Myths and tales of St. Andrews

[steerpike]

[s]legohead wrote on 11:12, 24th Jan 2005:
a fairly new one-
the icecream van

occasionally, if you are walking around st andrews at night, all the way into the wee small hours, you can hear the creepy lullaby music of an ice cream van. I was walking up the travelator that goes from the kinnessburn past st regs, when i heard the tinkly tune. I stopped walking and looked around, couldnt see the van anywhere. the music stopped, and then when I started walking again it started playing.
it was really freaky. a few other people have heard the mysterious icecream van as late as 3am.

a friend of my brother's claims actually bought an ice cream from them. but I don't know if I believe him.




***
yeah Iv heard the creepy ice cream van too, also at farily odd hours in the night. I reckon its actually a clever cover for a sinister operation to abduct all left wingers, neds, attractive singles, canadians and ppl with good taste in music from St Andrews, who're then all taken to Dundee and auctioned off ...

Might explain some absences in this sleepy lil town

[Anon.]

[s]JM wrote on 14:01, 24th Jan 2005:
does stock mysteriously go missing cos we can't really blame that on the ghosties can we?

It's more believable than the suggestion that people would actually want to steal stock from the Edinburgh Woollen Mill.

[scumdeeforever]

[s]JM wrote on 14:01, 24th Jan 2005:
Really!!!
what happens? does stock mysteriously go missing cos we can't really blame that on the ghosties can we?


the woolies one moves the trolleys about - trolleys have been seen rolling past unaided. also one light comes on overnight every night, never the same one though. and things fall off shelves unaided - even the shelves with the acetate strip at the front designed to keep the stock on the shelves!

now either this equates to a ghost, or a sloping floor, faulty electrics and shitty shelves...

[Miz Manda]

[s]flarewearer wrote on 10:25, 24th Jan 2005:

Lastly, there is a myth, i don't know if it's true, that the university taccomodation used to offer value for money.


That one is surely just an urban legend.

Uni Hall is rumoured to have all sorts of ghosts but I think that they're mainly made up just to scare the Freshers since Old Wing and Lumsden at least are purpose built Halls of Residence and so have probably not seen much in the way of carnage.

[KayBee]

[s]scumdeeforever wrote on 16:24, 24th Jan 2005:
[s]JM wrote on 14:01, 24th Jan 2005:[i]
Really!!!
what happens? does stock mysteriously go missing cos we can't really blame that on the ghosties can we?


Are you sitting comfortably?

Then I'll begin.

First of all the stock room is a very creepy place - full of horrible print woolies and calf length kilts. I was up there on my own once - probably looking for a fisherman's knit sweater, they were strangely popular - when I felt something brush past me. Probably a draft but then something seemed to tap me on the shoulder. I got the fright of my life, shot back downstairs and fobbed the customer off with the usual crap about not having his size but there's a deliver soon blah blah blah.

I should add that I had been out in Dundee the night before, was VERY hungover and had been so tired that morning that I slept through my alarm and the manager had had to phone me three times to wake me up.........

Either a ghost, an over active imagination or someone hiding in the cashmere trying - and succeeding - to scare me.

[queen of scots]

[s]legohead wrote on 11:12, 24th Jan 2005:
occasionally, if you are walking around st andrews at night, all the way into the wee small hours, you can hear the creepy lullaby music of an ice cream van...

a few other people have heard the mysterious icecream van as late as 3am.



Surely there are restrictions on the times that ice cream vans are permitted to play their music - I'm pretty certain they aren't allowed to make noise after a set time in the evening....so maybe it was a ghost van you heard!

[boobies]

the ice cream van does exist, but me thinks it has to be a little dodgy if it sells ice cream in the middle of winter, i dont want to accuse anyone, but the possiblity of buying something illegal from it????

[Guest]

occasionally, if you are walking around st andrews at night, all the way into the wee small hours, you can hear the creepy lullaby music of an ice cream van.

I would have to agree, I have also heard the ice cream van during the night. Assuming it's not an ice cream van the only other thing I think it could be is some boy racer listening to his alternative music.

[jennyo]

Has anyone mentioned the Strathkinness Coach yet? Apparently it's a ghostly coach that drives up South Street and if you get in it drives away with you to parts unknown/hell. This is my favourite St Andrews legend as my flatmate and I had some sort of fixation on it last year ("Can you pick me up from the library at 9? Or should I just get the Strathkinness Coach?"), and then one day while driving out towards Strathkinness we went around a corner and there was a big horse-drawn wagon! So that could have been it, unless the 'Coach' is actually a bus-type coach.

