Glasgow's spookiest spots remembered as Halloween approaches

As Halloween approaches, Times Past has dug up some of the creepiest and craziest in living (or should that be dying?) memory around the city…

PARTICK

According to the then Glasgow Herald on November 14, 1979, an elderly couple in Partick had been so terrified by a whole family of ghosts in their Partick flat that they had to move.

Located close to an old Quaker burial ground in Partick, the flat was rumoured to be haunted by a doctor, his wife and three children who had died in mysterious circumstances. The building sat close to the Quaker Burial Ground on Keith Street (which is still there, and sometimes referred to by locals as the Quaker Lawn), another popular site for ghostly goings-on.

Nan McDonald and Ellen Bradley Pic: Newsquest (Image: Newsquest)

Buried there is Margaret Simpson, better known as 'Quaker Meg', who became the wife of John Purdon who donated the land for the burial ground in 1711. Legend has it that at midnight, voices can be heard coming from her grave…

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YORKHILL

The Evening Citizen reported on August 19, 1971 that a gentleman living in 12 Nairn Street in Yorkhill had been driven to his wits’ end by ghosts of his grandparents and aunt. Mr Towson had seen the apparitions and fled. The nearby Western Infirmary, now demolished, was also rumoured to be haunted by the ghost of an artist, suffering from chronic migraines, who threw himself down the stairs of the hospital after surgeons refused to operate on him. His ghost was spotted by staff standing outside the hospital's operating theatres.

DOWANHILL

In 2005, cleaners Ellen Brady and Nan McDonald reported seeing a sinister apparation in a former convent building on Victoria Crescent Road.

The 110-year-old listed building, which was originally home to the Notre Dame order of nuns, was later turned into offices for education body Learning Teaching Scotland and is now a luxury apartment block. It was rumoured to be haunted by the spirit of a French nun called Sister Campion, with workers claiming they had seen her ghost gliding around the old nunnery.

CITY CENTRE

Every theatre has at least one good ghost story, and Glasgow’s Pavilion Theatre has a particularly creepy one. Over the decades, audience members and staff in the upper stalls, have reported the scent of perfume, and the occasional glimpse of a ghost, reputed to be a dancer who died when her dress caught fire. Others claim to have seen a large, grinning man wandering through the auditorium and backstage, bearing great resemblance to comedian Tommy Morgan who had his ashes scattered in the Pavilion.

Meanwhile, The Arches (the former arts venue, located under Argyle Street in the old railway arches) has been the site of more than one haunting over the decades. It was a place rich in atmosphere, and easy to see why spooky stories originated within its cold, dark corners and corridors.

Inside The Arches. Pic: Newsquest (Image: Newsquest)

In 2009, however, came a story to eclipse them all, when staff reported seeing a little girl dressed in old-fashioned clothes wandering the hallways. Rumour has it she was so lifelike that some employees even approached her to ask if she was lost – only for her to vanish in front of their eyes…

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During the Alien War exhibition that year, the little girl was spotted on several occasions, with some commentators saying she was chased away by the loud special effects…..

GORBALS

It was a still and spooky night, 66 years ago, when a strange figure was spotted flitting through the gravestones of the Southern Necropolis. Was it a ghost, or a trick of the light, conjured up by the red glow and smoke from the steelworks nearby?

It certainly spooked a community, who believed it to be the Gorbals Vampire, a seven-foot tall monster with iron teeth. Rumours that it had killed and eaten two young boys swept through the neighbourhood like wildfire. Gangs of youngsters, armed with stakes and knives and accompanied by angry dogs, pitched up at the South Side cemetery in the hope of catching the strange creature and it made headlines around the country.

Glasgow’s Mitchell Library has some of the newspaper articles which covered the story at the time, and images of the Gorbals Vampire, in its occult collection.

Have you a ghostly tale to tell? Share your spooky stories and photos by emailing ann.fotheringham@glasgowtimes.co.uk or write to Ann Fotheringham, Glasgow Times, 125 Fullarton Drive, Glasgow G32 8FG.