D]

voice of the child. Oh, that makes me want to cry. The coroner has now officially released the

[C]

remains and the baby will have a Funeral on the 27th of this month in Auckland. So send a little loving thought toward Bishop Auckland on that day.

[D]

I wonder all the time what is in the walls around me. My place was built in the early 1900s, like 1908, so heaven knows what

[C]

manner of old spooky watches, murder weapons and dead bodies are buried within the

[D]

walls maybe a few feet from where I am currently sitting. What's the weirdest thing you've ever found in a wall? Was it spooky bones? Please do tell me in the comments.

[C]

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[D]

Okay, let us now talk about the

[C]

simply horrifying history of the Grey Friars Kirkyard in Edinburgh, Scotland. And I want to say thank you to a listener named Nina, a member of the Van Coven who brought this to My attention.

[D]

This is so upsetting. It is wonderful.

[C]

Now, this cemetery wasn't built in the Victorian era. It was first opened for business in 1562. But there was a considerable amount of spooky stuff happening within the Victorian era of this cemetery.

[D]

So we're just going to talk about all of it.

[C]

The term kirkyard is derived from Middle

[D]

English kirk meaning church, and yard meaning yard.

[C]

It's used in Scottish English still to demote cemeteries attached to church buildings. And Grey Friars refers to the friars that lived in the monastery that once stood where the cemetery was created. They wore gray robes, making them. The Grey Friars cemetery was created when the older cemetery of St. Giles became terribly overcrowded.

[D]

I spoke at length about the overcrowding

[C]

issues that Britain was facing in cemeteries in the 18th century in episode 26,

[D]

and the ways that they tried to

[C]

mitigate the heavy influx of folks dying of terrible things up to and through the 19th century by building more cemeteries. For a long time, you could only bury folks in cemeteries on the property of churches, consecrated ground.

[D]

But by the 19th century, and even

[C]

well before in some places, cemeteries were being packed in and there was a terrible odor issue in many churches. And with the rapidly growing populations in the 1500s through the 1800s in Europe,

[D]

cemeteries were positively heaving with so many

[C]

tenants that entire towns would be inundated with the smell of their local churchyards. This was a particularly terrible issue with St. Giles. I found the old English decree that this new cemetery be made that when

[D]

translated into modern English, says the kirkyard is not thought to have sufficient room

[C]

for burying the dead. And taking into consideration the smell and

[D]

inconvenience in the heat of summer, it

[C]

would be provided by the council that a burial place be made farther from the middle of town, such as in Greyfriars Yard. And indeed, this was done following the Scottish Reformation. The grounds of a Franciscan monastery passed into the possession of Mary Queen of Scots, who then officially decided that the monastery be removed and the cemetery built. Quick fun.

[D]

Mary Queen of Scots is not Bloody Mary. Mary Queen of Scots is often mistaken for being Bloody Mary.

[C]

She was executed by Elizabeth I. But Mary I of England was in her day called Bloody Mary for burning hundreds of Protestants at the stake. Now, when we say Bloody Mary three times in the mirror, it is unclear

[D]

exactly which demonic, murderous woman dripping in blood appears and is supposed to murder you. I don't think that has been confirmed. But just know that Mary Queen of Scots was never officially assigned that moniker

[C]

in life or after.

[D]

So it's most likely not her in 1679, a terrible battle called the Battle

[C]

of Bothwell Bridge between Covenanters and Royalists took place near Hamilton, South Lancashire. The Covenanters were Presbyterian Reformationists and the prisoners from that war were marched to the cemetery and confined in a part of the graveyard in what is known as the Covenanters Prison. This was an open air prison that held 1200 prisoners. The area was walled off with high stone walls and locked gates. It had no roof, no shelter of any kind. People were literally kept outdoors among the graves. There was little food, no clean water, no sanitation. People slept on the bare ground or against tombstones. Disease quickly became rampant and hundreds of people died from illness, starvation or execution. This wasn't designed as a prison, it was designed as a death trap. It was intended to force prisoners to renounce their beliefs. Some did and swore oaths and loyalty to the Stuart monarchy, King Charles II of England. But very few were ever released. The prison was to serve as a way to scare anyone into uprising again. The people who died there were buried in shallow pits, a mass grave on the property. There's a memorial there to commemorate the many dead inside those unmarked graves now, which is quite beautiful. There are a few folks buried in

[D]

the graveyard with horrifying details about them

[C]

that I dug into. Don't worry, I will be getting to the gentleman with the very most horrifying, horrifying details about him, sir bloody MacKenzie.

