Unusual & Interesting Things in Edinburgh

At first glance, Edinburgh presents itself in an orderly way—terraces, closes, monuments, galleries. But walk for long enough and the edges start to show. It’s not all sandstone and Enlightenment. Look closer and the oddities surface.

A plaque that reads “Heave awa’ chaps, I’m no’ dead yet.” A golden hawk nailed to a tenement wall. A Wild West town hidden behind a row of townhouses. Some are easy to miss, others almost too strange to believe. What they share is a sense that this city has never quite fit the mould.

This list pulls together some of the more unusual details scattered across Edinburgh’s neighbourhoods. You’ll find objects with murky backstories—like the miniature coffins linked to Burke and Hare—or markers of long-forgotten lives, such as the parakeet carved in memory of a landscape designer. Not everything is historic. Some are part of recent culture: the anonymous book sculptures left in libraries, the red phone box now turned photo booth. All are real, visible, and still in place.

Some carry weight, like the Witches’ Well or the Heart of Midlothian, where rituals of grief or protest still linger in how people pass by. Others, like the stuffed sheep or the statue of David Hume in a toga, just raise questions. That mix—of solemnity and strangeness, memory and myth—is part of what makes the city feel alive.

You don’t need a guided tour for these. Just a bit of patience, an open route through the Old Town and beyond, and the willingness to look up or read a plaque. The best bits often don’t explain themselves straight away.

Burke and Hare Murder Dolls
Old Town
The National Museum of Scotland has no shortage of remarkable exhibits, but few are as strange as this set of tiny dolls in coffins, reportedly found in parkland by two young boys in the 1830s. The overriding theory is that they were created a decade earlier by notorious murderers Burke and Hare, to represent their real-life victims.

The Witches Well
Old Town
This is not your average memorial. On a wall close to Edinburgh Castle is fixed an old drinking fountain – it’s easy to miss but tells a poignant story. It was erected in the 1890s to honour the numberless unfortunates who were burned at the stake for "witchcraft" between the 15th and 18th centuries, many of them close to where the memorial now stands.

Greyfriars Kirkyard Graves
Old Town
If some of the surnames on the graves of Greyfriars Kirkyard seem familiar – Potter, McGonagall, Scrimgeour, Black – there’s a reason. JK Rowling is thought to have taken inspiration from some of the tombstones here when naming her characters. Look out for the resting place of Thomas Riddell – the original Tom Riddle.

Edinburgh Castle Dog Cemetery
Old Town
Scamp, Dobbler, Yum Yum and Tinker are among the four-legged friends laid to rest in this small burial plot in the grounds of the castle, used since Queen Victoria’s reign as a burial site for regimental dogs.

World’s End Close
Old Town
This plaque on the Royal Mile, marking a tight passageway, signifies the spot where travellers and residents were once forced to a pay a toll to leave or enter the city. For those locals of limited means – of which, sadly, there were plenty – it meant they were effectively confined to Edinburgh for life, hence the name of the close.

Dolly the Sheep
Old Town
One of the National Museum of Scotland’s most popular exhibits is a stuffed ewe. This is, of course, the now-legendary Dolly the Sheep, who became a scientific phenomenon in the 1990s as the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell.

Camera Obscura and World of Illusions
Old Town
Edinburgh’s mind-bending Camera Obscura – which uses prisms to beam a live view of the city onto a concave viewing surface – dates back to the 1850s. It’s a remarkable attraction, now paired with several floors worth of other illusions.

Golden Hawk Sculpture at Gladstone’s Land
Old Town
Gleaming on the side of an old tenement in the Old Town, this eye-catching golden raptor provides an avian dazzle against the ageing stones of the building, its wings outstretched as though bound for some distant eyrie.

Susannah Alice Stephen Memorial
Old Town
Hidden off the Royal Mile, this unusual statue features a parakeet in a garden trug, and was commissioned by the friends of landscape designer “Zannah” Morris after her death in a diving accident in 1997. A great lover of life, it’s said she was also fond of the closes tucked away around the Old Town.

Morocco’s Land Effigy
Old Town
Two storeys high on an old wall along the Canongate you’ll spot an unusual-looking statue. Dressed in North African robes and sporting a voluminous headdress, it’s said to have been created in homage to the emperor of Morocco in the 1600s.

David Hume Statue
Old Town
It’s not every day you see a man in a toga with shiny toes. This statue of David Hume, near the top of the Royal Mile, portrays the famous philosopher as an ancient Greek – and rubbing his toes is said to bring wisdom to passers-by.

The Heave Away House
Old Town
The inscription above the entrance to Paisley Close – “Heave awa’ chaps, I’m no' dead yet”, accompanied by the engraving of a boy’s head – commemorates the sole survivor of a seven-storey tenement collapse on the same spot in 1861. More than 30 people died, but a voice from the rubble meant rescue attempts weren’t completely futile.

