The Secret Room – Lauriston Castle
Perched on the edge of the Firth of Forth, Lauriston Castle is one of those Edinburgh buildings that seems to exist slightly out of time. Parts of the structure date back to the 16th century, though what we see today is largely the result of a late-19th-century transformation, when the castle was remodelled into a richly furnished Edwardian home. Passed to the city in the 1920s, it survives as a carefully preserved domestic time capsule, its rooms dense with objects, stories, and a quietly uncanny sense of lives once very fully lived. I’ve also seen performances here as part of the Edinburgh Horror Festival, and the building proves just as effective for horror as it does for magic, lending both genres an atmosphere that feels earned rather than applied.
That quality is central to The Se...