[D]

But there are a few honorable mentions

[C]

with chilling details that you don't often hear about. Among the residents in the graveyard is a man named Sir Robert Baird, 1st Baronet, who lived from 1630 to 1697. He was a Scottish merchant, landowner and slave trader for the new American colonies. But he didn't just deal with slaves from Africa, he also dealt in sending undesirables to Virginia, just shipping people to

[D]

another country in the interest of just getting rid of them. Specifically, as it's stated, quote, strong and

[C]

idle beggars, vagabonds, Egyptians, common and notorious whores, thieves and other dissolute and loose persons, end quote, who were imprisoned for minor offenses with long sentences, who would be granted freedom if they agreed to

[D]

be freed on the the other side of the planet. They didn't just send criminals to Australia, they did it to the colonies as well.

[C]

And in 1666, this man arranged to send a ship full of these folks to Virginia. The ship was called the Hope and it was wrecked not far from the coast of northeast Scotland in a terrible storm and it had no survivors. Just a little horrifying detail about that one guy. There's also Sir George Lockhart, who is a resident of Greyfriars Kirkyard, who was murdered by a man, a man named John Cheesely. The killer was mad that his wife, with whom he had 10 children, filed

[D]

for separation and alimony, which was a big deal in the 1600s and she was granted one.

[C]

Mr. Lockhart had something to do with making that happen. It's a little difficult to understand exactly what he had to do with it. But regardless, this Mr. Cheeselee shot George Lockhart dead outside of a church on Easter Sunday. He did not attempt to escape and pled guilty.

[D]

This man then had his right hand cut off before he was hanged. Then they nailed his hand to the gates of Westport and then he had the gun that was used to kill

[C]

Sir George Lockhart tied around his neck.

[D]

He was also buried in the same cemetery, but in different areas. That's good.

[C]

Good way to avoid an awkward ghost encounter. Mr. Lockhart happens to be buried in the same tomb as Sir Bloody George MacKenzie. Another resident of the cemetery is John Porteous. He was a Scottish military soldier, died in 1736. In April of that year, a smuggler named Andrew Wilson was being executed by hanging in Edinburgh's Grass Market. A crowd gathered to view the execution

[D]

there as you would in those days,

[C]

some out of curiosity, some were sympathetic to the prisoner and they began to throw rocks at the guards during the execution. There was another man there who had just been executed, who it was, seems everyone was happy to see executed.

[D]

But since things were getting out of

[C]

hand, his body was cut down too soon. It was customary to leave these folks

[D]

hanging for a while. But since they were cutting him down before the crowd was satisfied, they got

[C]

even angrier at the soldiers for doing that. So they began to riot for the love of God.

[D]

Like things are bad right now. Things in a broad sense aren't great around the world. But thank God this isn't like the norm, the day to day for vast swathes of society.

[C]

Jiminy Jones, John Porteous, who was the captain of the city guard, ordered soldiers to then fire on the crowd during the riot. Although he ordered them to aim above the heads just to like scare them. A number of people were shot, six people. And this made the all red already rioting crowd thoroughly cheesed off. Interestingly, Porteous was arrested later that day for making an illegal order. He was arrested for murder of those people. I wouldn't think that would happen in those days. Like the kinds of things certain agents

[D]

in my country can get away with

[C]

just murdering innocent people without any concern of facing any kind of investigation.

[D]

Ugh.

[C]

Just goes to show how some horrors have not persisted while others still do.

[D]

Anyway, he was arrested, arrested and found

[C]

guilty, then sentenced to death himself.

[D]

But word got back to the government officials in London that an officer of the law was being treated this way, meaning being held accountable and a formal appeal was being considered.

[C]

Now that sounds more like it.

[D]

The public got wind of this and

[C]

a 4000 strong crowd gathered and overpowered guards who were guarding the prison where Porteus was being held. And they dragged him from his cell, paraded him down the streets. He beaten and hanged from a pole using a rope taken from a local

[D]

draper shop, which is an interesting detail to have survived for 290 years. Like I wonder who is taking that note.

