The Real Mary King's Close: Tickets, Times and What It Is Like

The Real Mary King’s Close is a set of 17th-century streets and houses that survive underneath the City Chambers on the Royal Mile. You can only see it on a guided tour, which takes about an hour and runs every day. On GetYourGuide a ticket costs from $38 per person, with free cancellation up to 24 hours before, and the tour is rated 4.7 out of 5 from 4,574 reviews (checked October 2026).

What is the Real Mary King’s Close?

In the 1600s the closes running downhill from the High Street were lined with tall tenements. When the city built the Royal Exchange over this one from 1753, the upper floors were taken down and the lower ones were kept as the foundations. The building above is now the City Chambers, the seat of Edinburgh’s council, and the streets below it were left more or less intact.

The close takes its name from Mary King, a cloth merchant who was widowed in 1629, became a burgess of the city in her own right and died in 1644. The tour follows the people who lived and worked here, including the families who stayed through the plague of 1645, rather than telling one person’s story.

How long does the tour take, and when does it run?

The guided tour lasts one hour. The attraction’s own site listed opening from 9am to 10:30pm when we checked in October 2026, with tours leaving through the day and evening. Every ticket is for a set time, so arrive at the entrance at 2 Warriston’s Close, opposite St Giles’ Cathedral on the High Street, a few minutes early.

On the official site an adult ticket costs from £25.00 for the Essential ticket and £28.50 for the Standard ticket, which allows free changes up to four hours before; child tickets cost from £18.25 and £21.00 (checked October 2026). Free audio and multimedia guides are available in several languages, including British Sign Language.

Is it worth visiting?

For most visitors, yes. Nowhere else in Edinburgh can you stand inside a 17th-century street, and most reviews talk about the guides, who play former residents. It suits anyone interested in how ordinary people lived in the Old Town. If you mainly want ghost stories, a ghost walk or a vault tour after dark will give you more of them for less money; the homepage comparison sets them side by side.

Is the Real Mary King’s Close scary?

Not in the jump-scare sense. It is a social-history tour, and nobody leaps out at you. What some visitors find unsettling is the setting: low light, cold stone, narrow passages and the plague story told in the rooms where it happened.

The ghost story most people know is Annie’s room. In 1992 a Japanese psychic, Aiko Gibo, said she felt a little girl called Annie in one room, who had lost her doll. Gibo bought a doll on the Royal Mile and left it there. Visitors have left dolls and toys ever since, and the gifts go to the children’s hospital in Edinburgh. The tour stops in the room, and the guides tell the story as a story.

Mary King’s Close or the Edinburgh Vaults?

They are different places from different centuries:

Prices from GetYourGuide, checked October 2026.

If you have time for both, see the close by day and take a vault tour after dark. If not, pick the close for history and the vaults for ghost stories.

Who can go?

• Children under 5 are not admitted, and under-16s must be with an adult.
• There are 58 steps down and 38 back up, uneven floors and steep slopes, so the close is not suitable for wheelchair users, and sturdy shoes help.
• Parts of the tour are dim and enclosed, which matters if you are claustrophobic.
• Photography is not allowed on the tour, and neither are pets.

Tips for the day

Book a timed slot ahead in October and around Halloween, when Edinburgh is at its busiest for anything dark and historic. Wear shoes with grip for the steps and slopes. The close is two minutes’ walk from St Giles’, so it fits easily before an Old Town ghost walk in the evening.