Picture yourself on a winter's night deep in Greyfriar's Kirkyard in Edinburgh. All you can see are the sinister headstones in the silhouette of the moon. Slowly, as the night birds call, the city's dead begin to rise from the silent tombs. Your heart pounds. Is that the voice of Sir George 'Bluidy' MacKenzie you hear, echoing from deep inside his ghostly vault, which lies beside the Covenanters' prison? No, it is the voice of a trained guide telling of how MacKenzie, Lord Advocate, ruthlessly prosecuted the Covenanters and his ghost still stalks Greyfriar's today.

Such torch lit walks or ghost tours through our shadowy burial grounds have become increasingly popular and Scottish tourism companies are adept at utilising the past to provide a window into the future. As individuals, we have always been inexplicably drawn to the darker side of the human personality. Macabre tales of life and death or heroes and villains stir the imagination. This is the thinking behind what has been called 'dark tourism' – a concept which attracts thousands of visitors to Scotland each year.

It is not all about providing tourists with chilling visitations or exploiting the nation's dead, however. It is as much, if not more, about celebrating Scotland's remarkable people. "There is definitely a macabre sense of interest for things like this but it is also a very positive thing, too. For example, Scotland was hugely important in the Enlightenment. There are many leading figures from that era buried in Edinburgh," says Clare Damodaran from VisitScotland, speaking at a time when Edinburgh is holding its Ghost Fest, complete with cemetery tours and parapsychology experiments. The tourism industry is constantly looking at novel ways to market our rich past. In Scotland's case, the possibilities are limitless.

Glasgow's grave robbers
Creatively interpreting our ancestry and heritage is not a new thing, though. Far from it. Glasgow's very own 'City of the Dead' was pulling in the crowds, way back in the 19th Century. The vast Victorian Necropolis cemetery was billed as a must-see visitor attraction almost as soon as the city's great architects chiselled the final monument in 1833. The Necropolis, now overgrown in parts, was built as the Glasgow merchants' answer to Paris' Pere Lachaise. Brought together by architectural luminaries such as Alexander 'Greek' Thomson. It was regarded as the place to be 'seen' when you had passed out of sight. Scotland's first garden cemetery, it had space for 3500 tombs. On its sumptuously sculpted stones and mausoleums, beneath the hilltop obelisk of reformer John Knox, are names such as scientist Lord Kelvin and the Blackie publishing family. Thomson himself is buried in the Southern Necropolis alongside names such as Sir Thomas Lipton. Lipton ran shops in Glasgow before venturing further afield into the States, where he went on to own tea and coffee plantations in Ceylon. Lipton's famous fragrant tea is still enjoyed to this day in cafes and kitchens across Europe and the Americas.

The last resting place of Glasgow's great and good appeared very quickly in printed maps and guidebooks, ensuring its popularity as a place to meander. By 1836, it had its own fact book: A Companion to the Necropolis. McPhun's Guide Through Glasgow said of the place:"If the stranger's time admits it, he will be gratified by ascending this interesting spot." As quickly as the tourists were taking the gate, however, rumours were spreading of a professor of anatomy encouraging body snatching. Such stories did little to deter interested walkers. Indeed, numbers rose. Glasgow was not alone in suffering such disrespect for its departed. Similar grizzly acts were taking place in Edinburgh. Resurrectionists stalked graveyards, digging up corpses in twilight raids for research in the capital's medical schools. Burke and Hare roamed the capital at this time. Even more diabolical, they resorted to drugging their victims whilst still alive before handing their dead bodies over to science.

Bandits and Rogues
While many of Scotland's departed sons and daughters have performed untold good, more than a handful have been reprehensible rascals. Visitors delving into Edinburgh's past on one of its guided walks will undoubtedly chance upon the devious deeds of Deacon Brodie. His burglary, drinking, gambling and womanising were legendary. Indeed, it was suggested Brodie was the individual on whom Robert Louis Stevenson based the dual central character in The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Enjoying the company of at least two mistresses and five children, this hedonistic councilman raided the city's Excise office and committed many high profile acts of felony. After fleeing to Amsterdam, he was finally brought back to trial in Edinburgh and was hanged at the Tolbooth in 1788. Today, his body lies in the cemetery at Buccleuch Parish Church. One of our other most noted criminals lies in a modest grave in the grounds of Balquhidder Church in Perthshire. Even today, visitors and passers-by lay flowers. Rob Roy MacGregor led a double life and historians remain divided over whether he was genuinely a rogue or a victim during an unstable period in Scottish history. Initially a respected cattle dealer, he lost the patronage of the Duke of Montrose in 1712 and was forced to part with his house and lands. Struggling to eke a living, he became a fearsome bandit and an enforcer for the Duke of Argyll.

He reputedly helped the Jacobites with information in the 1715 uprising but was also believed to have aided their opponents. Having managed to evade all captors, he was finally pardoned for his activities in 1726 and died at home in peace, aged 63. On his headstone reads the epitaph: A MacGregor Despite Them, a reference to the government's persistent assaults on the clan.

Foreign graves
Visitors to Scotland's memorials do not just pass through to learn about our history or miscreants. Just as you can visit the garden built in memory of Scots athlete Eric Liddell in Weifeng in China, many noted non-nationals had their last rites on Scottish soil. English novelist Thomas De Quincey, author of The Confessions of an English Opium Eater is buried in Saint Cuthbert's Churchyard in Edinburgh. Many Polish soldiers were laid to rest in this country and five American Civil War veterans are buried here, too. The most unfortunate 'resident' of a Scots grave is German scientist Julius von Yellin who was struck dead by lightning while visiting Edinburgh to present a lecture. Many famous Scots have also found their last rest in other parts of the planet. Blantyre-born missionary and explorer, Dr. David Livingstone, died on his knees in an attitude of prayer at Chitambo in Africa during one of his explorations of the Dark Continent. Creator of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle, is buried in Sussex. Stevenson died in Samoa from a sudden brain haemorrhage in 1894. He had settled there, finding that the warm climate of the Vailima Plantation aided his tuberculosis, allowing him to continue to write.

A sense of the past
Re-telling colourful tales of our forefathers is only one area where Scotland has managed to attract overseas visitors. The growing interest in family genealogy has been significant in attracting greater numbers. "There is a lot of people with Scottish heritage and we do target the ancestral tourist market," says Damodaran of VisitScotland, who stressed tracing roots or lost family members has become increasingly more important. Those with an interest in archaeology also flock to Scotland as the country is rich in ancient burial sites and standing stones from Neolithic times.

Kilmartin Village in Argyll contains some of Scotland's most important archeological monuments. There are five neolithic cairns and several dating from the Bronze Age. It is thought some of the graves may belong to Knights of the Templar. Again, there is currency here. The Kilmartin House Museum of Ancient Culture won the Scottish Museum of the Year award in 1998.

Scotland will continue to draw in the crowds to its atmospheric and imposing graveyards and monuments, with its tantalising tales of old. Maybe one day you will feel the cold chill of George MacKenzie breathing down your neck, on a cold Edinburgh evening, as you take the ghostly walk across the Greyfriars cemetery to his place of rest. . .

The Scottish Genealogy Society has published many booklets of monumental inscriptions and also has a large collection of lists at its library in Edinburgh

The Find-a-Grave (Scotland) page gives details of the graves of the rich and famous together with biographical information.