The Heart of Midlothian
Old Town
Don’t be alarmed if you see locals spitting on the Royal Mile. The Heart of Midlothian is a heart-shaped mosaic built into the cobbles outside St Giles’ Cathedral – it marks the entrance to what was once the Old Tolbooth, a jail renowned for its grisly treatment of inmates. Spitting on the heart has since become a form of good luck, as well as a way of showing disdain for the executions that took place here.

The Ivy Heart of Chessels Court
Old Town
Looking for an uncrowded spot for that perfect Old Town Instagram post? If the answer’s yes, head to Chessels Court off the Royal Mile, where you’ll spot an ivy-covered wall, its leaves trimmed into the shape of a large heart. And if the answer’s no – hey, we can’t all be social media-savvy – just enjoy the find.

Gilbert the Phone Box
New Town
Standing outside Stewart Christie and Co’s tailor shop on Queen Street is a classic red phone box, nicknamed “Gilbert” and reinvented as a debonair photo booth complete with hats, books and a vintage phone. Pop into the shop to ask for the key – you’ll be asked to make a small donation to Save The Children.

Wojtek the Soldier Bear Memorial
New Town
The unlikely story of a bear named Wojtek – who began his life being purchased as a cub by the roadside in Iran, went on to serve in the Polish army (yes, really), and spent his dotage in Edinburgh Zoo – has been immortalised by a statue in Princes Street Gardens.

Library of Mistakes
New Town
Recent British history suggests that this West End business and finance library is aptly named. It’s a charitable venture and aims to promote the study of financial history – as well as the ability to learn lessons from past errors.

Abraham Lincoln Statue
New Town
A Calton Hill cemetery might not be the most obvious place to find a statue of the 16th president of the USA, but there’s a good reason why it’s here. Old Calton Burial Ground includes a memorial devoted to Scots who fought and died in the American Civil War. It’s topped by a statue of Lincoln – the only example of its kind in Scotland.

The Gardener’s Lodge
New Town
The pretty red-brick cottage in Princes Street Gardens was originally home to the head gardener. Today it remains an unlikely sight in the heart of the city, a bucolic little house ringed by rosebushes. It also featured in the CBeebies series Teacup Travels, as the cottage of Great Aunt Lizzie.

Lighthouse Model at 84 George Street
New Town
Among the classy shops and elegant townhouses of George Street, you’ll notice a model lighthouse erected outside the first-floor window of the Northern Lighthouse Board building. It’s right above the doorway.

Ross Fountain
New Town
Purchased at London’s 1862 Great Exhibition by an Edinburgh gunmaker named Daniel Ross, this 19th-century cast-iron fountain now provides a highly decorative focal point in Princes Street Gardens.

Edinburgh Book Sculptures
Citywide
Between March and November 2011, a series of meticulously crafted "sculptures" appeared around Edinburgh. Constructed from old books by an anonymous artist, they were intended as gifts to the city and its cultural institutions. Eleven of the sculptures can still be seen and admired – you’ll find a map on the Scottish Poetry Library website.

The Wild West in Springvalley Gardens
Southside
When the now-defunct South West Furniture Company struck on the idea of creating a mock Wild West scene off a Morningside side street in the mid-90s, they were inadvertently creating one of the city’s stranger sights. Decades later, you’ll still find a faded facade of dusty, one-horse-town buildings including signage for a cantina and a blacksmiths.

Gilmerton Cove
Southside
There’s more to the outlying Edinburgh suburb of Gilmerton than meets the eye. A set of hand-carved sandstone tunnels and chambers snake under the streets of this one-time mining village, and can be visited by appointment.

Liberton Tower
Southside
This solid hilltop tower, on the southern outskirts of the city, now provides a holiday home with a difference. The four-storey building was first built in the 1450s and – after an ignoble period as a farm store and piggery – has since been restored to its former glory.

Innocent Railway Tunnel
Southside
When the Edinburgh and Dalkeith Railway was constructed in the 1830s, to carry coal from the pits to the city, it soon earned the nickname the Innocent Railway – the most likely reason being because it was largely horse-drawn rather than powered by steam engines. Its most striking feature was a 518m long tunnel (the first railway tunnel in Scotland), which remains in situ and is still used regularly today by cyclists and walkers.

Bore Stane
Southside
Along Morningside Road, on the boundary wall of the parish church, stands a weathered slab of stone. This is no ordinary lump of rock – the plaque below states that the Scottish standard was planted in it when troops were being readied at the Battle of Flodden in 1513. Retrieved from a field centuries later, it’s been part of the wall here since 1852.