Hotels near Surgeons' Hall Museums

Everything else on this list sells you atmosphere. Surgeons' Hall Museums sells you the evidence. William Burke's death mask is here, alongside a pocketbook made from his skin, kept by the college after his execution and public dissection in 1829. The building is William Henry Playfair's, opened in 1832 and category A listed, and the anatomical collections inside run to thousands of specimens; the Barclay collection alone contributed roughly 2,500. Joseph Bell, who taught here, later wrote to his former student Arthur Conan Doyle that it was most certainly to Doyle that he owed Sherlock Holmes.

Its Halloween value is procedural rather than theatrical. The museum sells no timed slots and takes no pre-bookings for standard visits, so you buy at the Level 3 reception on arrival. On 31 October, when Edinburgh's ghost tours have been sold out for weeks, this is the one dark-history site in the city you can simply walk into. Adult entry is £10, concession £6.50, children aged 5 to 15 pay £5.50, and two adults with two children costs £25. A £4.2 million refit in 2015, £2.7 million of it from the Heritage Lottery Fund, rebuilt the displays.

Two things will catch people out. It closes at 17:00 with last entry at 16:30, which makes it strictly a pre-festival visit, and the recommended minimum age is 10. The human remains on display are not staged props, and the museum says plainly that some visitors find them distressing. If you were counting on this as the family slot before Samhuinn, check the ages first.

Pro Tip: Arrive between 10:00 and 11:30 on 31 October and you will have the upper galleries close to yourself; from mid-afternoon the place fills with people burning an hour before an evening tour slot. The entrance is on Nicolson Street, five minutes from the South Bridge bus stops, and you buy on the door at the Level 3 desk.