The Secret Closes of Edinburgh’s Royal Mile That Most Visitors Walk Right Past

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Walk the Royal Mile in Edinburgh and you’ll join thousands doing exactly the same thing. Camera out, map open, moving steadily from the castle to the palace. But step sideways — through any of the narrow archways cut between the shops — and you fall into a different Edinburgh entirely.

These are the closes. And most visitors never find them.

What Are Edinburgh’s Closes?

A close is a narrow passageway running off the main street. Edinburgh’s Royal Mile has over a hundred of them, slotting between buildings like hidden corridors in a city-sized puzzle.

They formed because medieval Edinburgh had a space problem. Built on a single volcanic ridge, the city had no room to spread outward. So it built upward — reaching nine or ten storeys high — and threaded narrow lanes between the tenements.

Each close took the name of whoever owned or lived at the gateway. A merchant, a lawyer, a surgeon. Some of those names are still carved above the archways today, unchanged for four centuries.

The Close That Hides an Entire Street

The most famous is The Real Mary King’s Close — a ticketed underground experience beneath the Royal Exchange on the High Street.

Mary King’s Close was sealed off in the 17th century when the Royal Exchange was built directly on top of it. Residents were cleared out and the close was forgotten for centuries.

When excavators rediscovered it, they found entire rooms still intact beneath the city — toys, furniture, the remnants of ordinary lives suddenly cut short. Today you can walk through it on a guided tour, though the stories are darker than most visitors expect.

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The Close Where a Real Jekyll and Hyde Lived

Brodie’s Close

Near the top of the Royal Mile sits Brodie’s Close, named after a man whose double life shocked Edinburgh society.

William Brodie was a respectable cabinetmaker and town councillor by day — trusted into the homes of Edinburgh’s most prominent families. By night, he used the knowledge he gathered there to rob them blind.

He was caught, tried, and hanged in 1788. His story later inspired Robert Louis Stevenson — who grew up just streets away — to write Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Edinburgh’s closes gave Stevenson his darkness.

The Close That Gave the World an Encyclopaedia

Anchor Close

Just off the High Street, Anchor Close looks unremarkable from the outside. Inside, it holds a remarkable footnote in publishing history.

In the 1760s, a printing house here produced the first edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. William Smellie, the printer and editor, compiled almost the entire first edition himself — three volumes, still referenced today.

The close also hosted a famous Enlightenment club where writers and thinkers gathered regularly. Much of Edinburgh’s extraordinary intellectual history was shaped in dingy taverns down forgotten alleyways like this one.

Hidden Gardens and Film Sets

Dunbar’s Close Garden

Tucked off the Canongate, this walled garden is laid out in 17th-century style. It is one of the quietest spots in the entire Old Town — genuinely easy to miss unless you know it is there. No ticket required, no queue.

Bakehouse Close

Near Holyrood, Bakehouse Close opens into a wide cobbled courtyard with dressed stone buildings that look almost unchanged for centuries. It was used as a filming location for the television series Outlander — if you have watched the show, you will recognise it instantly.

Riddle’s Court

Off the Lawnmarket, this courtyard once hosted King James VI for a formal banquet. Philosopher David Hume also lived nearby. It has recently been restored and now houses a cultural centre — worth a quiet look even if you do not go inside.

How to Find the Closes

The best approach is simple: slow down and look sideways. The archways are easy to miss when you are focused on the castle ahead or the shop fronts on either side.

Look for blue street signs above the archways. Some closes lead steeply down the ridge on stone steps. Others open into flat courtyards. A few are dead ends — the original buildings are gone, but the passageways remain.

Walking all of them takes several hours and covers barely two hundred metres of the Royal Mile. Edinburgh’s Old Town is that dense with history.

If you want to go deeper, the buried city beneath Edinburgh’s streets is a different world entirely — layers of medieval life stacked on top of each other, hidden for three centuries. And Edinburgh Castle at the top of the Mile has its own hidden stories that go back even further.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the most famous close on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile?

Mary King’s Close is the most visited. It runs beneath the Royal Exchange on the High Street and is now a popular underground guided experience. Book tickets in advance, especially during summer and the Edinburgh Festival.

Are Edinburgh’s closes free to visit?

Most are free and open to the public at any time. Dunbar’s Close Garden, Bakehouse Close, Brodie’s Close, and Anchor Close cost nothing. Only a few — such as Mary King’s Close — charge an entry fee for guided tours.

When is the best time to explore Edinburgh’s closes?

Early morning is ideal, before the Royal Mile fills with visitors. The closes are atmospheric year-round, but autumn and winter add mist and lamplight that suit the historic mood perfectly.

How many closes are there on the Royal Mile?

Over 100 closes and courts branch off the Royal Mile and its extensions. Not all are accessible — some are private residential entrances — but dozens are free to explore on foot without any booking required.

The closes of Edinburgh’s Royal Mile are not a tourist attraction. They never were. They are simply the bones of a very old city, still visible beneath the modern surface. Walk through one and you are not looking at history — you are standing inside it.

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