[C]

All right, this is fairly graphic.

[D]

He was repeatedly hanged, like lifted and then let down and then lifted again. They set his foot on fire and

[C]

then he was thoroughly beaten to death. There is a memorial plate close to where he was killed, erected in 2000 that says at this place, on the night of September 7, 1736, Captain John Porteous of Edinburgh City Guard was brutally lynched from a dyer's pole by an Edinburgh mob. A dyer's pole was a pole used in the dyeing of fabrics in large simmering vats. Just another little detail there. Oh, good gravy.

[D]

Now onto the final boss in the graveyard.

[C]

Sir George Mackenzie, otherwise known as bloody Mackenzie. This man died in 1691. He was the Lord Advocate during the rule of King Charles ii. And although that title doesn't sound at all evil, he was responsible for the imprisoning of the Covenanters in the open air prison in the cemetery.

[D]

And I gotta tell ya, he sounds like a massive psychopath.

[C]

He delighted in the torture of prisoners. He instructed guards to torture people in front of him at will. He would have executed prisoners heads placed on the spiked gates of the prison. Before this, he acted as justice depute from 1661 to 1663, which involved him extensively in witch trials.

[D]

He was knighted a member of the

[C]

Scottish Parliament and then tasked with delivering justice to His Majesty by brutally imprisoning those who rose up against him. In Scotland, he lived in a mansion a short distance from the Scottish Parliament and law Courts.

[D]

He didn't happen to die in any kind of dramatic way. He died of natural causes, likely related

[C]

to kidney disease or general ill health. At the age of 54, he was entombed in a rather impressive mausoleum in Greyfriars that houses the bodies of his family and a few other folks. One of Those being John Lockhart. And this mausoleum was rather quiet for a long time until allegedly someone broke in. I already have a terrible time sleeping, but things get so much worse in the summer heat. That is why I turn to Lumi Gummies. Consistent, mellow and super delicious, Lumi Gummies are specifically designed to make you feel good, not stoned. Whether you're looking for an end of day de stressor, a midday mood boost or help getting the best sleep ever, Lume Gummies has a strain that's right for you. It has been in the upper 80s in New York this week and I am already sick of it. I am not going anywhere near my bed until I've chomped on Lumes Indica Gummies to make me feel sleepy, relaxed, stop my mind from spinning in circles, and help me sleep through the toastiness without a panic attack that I would usually get if I ate other kinds of gummies. I love these because they don't make me high.

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[D]

But before he could, he fell through

[C]

the floor into a pit that contained bodies within a mass grave.

[D]

The man ran off and after this

[C]

event, strange things began to occur around the tomb.

[D]

This story has been told numerous times as fact, but it cannot be substantiated. I made sure to check if this story was anywhere reliable. It is not, but it might be true, or at least true in part. This tomb was repeatedly broken into in

[C]

the late 90s and the early 2000s, and folks managed to get in There

[D]

would share stories, no doubt with other

[C]

people, but wouldn't necessarily be mentioned in newspapers or official sources. There is a hole that appeared in

[D]

the mausoleum floor around that time that

[C]

is still there, but there is no official source for this particular event.

[D]

However, in 2003, and this is substantiated, two teenagers broke into the mausoleum.

[C]

Two boys named Sonny Devlin and a 15 year old boy who was too

[D]

young to be named in the papers

[C]

entered through a ventilation ventilation opening at the back of the tomb. They removed a number of identified remains. They even beheaded one of the bodies with a penknife and removed the skull

[D]

out of the coffin and admitted to playing with the skull, quote unquote, like a glove puppet. They were caught when one of the boys tried to bring a girl back to the mausoleum to show her the super cool stuff they found. It wasn't verified if this was bloody MacKenzie's head or not. The remains weren't identified. I made sure to include the source in the Guardian for this information in

[C]

the show Notes Beginning in the late 90s at the time of the alleged

[D]

break in, where a man fell through the floor into a pit of dead

[C]

bodies, some spooky paranormal events began to be reported around the tomb. Some visitors of the cemetery report unexplained scratches, bruises, burns and bite marks appearing on their bodies while near the tomb. There are numerous accounts of people collapsing,

[D]

blacking out or being pushed by a

[C]

person or persons unseen. Tour guides have claimed that otherwise healthy individuals suddenly have become dizzy or unconscious in that specific area. Witnesses often describe a sharp drop in temperature along with a heavy suffocating feeling, sometimes accompanied by nausea or panic by the tomb, but also over by the Covenanters prison. Some visitors claim to have seen a dark shadowy form moving among the graves and a more defined black dread inducing figure standing near the mausoleum, believed to be Bloody MacKenzie himself.

