is St Andrews haunted?????????

[Ashley]

[s]Colin wrote on 13:34, 13th Aug 2003:
Anyone been on the ghost tour advertised outside the Tudor?


Yep, we all went on it one Friday night as a relaxation break between exams. It's pretty amusing. There were two people who played different characters around the tour whilst explaining to us each story. Then, leading us down darkened passages and making us jump.

Good wholesome entertainment, even slightly eduactional. Though I've heard Edinburgh's tours are rather more spectacular.

[stan]

the partick hamilton initials, whilst the story is true, is probably a student superstition.

if you believe in ghosts then the veiled nun and the white lady are the most common. the former is reputed to be some woman gilted at the alter, whose response was to mutilate her own face before becoming a nun. the veil is to hide the deformaty. she wanders the alley near st leonards.

the white lady is just bizarre. apparently a whole family died (no one seems to know when or their name) and were buried together in a crypt, the remains of which line the east of the castle wall and can be seen from the pier. the coffins piled on one another and the walls built around. this created an air tight chamber, which when entered many years later meant the bodies were preserved. the coffins reputedly had fallen over and laying on the floor was a susposed body of a beautiful woman clothed in white. the chamber was rebuilt as a sign of respect but years later it was entered again, only this time te chamber was empty. the story concludes that the coffins were knicked and the white lady as she is known wanders the castle area searching for her family.

personally i believe neither but some folk do and these are the stories behind them

[diddy reese]

i've heard ghost stories concerning just about every corner of town. most are probably superstition, but who knows? i've heard stories about the top floor in hamilton hall, backstage in the byre's main auditorium, at least 3 ghosts in dean's court, one of the houses at the cathedral end of south street (can't remember which - might be 17?) and that certain rooms in university hall and st. regs are closed off and not rented to students anymore because there were too many complaints of creepy phenomena. regarding university hall, i also heard that someone was possessed there about 6 years ago (the room is now one of those closed off), had to be exorcised and is still in a mental institution. i have personally had weird experiences with the piano in the downstairs common room of chattan (ie it playing when there's *no one* around but someone said that could just be mice in the piano or something). basically this is all stuff that i've *heard* mostly from people living in these various places. i'm not saying any of it's true, just giving an idea of what rumours and superstitions people talk about around here.

[KayBee]

[s]diddy reese wrote on 18:15, 16th Aug 2003:
certain rooms in university hall and st. regs are closed off and not rented to students anymore because there were too many complaints of creepy phenomena.



I can't speak for Uni Hall of course, but having lived in Regs the whole time I was at Uni I can't recall any rooms being closed off and not rented to students. However I do agree that it can be a VERY creepy place.

[Zen]

There's one side of the St Regs Annex that gives me the creeps right now, maybe it's just because there's so few folk in it right now (i work in the hall during the holidays so i'm living in hall over summer)but i dunno, definately creepy *shudders*

[stan]

my dear it is only creepy because of your gothish presense stalking the poor access lads with your kinky leather boots!

[Pussycat]

Also, no rooms in Uni Hall are shut off that I or anyone else I know from there knows off. And no one else seems to have heard the stories of a possessed person, including those that have been there long enough to know.

Uni Hall is hardly spooky or scary. Though the warden is a bit scary I'll admit

[stan-drews]

It has been said that on the top floor of Hamilton there are two ghosts. There were two students killed in a fire a number of years ago which lead to the top floor being closed off. The only access to it is up a pair of metal stairs in the fire stairwell, a rather unsettling climb, on the door at the top is a sign threatening expulsion from the hall if you were to even THINK about opening the door. And Shane (the warden) is not someone you want to mess with. Unfortunately he may not be in Hamilton come September. For anyone who may be coming to Hamilton don't let me put you off, it's the best hall in town and I'm glad to be going back.

[diddy reese]

i heard the info on rooms in regs and university hall being closed off from people who've been subwardens there. maybe they were just lying to make friends. i *definitely* heard the mcintosh piano play sans (human) player but concede it well could have been mice. a girl on my course last year worked at thornton's and she swore up and down that was as haunted as a chocolate shop could possibly be (supposedly by the ghost of an old woman). just about anywhere in st. andrews feels haunted if you stand around and wind yourself up about it.

[diddy reese]

oh and the uni hall demonic possession story i heard from two separate people (both postgrads who've been in town for ages) so maybe they heard it from someone who was around a long time ago. i agree that joe carson (the warden) is scarier than any ghost in that hall could possibly be.

[Aureliano]

[s]stan-drews wrote on 23:58, 17th Aug 2003:
It has been said that on the top floor of Hamilton there are two ghosts. There were two students killed in a fire a number of years ago which lead to the top floor being closed off. The only access to it is up a pair of metal stairs in the fire stairwell, a rather unsettling climb, on the door at the top is a sign threatening expulsion from the hall if you were to even THINK about opening the door. And Shane (the warden) is not someone you want to mess with. Unfortunately he may not be in Hamilton come September. For anyone who may be coming to Hamilton don't let me put you off, it's the best hall in town and I'm glad to be going back.


