Category: Blog

Ghost stories and Victorian Gothic: my public speaking engagements this winter

The function room at the Cat & Fiddle Distillery. Image: David Atkinson.

As the darker winter months roll in, I’m pivoting work wise.

After working flat out with Halloween walking tours of Chester for both children (daytime) and adults (evenings), public speaking engagements will keep me busy over winter.

I did the first one this week. It was an evening of spooky stories at the Cat & Fiddle Distillery, located near Macclesfield, Cheshire.

The second-highest-altitude pub in Britain is a historic property from the early 1800s on the road from Macclesfield to Buxton. It’s now home to the Forest Gin Distillery.

The organisers welcomed 20-odd guests with smoky rum cocktails from the distillery’s new collection and then we convened in the function room for some local ghost stories from the Macclesfield area.

After a break for a buffet supper and refreshed drinks, we headed back for the second half, exploring the history of ghost hunting and theories of paranormal investigation.

The evening ended with questions and audience members sharing their own stories and experiences.

I’m now booking ahead for public and after-dinner speaking for the winter season with upcoming events across the Chester and Cheshire in the months to come.

If you’re looking for a guest speaker, then please do get in touch.

You can see images from the evening at my Instagram @darkchestertour.

More from Dark Chester Tour on Viatour.

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I visited the loneliest railway station in Britain. Here’s what I found.

All alone at Denton Station; image: Paul Cooper Photography WWW.PCOOPERPHOTO.COM.

To Denton, Greater Manchester, to ride the ghost train.

The station, located on the Stalybridge-Stockport line in Greater Manchester was last week named as the loneliest railway station in Britain — there’s just one return service per week.

I joined a handful of rail enthusiasts and insouciant day-trippers at the weekend to ride the cult service.

Here’s a taster of my feature.

The weekly train is known as a parliamentary service, a statutory requirement to avoid official procedures to terminate the service.

The line, dating from the mid 1800s, survived the Beeching Report of 1963, a series of cuts to restructure the then nationalised railway system.

But it was shunted into a railway siding after the re-routing of TransPennine Express in 1989.

All aboard the ghost train; image: Paul Cooper Photography WWW.PCOOPERPHOTO.COM.

“It provokes a lot of interest for railway nostalgia,” explains train guard Stephen Hughes.

“Passenger numbers are often boosted by regular rail-heritage events along the line.”

The next service departs in one week’s time.

Read the full article via Telegraph Travel, My trip to Denton, Britain’s loneliest railway station.

Liked this? Try also: Is Bangor, North Wales, really the worst seaside resort in Britain?

Is Bangor, North Wales, really the worts seaside resort in Great Britain?

Photos via Paul Cooper Photography

To Bangor, Wales, last week for a feature for Telegraph Travel.

The North Walian resort was voted the worst in Britain by readers of Which magazine but is it really so bad — or is the tag a complete misnomer?

Here’s a sample from my story:

For a vision of Bangor’s Victorian heyday, take a stroll down Bangor’s Garth Pier.

Designed as a promenading pier in 1896, the 1,500ft structure offers glimmering views across the Menai Straits to Beaumaris and to Telford’s historic Menai Suspension Bridge.

The Grade II-listed pier was named National Piers Society’s Pier of the Year in 2022, its 125th anniversary, and has survived trials from being threatened with demolition to terrible damage by the SS Christina cargo ship, which broke its moorings in 1914.

Read the full story via Telegraph Travel: Is Bangor really the worst seaside town in Britain?

Liked this? Try also: How to spend a weekend in Southport, Merseyside.

How to follow the official Harry Styles tour of Holmes Chapel, Cheshire

To Holmes Chapel, east Cheshire for an unlikely musical pilgrimage in an equally unlikely location.

I joined a sneak preview of the new Harry Styles Harry’s Home Village Tour [pictured above], which launched this weekend.

Read a sample from my article here:

When we finally arrived at the Twemlow Viaduct, it looks like a cross between the sometimes graffiti-covered grave of Jim Morrison in Paris’s Pére-Lachaise cemetery and an alcohol-free, teenage festival.

The messages range from “My mum loves Harry” to the more philosophical, “You bring me home”.

After three hours, I was desperate for a coffee and a sausage butty at the Village Kitchen, one of the local businesses offering fan deals back in the village.

But first I fell into conversation with 52-year-old superfan Andrea McGillivray [pictured below].

She lives locally and was one of the first visitors to test drive the new tour, having sat in the ITV studio audience the evening Harry first auditioned.

Clutching a slate-heart message to her idol and sporting a I Hiked to Harry’s Wall sweatshirt from the new merch range, she said:

“We’re happy to share Harry and his message of kindness with the world.”

Tours £20pp; more information from Holmes Chapel Partnership.

Read the full story via the iNewspaper: I joined the offical Harry Styles walking tour of his home village

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