[D]

Some even report hearing bad banging from within the now thoroughly sealed tomb.

[C]

As they walk by, I found a

[D]

Reddit comment from someone who claimed to have had an experience of their own.

[C]

They said that they went on one of the ghost tours of the cemetery,

[D]

something I would love to do, and

[C]

she said nothing really happened there other than a few well timed jump scares by the tour employees.

[D]

She said she and her boyfriend were sad that nothing really spooky happened, but when they got back to their hotel,

[C]

my boyfriend and I were both stunned to discover that my legs and knees were covered with tiny bloody scratches. It looked as though I had been mauled by a cat, so thin and razor like were my wounds I hadn't felt a thing all night and for something to scratch me that violently underneath

[D]

all those layers of clothes was astonishing. Ah, this makes me think of the story about Nellie Vaughn's grave. The vampire who wasn't a vampire that I talked about a couple episodes ago.

[C]

Someone claimed that their husband had scratches appear on his face after hearing a ghostly voice say I am perfectly pleasant

[D]

next to her grave. I love this stuff.

[C]

Another person on Reddit claimed to hear sounds from within the tomb. She said quote As I walked to Mackenzie's mausoleum I felt very uncomfortable but shrugged it off. As my mom was recording to try to at some EVP electric voice phenomena, we both heard a knock coming from inside the padlocked mausoleum. We recorded some more but nothing was happening. So turned off the recorder and there was another knock. There was nobody in that mausoleum, I can guarantee it as we were photographing with flash inside through the windows and there was nothing there. End quote.

[D]

Now although that tomb may belong to

[C]

a witch trialing torturing poltergeist, it is

[D]

not the spookiest tomb. Now I know this is probably subjective, but to me the creepiest of all the tombs in the cemetery is the

[C]

tomb of John Bane of Pitkerley, a landowner with a not so well documented history.

[D]

I wish it was because I would love to know what inspired the most most black metal final resting place I have ever seen. I put a picture on the Instagram link in the show. Notes this tomb has a dark hooded and cloaked dude like life size statue

[C]

standing in a shadowed monument with an obscured face. It stands between two pillars with skeletons inlaid in the stone on the front.

[D]

You can see what were cherubs with wings at one point, but their faces

[C]

have since worn away and they're now covered in moss.

[D]

The statue is holding something and I tried to research what it is, but I couldn't find out what it is. It looks like a remote control of doom or like a chocolate bar of doom.

[C]

If you know what that is, tell

[D]

me because I couldn't find the answer to that. This is the spookiest monument to me.

[C]

Now let us talk about the cemetery's spookiness related to just the Victorian era. Specifically as promised, Edinburgh was a premier location for medical and surgical schools in the 19th century. It may still be. I'm unsure about that. And these schools were in desperate need for a steady stream of cadavers. And the gallows could provide nowhere near enough bodies for the schools to work with, so the schools and surgeons directly would pay. Resurrection men, body snatchers to illegally provide bodies for them. And Greyfriars was indeed a popular location for this body snatching to take place. As it was so close to the medical schools. Transportation was quick and easy. 100,000 people are buried in that cemetery and it was still a busy burial ground during the 19th century. So many of the graves still have what are called mortsaves. These were heavy iron cages, stone vaults or locking structures placed over burial plots to protect bodies from being dug up by resurrectionists.

[D]

They were a real bother to get into a real, real picnic basket of eternal defiance. The funny thing about these, although obviously none of this is funny, it's horrible. But if you don't know what those menacing cages were really for, it kind

[C]

of looks like they were trying to

[D]

prevent someone from getting out rather than prevent someone from getting in. They look like vampire graves to me. So there are many of these still

[C]

there in the cemetery. As mentioned, in the 17th to the early 19th centuries, graveyards were being terribly

[D]

packed in all over Europe.