The threat of expulsion and it being closed off primarily linked to the fire destroying the two small rooms up there and nobody fixing it back up, and not the students' deaths of course.

Which I believe isn't true in any case. A friend of mine apparently randomly made small talk on a train with a fireman involved in the fire - and no one was hurt. Besides, the lower (inhabited) corridors are much more fun, what with all the whispers of a range of ghoulies. There's supposed to be a bearded man (with speculation ranging to Old Tom Morris as a former resident of the hotel) on 5th, or was it 4th.

We also had fun incidents last year with the 4th floor showers on full blast in the middle of the night, but we suspect this just had to do with built-up water pressure. *cue unsettling music*

Oh the joys of living in the former Grand Hotel of St Andrews. Makes you just want to hop on a tricycle and start peddling around. Reeed ruuum.

And I haven't even heard half of the hearsay. But just like with most other halls in town, walking around in the dead-still wee hours of winter nights, with random noises and insomniacs around, it can certainly be creepy. But I fully intend to exploit the rumours and creepiness to have some more fun come Halloween. Muah!

[Aureliano]

[s]diddy reese wrote on 03:05, 18th Aug 2003:
i *definitely* heard the mcintosh piano play sans (human) player but concede it well could have been mice.


I've always wondered about the old mouse explanation. Now would this consist of just random chaotic notes, or an opus of astounding proportions (à la monkeys typing away and producing Shakespeare)?

Any ideas or 1st hand experience?

[Pussycat]

I'd imagine if their were ghost stories in Uni Hall then Carson would delight in telling them in full detail to new unsuspecting freshers.

The fact that he doesn't is enough for me to think that there just aren't any.

[Dave]

8 College St may be haunted, if you believe that kind of thing. There was a fire there in 1993 in which a student died. I moved into the house in 1994 - with its fresh lick of paint over the ash from the fire.

One of my flatmates, who appears attuned to the walking dead (another flat she lived in had a ghost called Errol apparently) says that she saw something in one of the rooms. Her boyfriend,far more down to earth, and generally sceptical, claimed that it was nothing and that it wasn't even the room that the person had died in.

He later claimed, outwith her presence, that he had seen something, and had found out that it was indeed the room that the student had died in.

To make things more freaky, after we moved out of that flat, we went our separate ways for about a year, and I moved into 6 Melbourne Place. She and her boyfriend moved in with us for the summer, and on the same morning, three of us reported different bizarre events in the bathroom. I was in the shower when the air turned chill (not the water) and I heard and saw something fall past me. There was nothing there though. I only reported this because my ghost-seeing flatmate said that when she got out of the shower that morning, her make-up box was upside down on the floor and hadn't been when she'd got in. Likewise, another flatmate reported a chill in the bathroom that morning.

Personally I don't believe in ghosts, but I can't explain what was observed. It can't be attributed to expectancy, because none of us were aware of what the others had experienced.

[diddy reese]

[s]Aureliano wrote on 07:34, 18th Aug 2003:


I've always wondered about the old mouse explanation. Now would this consist of just random chaotic notes, or an opus of astounding proportions (à la monkeys typing away and producing Shakespeare)?

Any ideas or 1st hand experience?
[/i]

it was 5 quick, random notes. not chopin's funeral march or mozart's last requiem or anything like that. a few of my students reported hearing the same thing when walking through the common room alone. we all discovered simultaneously that we'd been hearing the same thing so no one would have intentionally been 'listening' for it or trying to convince themselves it did happen. but it was always random, quick notes which sounds probably like mice running around on the strings. or that would be the earthbound explanation, anyway.

[diddy reese]

however, i was never half as freaked out over the piano in mcintosh as i was during a few short nights in hamilton over the summer. myself and one other person were up on the fourth floor all alone and i could NOT handle it. why are those walls painted that greenish color? it makes the place glow green, especially at dusk and gives everything an exorcist-ish cast. hamilton is hands down the single creepiest place in st. andrews from my personal experience.

[Miss Maryland]

i've lived all my life in a new house, and i'll be in regs annexe. the idea of living with ghosts (or what seem to be ghosts) sounds like fun.

[hr]"America started out trying to be like Greece, but it ended up more like Rome."

-Gore Vidal


http://www.angelfire.com/poetry/colescott

[Precious]

There were a couple of rooms in Wardlaw not used, on top floor. There was a rumour that someone had killed herself there, but someone else said it was because rooms up there were a fire hazard and that's why they're not used. I was, however, amused to be told the rumour that during my first year in Wardlaw, I'd seen my furniture moving. Someone told that to the girl who took over my room and she believed it.

[Prophet Tenebrae]

Be wary of any ghost stories you hear about halls of residence, as it's most likely someone pulling your leg. Besides, what ghosts could match the horror of Andrew Melville?

[Buzzboy]

Someone actually died in the room I had in second year. On the anniversary of the death we launch a ghosthunters style investigation and found sod all.

[hr]On the Seventh Day God said to Adam:

"Can I leave it with you?"