Haunted Stirling

<p><strong>From heart-stopping accounts of apparitions, poltergeists and related supernatural phenomena, to first-hand encounters with phantoms and spirits, this collection of stories contains both new and well-known spooky tales from around Stirling.</strong> A whole chapter is dedicated to the mysterious goings-on at Stirling Castle, where cleaners in the King's Old Building claimed to have heard footsteps coming from the third floor — which hasn't existed since a fire in the nineteenth-century; while a 1930s photograph purports to capture the shadow of a phantom guardsman — possibly the same 'Highland Soldier' often reportedly mistaken by tourists for a castle guide.</p><p>The town itself has no shortage of fascinating tales, including the story of the Old Town's most famous phantom, seventeenth-century merchant John 'Auld Staney Breeks' Cowane, whose spirit is said to inhabit his statue each Hogmanay. A playful ghost supposedly throws pots and pans around the kitchens of the Darnley Coffee House, while frequent power failures and mishaps in the Tolbooth Theatre — originally the eighteenth-century Burgh jail — are blamed upon the malicious spirit of the last man hanged, Alan Mair. Drawing on historical and contemporary sources, <em>Haunted Stirling</em> is guaranteed to intrigue and chill both believers and sceptics alike.</p>