[C]

And in the 19th century, thousands of bodies in these overflowing graveyards were actually dug up and relocated from those cemeteries and reburied in Greyfriars.

[D]

So you have many folks who were packed into graves that were later disturbed and then they were again packed into mass graves in another cemetery. I wouldn't want to run into those ghosts. They just couldn't catch a break.

[C]

Now, not, not all of the history is horrible. Some Victorian era history of the cemetery is a bit heartbreaking, but is also very sweet. The very most popular resident of the cemetery is not bloody Mackenzie or anyone else human. It is Loyal Bobby, a terrier that belonged to a man named John Gray, a police officer. The dog was only two years old old when John passed away in 1858. But little Bobby spent the rest of his life of 14 years living in the graveyard next to his deceased owner's grave. He was such a beloved part of the cemetery that he was buried there, not within the cemetery, which wouldn't allow anyone other than humans to be buried there. But it's believed he was buried by a tree just on the outside of the grounds. He was given not only a lovely stone, but a statue near the entrance of the cemetery. People from all over the world bring sticks to leave at little Bobby's grave. Imagine meeting your dog again on the other side after they sat beside your

[D]

grave for 14 years. And imagine the dog when he got to see him. Or maybe the man's ghost was there

[C]

with him the whole time and that's why he stayed

[E]

you thought this was your run club era. Turns out it was more of a thinking about Run club era. The good news? Someone's marathon training is about to start. Sell your workout gear on Depop. Just snap a few photos and we'll take care of the rest. They get their race day fit and you get a payout for trying to Someone on Depop wants what you've got. Start selling now Depop where Taste Recognizes

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taste Okay, let us now talk about the haunted, potentially cursed Cleopatra's Needle in London. My main reference for this Info is a hauntedplaceblog.com article by Ms. Jessel. I sadly do not know her first name. As always, all of my other references can be found in the show notes

[D]

okay, this is is fascinating.

[C]

I'll start with the history, then we will discuss the spookiness which is also entwined with the history. As we have discussed on previous shows, Victorians had an obsession with ancient Egypt, literally called Egyptomania.

[D]

I did too, when I was little,

[C]

and for all of the same reasons. Victorians were obsessed with the archaeology, the empire, spirituality, and perceived mysticism of ancient Egypt, especially the spiritualist communities of the day, those who made a whole thing out of communicating with the dead and seeking their guidance.

[D]

One of the elaborate burials that I performed for one of my hamsters was all Egypt themed. I made him a very pretty what I believed to be a sarcophagus that had colorful beads all over it.

[C]

The Victorian obsession really ignited after Napoleon's Egyptian campaign, the plundering of Egypt that took place after his wars brought to light an entire civilization that many Western folks weren't familiar with. When the Rosetta Stone was discovered in 1822, scholars like Jean Francois Champollion, I

[D]

hope I'm pronouncing that right was able

[C]

to decode and decipher hieroglyphics, which was astounding. There was so much to learn and discover about a people who only to the west, existed in the body of Bible. Victorians, again, especially spiritualists, were intensely interested in trying to understand and solve the mysteries of death. What happens when we're gone? What do the dead still see and maybe feel? And this civilization that built pyramids for their dead, that documented elaborate burial rituals and had objects, amulets, talismans used to communicate with or represent the dead that contained mummified body parts or ashes.

[D]

Victorians were ensorceled with everything related to this civilization. I learned that word from the movie Velvet Buzzsaw. It's great. It's on Netflix.

[C]

You should check it out England's imperial reach extended to Egypt in the 19th century. So artifacts were shipped to institutions like the British Museum. Wealthy English folks traveled to Egypt as tourists for the first time. Tombs were desecrated and these tourists would bring home souvenirs, including the mummified bodies of dead Egyptian people, people with them. As I mentioned in the Corpse medicine

[D]

episode episode 44, Victorians would host mummy

[C]

unwrapping parties, regarding them less as human remains than as curiosities. Egyptian motifs would be included in Victorian funerary art and gravestones. And when the Albanian Ottoman governor and ruler of Egypt and Sudan, Muhammad Ali offered Cleopatra's obelisk as a gift to Great Britain as a monument to commemorate the British victory over Napoleon in the Battle of the Nile, they were pleased

[D]

as punch, but had no idea how they would actually get it to Britain. Incidentally, this beautiful obelisk actually predates Cleopatra

[C]

by a thousand years. It was dedicated to Pharaoh Thutmose III in 1450 BCE. It's only associated with her because she had it moved to Alexandria in 12 BCE to set it up in a templ that she built in honor of Mark Anthony.

