Haunting Tales of St Andrews

As the bell tower tolled nine on Halloween Eve, we gathered outside a flat on South Street. With a cigarette in one hand, Finn Bender, President of the St Andrews History Society, introduced himself and the ghost tour that he and the Society had been developing over time. He explained that the tour would draw on stories from Richard Falconer and Jeff Holder, two of the most prominent writers on the folklore and history of St Andrews. Bender also noted that the tour would cover only a portion of the town’s ghost stories, as St Andrews — said to be the most haunted town in the United Kingdom — has “a lot of ghosts per capita.” Here I will recount three of the many tales that were told during his chilling hour-long tour. Like Bender mentioned in his introduction, I will offer the same warning regarding the content of this article, which touches on themes of suicide, death, and disturbing mental images. 

Bender’s first first tale focused on the suicide of David Murray, the university’s postmaster general, in 1707. He climbed the stairwell in what is now the King James Library — then known as Upper Parliament Hall — and hung himself from the balustrade. This tragic act did not sit well with the university council, which was deeply Protestant “and arguably still is,” said Bender. They saw Murray’s suicide as sinful, believing that his life — belonging to God — was not his to take. In response, the council sent his body to an embalmer in Dundee, who stripped away his flesh, preserved the skeleton, and placed it in a wooden case with a glass panel displayed in the very place where died. They left a plaque that in Latin said — as Bender put it — something along the lines of “we will never let this man rest in peace.” The body remained on display for two hundred years until, sometime during the 1930s or 40s, it was transferred to the Bell Pettigrew Museum — where it was subsequently lost. Somewhere within this University, Murray’s skeleton lay forgotten.

Today, people report the feeling of being watched or breathing down the back of their necks while descending the stairs of the King James Library. Bender recounted how, two years ago, he himself was studying late at night, alone on the top floor. As he stepped out of the bathroom, he was struck with an intense chill — a temperature drop from about 19°C to 0°C. Walking down the library steps, he felt as though someone were creeping behind him, breathing down his neck, and sensed that if he stopped, someone would bump against him. At the time, he brushed it off as a symptom of stress and went to bed, only learning of the legend later. Now, he warns, if you’re ever there studying late at night, you might feel the presence of a soul condemned by the University to never find peace.

Bender then guided us to St Rule’s Tower to tell the tale of the monk believed to haunt the site. Standing beside the old stone buildings, we were the only ones out at that hour, the stillness of the night elevating the haunting atmosphere. Built in the eleventh century, the tower predates St Andrews Cathedral and stands on the highest point in the town. In 2009, a group of students hopped the fence to sit and drink nearby. While they were there, one of them noticed a figure in the tower's window, waving from the top. As they continued drinking, they felt an irresistible urge to investigate. Back then, the tower doors were always unlocked, so they decided to climb the stairs inside. Bender interrupts his story, reminding the crowd that anyone who has been in the tower will notice how the stairs abruptly end and thus leave the window inaccessible. Upon discovering the sudden end of the stairs, the students were quickly overcome with fright and fled the scene.

In 2016, a similar incident occurred involving a drunken group of three girls sitting near the Tower. The girls also recalled seeing a monk-like figure waving from the window. Unaware of the previous report, one of the girls began to climb the stairs, only to feel someone brush past her, as if someone had bumped her shoulder. She reached the highest point that the stairs would go but saw nothing — she could, however, hear footsteps above her. Terrified, she rushed back down, only to again feel someone bump into her once again. 

Every tour-goers eyes were locked on the window ahead. Though it was enveloped in the darkness of the night, we could not help but imagine the monk waving to us from the top of the tower. Bender explained that in 2019, St Andrews introduced a new lighting program to illuminate the churchyard at night. Since then, “Ghost stories of the monk have dissipated,” he said. However, on this night, no light was on, tempting us to step onto the lawn. Perhaps the once-welcoming monk simply misses the student presence. Bender then motioned for us to follow him to our next stop, his trench coat trailing at his feet. 

As we paused near the Pier, standing beside the quiet stillness of the sea, Bender offered a quick science lesson. He explains a phenomenon that every local and student in St Andrews knows all too well: “You wake up one morning in St Andrews, it’s nice and sunny [and then] by around two or three o'clock in the afternoon, a fog rolls in out of nowhere and sticks in the town.” This is ‘haar’, a dense fog that forms swiftly off the coast, lingers for a while, and then disappears just as mysteriously as it arrived. 

In 2012, a local woman from Fife was walking her dogs along East Sands at around 6 or 7am when the haar suddenly rolled in. Used to the fog, she continued walking, but her dogs stopped to stare at the water. Then, to her amazement, a procession of monks emerged from the sea, walking down the beach before vanishing into the haar.  A similar event occurred in the 1950s, when a local fisherman was taking his trawler out to sea and saw the same sight: monks appearing to walk out of the water, down the beach, and then disappearing into thin air.

The brilliant tour concluded with loud applause, with Bender once again crediting Falconer and Holder for their contributions to the captivating ghost stories of St Andrews. Bender was lively, telling the stories without once looking at his notes, and expertly played up the spooky atmosphere, making the night an unforgettable experience. Although it was the History Society’s first year providing the tour, Bender’s expertise made it feel as though he had been doing this for years. As the crowd slowly dispersed, many of us lingered, still discussing the haunting tales we had just heard, unsure whether to laugh or to look over our shoulders. The tales had certainly set the mood for Halloween.

Illustration: Grace Robinson