Smith Art Gallery & Museum, Dumbarton Road

Not a haunted house, as such, but - as the repository of Stirling's most precious and peculiar artefacts - a place with many curious exhibits with strange and sinister associations

The momento pictured here is of Scotland's most celebrated - and reviled -Body-Snatcher.

This patch of skin was taken from one of Edinburgh’s most famous villains, the Irish murderer William Burke. Burke and his partner, William Hare, were not grave-robbers, but murderers...smothering their victims, then selling their corpses to Dr Robert Knox and other Anatomists of the city’s Medical Schools.

With no evidence against them Hare was persuaded to turn King’s Evidence against his partner. Billy Burke’s body was publicly dissected, and portions sold off at public auction.

This patch was donated to the Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum

Find out more at http://www.smithartgalleryandmuseum.co.uk