[D]

So long story short, England wanted this bad.

[C]

They just didn't know how to get the 224 ton, 68 foot tall obelisk across the ocean safely.

[D]

By 1875 they were finally like, we gotta get our hands on this obelisk. This thing's too cool.

[C]

So they asked Lieutenant General Sir James Alexander to figure it out already.

[D]

He created a plan to bring it

[C]

to Britain with the help of two civil engineers, a man named John Dixon and Sir William James Erasmus Wilson, who I looked into. He was an Egyptology enthusiast and surgeon

[D]

who would treat rich people by ordering them to give up their things. He was deeply sympathetic to the poor of England and paid for nutrition programs for poor children.

[C]

He's largely credited with bringing interest in Turkish baths to Great Britain. He very much believed in the health benefits of spas and thermotherapy. He was also a Freemason. Masonic morale and architecture was greatly inspired by Egyptian mysticism, rituals and philosophy as the Masonic brotherhood goes all the way back to the building of the pyramids. So this man was willing to contribute £10,000 to the endeavor. This would have been like $1.5 million in the day. John Dixon also paid a large sum as well. It's unclear exactly how much though. They built a ship for the sole purpose of transporting the obelisk and named it the Cleopatra. The obelisk was placed in a 92 foot cigar shaped iron cylinder and the ship was built around it. A steamship called the Olga was engaged to act as a tow ship. And on September 21, 1877, the Cleopatra and the Olga set sail. And this is where things begin to turn darker. At first the journey was uneventful, but on October 14th, when the ship entered the Bay of Biscuits, a violent storm started ripping the ship apart. Iron rails began to break loose.

[D]

Oh, this is so tragic.

[C]

The Cleopatra signaled to the Olga that they were in massive distress and a small boat manned with six very brave volunteers were sent to assist them. The crew of the Cleopatra were unable to secure ropes of this boat to their ship and in the rough stormwater waters, the boat quickly drifted away and was swallowed by the waves.

[D]

Oh God.

[C]

This reminds me of a scene from

[D]

Master and Commander where something similar happened to a guy.

[C]

Oh, the horror of it happening to

[D]

you, but also like watching it happen to someone else and not being able to save them.

[C]

Oh, those poor men. Their names were William Askin, Michael Burns, James Gardiner, William Donald, Joseph Ben and William Patton. The captain on the Olga thought everything must be fine because he didn't hear from the crew who went over there. It was only a few hours later when a second distress single was sent that the captain realized things were not okay. The Olga managed to pull up beside the Cleopatra and luckily they were able to save all of the remaining men on the boat. Then they cut the tow rope to prevent the Cleopatra from sinking the tow ship and they got the heck out of there, leaving the Cleopatra and the Obelisk. They thought it would sink to the bottom of the sea quickly, but amazingly the Cleopatra was seen still afloat days later. The ship was masterfully crafted and it was written that, quote, its buoyancy and sailing qualities have been shown to be of a high order by one of the severest tests of which a vessel likely to encounter ocean storms can be exposed. End quote. It was picked up by an English steamer ship called the Fitz Mounts.

[D]

Fitz Mounts, Fitzmounts and brought it to port. The captain got a pretty penny for returning the vessel, I AM Sure.

[C]

On January 21, 1878, the obelisk arrived at Gravesend, where schoolchildren were given the day off to witness the delivery and welcome the Cleopatra, which is such a sweet detail.

[D]

It arrived safely, but they still hadn't decided about exactly where it was going to go.