Oh, and as far as the Trinity church graveyard goes, this is what I've been told about it, by a reputable source: All the land in that area (i.e. where Pizza Express and stuff is now) used to be consecrated. When they decided to develop it (I forget when exactly), the land was deconsecrated, and consequently they had to relocate a bunch of graves. But this was planned reburial as part of the development of town, not like a mysterious mass grave was suddenly discovered. And as for them being deformed/lepers, this is just a guess, but wouldn't it make more sense for diseased bodies to be buried out by the leper colony (where Gatty is now) instead of being brought into the middle of town?

And has anyone ever seen the White Lady/Monk around the cathedral? These are the ghosts that always seem to come up.

[hr]I love my country too much to be a nationalist. - Albert Camus

[Mr Comedy]

The Strathkiness coach belongs to the former Archbishop James Sharp, and drives up the Strathkinness road with its four black spectral horses.

[Yeats]

The Strathkinnes coach is meant to be that of the assasinated Archbishop Sharp though also I believe goes through the Pends. I have also heard the tale about the Monks dragging something by the sports hall and believe it is linked to the time when that area was farm land owned by the Priory.

[flarewearer]

There is a tower on the cathedral walls called the "haunted tower". Anyone know if there is any substance to this, or is it just to impress the tourists??

[KateBush]

The space round by the church on Hope Street is supposed to be one of the most haunted areas in Scotland; apparently there are lay lines that meet there?

A lot of supernatural activity has been recorded around Hope Street/ the bottom of Northt Street etc. I'm being serious when I say that I genuinely believe that a room I had in hall once was haunted; evreyone used to comment on the fact that this room was several degrees colder than any other room in the building, and that it felt as oif something wasn't quite right. There was an old blocked off doorway in my room and I always used to feel as if someone was watching me. I was glad to get out of THAT room, I can tell you! I tried talking to the presence, telling it to go away and stuff, but I think that pissed it off more.

I won't tell you which room, although a lot of people who know me will know the hall. but it was a thoroughly unpleasant experience.

[Khaz]

As far as that graveyard goes, it's definitely not a myth. When the current public library was being rebuilt from the inside, they were digging an elevator shaft and had to call in an archaeological team (a couple members from the university) to take care of the remains. I was there, and I helped and held one of the skulls, so yes, I know. As it turns out, the entire area around the church is built on top of eight layers of dead. Yes, that's right, eight. No coffins, no encasements, just stacks of dead. When they ran out of room, they would dig up the area and throw the dead guy in, then cover him up.
It wasn't a leper graveyard, though.

The ice cream van I've definitely heard. I can't say I, or anyone I know, has seen/visited it, but it's there. Creeeeeeppppy....

[hr].:Khaz

[jennyo]

[s]flarewearer wrote on 13:34, 25th Jan 2005:
There is a tower on the cathedral walls called the "haunted tower". Anyone know if there is any substance to this, or is it just to impress the tourists??


I heard that in the bottom of the square tower (on the side of the abbey wall facing the sea) they (whoever 'they' are) found some really old coffins, and when they opened them the bodies inside were completely preserved, including one of a young woman, and that's when the tower started to be haunted by the White Lady.

It does sound a bit urban-legend-ish though, to be honest.
[hr]
I love my country too much to be a nationalist. -Albert Camus

[KayBee]

Any chance you could email me and tell me which room and which hall you are talking about because I stayed in a VERY similar room when I was at St Andrews and had similar experiences!!

I'd ask you here but I don't want to scare anyone who is still in halls!

[legohead]

ok, this may be a bit flaky, and totally off topic, but i had the creepiest dream when i was in hall in my first year.

I dreampt that there was a terrible fire in that hall, and we all left our rooms and waited until the firemen had put it out. when i returned to my room, i found that there was a new doorway visible on the wall (something, thankfully that i hadnt had in reality)
well, anyway, I forced this door open and went through, finding to my surprise a whole other room, which was really dark, and the floor and carpet covered in soft, damp feeling material, including a double bed.

I left, and talked to my cleaner, who told me that there had been a similar fire a long time ago, when the building had been a hotel, and that two people had died in a room, which had then been sealed up. I went back through the doorway, this time with a torch. I could see then that the material the walls and carpet were covered in was blood. at that point I woke up in a sweat.

terribly melodramatic, but it really stayed with me. (apologies for length)

[sweet]

Well it might overactive imagination, but... we live in a cold dark draughty flat in Hope Street that belongs to a church (it used to be a residence for a minister or somebody like that.) Its a bit, umm, atmospheric - one room in particular seems to freak everyone out with wierd scary dreams and the like, and a little old lady ghost was spotted watering the garden one day (we nicknamed her Elspeth)

Oh and I heard there's laylines running down all three main streets from the cathedral.

[Guest]

there is a ghost at a house down gillespie wynd. it walks round at night, moves objects around and makes objects appear out of the blue. if it doesnt like people then they wake up with bruises.

[flarewearer]

laylines - please explain to the supernaturally uninitiated like myself