[C]

Many sites were in competition to host it, but the final decision was left

[D]

to the two men who actually paid

[C]

for the journey, Sir Wilson and John Dixon. It was decided that the obelisk be installed at the Victoria Embankment in central London on the north bank of the Thames. It was erected before cheering crowds. On September 1878. It was officially named Cleopatra's Needle and the names of the men who died on the ship trying to save it were inscribed at the base. And in not too much time, the

[D]

needle was said to be cursed.

[C]

Now, apart from the delightfully intrigued fascination that Victorians had in general with ancient Egyptian things, there was also a belief that these objects could be cursed. There still is. There's a wooden coffin lid in the British Museum that belonged to a priestess

[D]

of Amon Ra that is often blamed for illnesses, accidents and even the sinking of the Titan. This was because of an Edwardian era urban legend that the coffin was transported on the Titanic and was one of

[C]

the few objects saved from the wreck.

[D]

But this is not true. It was already in London when the Titanic sank.

[C]

When Tutankhamun's tomb was opened in 1922, several researchers like Lord Carnarvon, who was the excavation's sponsor, died suddenly.

[D]

He died by a mosquito bite shortly

[C]

after opening the tomb. And some believed that this was because of a curse. There's dagger of Thutmose, or Thutmose, the same pharaoh who the obelisk was made

[D]

for is a ceremonial blade made from

[C]

meteorite that is said to doom anyone who wields it.

[D]

I could go on. There are so many allegedly cursed Egyptian objects out there, alleged by people who shouldn't have them, things that were never

[C]

supposed to be moved.

[D]

So I understand the unspoken guilt that

[C]

might present as anxiety and fantastical thinking

[D]

in regard to the alleged cursed nature

[C]

nature of these objects.

[D]

When it comes to Cleopatra's Needle, there

[C]

are a few reasons for its reputation. I saw a few sources that say that the needle is known more than any other stretch of the river to be the most common site for river related suicides.

[D]

And it is said, meaning I can't

[C]

substantiate this, that there is an apparition of a naked man that has been seen leaping into the Thames beside the needle, over and over again, but never makes a splash. He just vanishes into the water, stuck in a spectral suicidal loop of sorts. He was witnessed first only weeks after the needle was installed, leading people to believe it may not be the ghost of a suicide victim, but perhaps the ghost of one of the sailors who tried to save it.

[D]

Some say that if you put your

[C]

ear to the obelisk, you hear screaming men that some say are the screams of the men who died on the ship. During its voyage to England. It has also been reported that unearthly laughter can be heard coming from the Needle at night.

[D]

Now I love spooky stuff, but this

[C]

makes me wonder if it's a similar

[D]

phenomenon which isn't really a phenomenon, it's just science.

[C]

At the Freedom Tower in New York,

[D]

the replaced building over what was the

[C]

World Trade center destroyed on nine, people have claimed to hear ghostly wailing and screaming, which is horrifying. But it's the way that the wind whips around the sharp edges and specialized scaffolding that produces that particular sound on windy days.

[D]

I heard it a few years ago myself and it actually made me cry. I lived in Manhattan on September 11th and I was very comforted when a scientist friend explained why and how those sounds were being produced there in 1800. Allegedly, according to a few sources, but none of them being the original. A 27 year old woman named Ms.

[C]

Davies from Pimlico was wandering along the embankment and felt a quote unquote magnetic force drawing her to the obelisk. She heard eerie sounds of female laughter, then found herself unable to control her legs right before the needle. Then she turned and leapt into the Thames. She was rescued by a vagrant nearby. Allegedly this Ms. Davies then had nightmares

[D]

for years about a tall woman in red dark robes with a white face

[C]

and black almond shaped eyes. This woman would open her mouth to reveal pointed teeth that she would use

[D]

to rip Ms. Davies face off. Now I love these kinds of stories. That is why I share them. But again, I couldn't find the original source for this story. I looked. Believe me, I want this to be true so bad. Now there is one kind of spooky

[C]

thing that can easily be substantiated and that is the fact that the Needle was bombed during the first World War but was not destroyed. The pedestal was only slightly disfigured and the scars from the bombing still remain to this very day. If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to hear more, please rate the show on Spotify and Apple podcasts. Please leave me comments because I love them so much and for ad free listening, true crime extras and witchy content join the fan [e-mail] until next time. Be kind kind to yourselves and I will see you in your nightmares.

[F]

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[D]

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