Category: News

Dark Chester presents Victorian Gothic — new for autumn 2024

David Atkinson, Dark Chester Tours

Dark Chester [pictured above; image via Stuart Robinson Photography] presents Victorian Gothic next week.

It’s a new evening walking tour with a literary motif, delving into Chester’s golden age during the reign of Queen Victoria.

It was an age of innovation, global power and flushing toilets. But the Victorians were also obsessed with ghost stories and the supernatural.

The tour traces a social history of Chester and the statement buildings of its Victorian Gothic makeover, interspersed with some Gothic readings and poetry from the heart of Victorian darkness.

This tour has evolved from the Midsummer Gothic tour I led for the Chester Heritage Festival earlier this summer.

Victorian Gothic departs Wednesday, September 4 from the Visitor Information Centre, Town Hall Square, at 5.30pm. It repeats selected Wednesdays throughout autumn into winter and by appointment for private groups.

Dark Chester, meanwhile, continues throughout the winter, departing at the new time of 5.30pm from September 21.

I’m adding both tours to Viatour from September but you can still also buy tickets directly from the Visitor Information Centre.

More from Dark Chester Tour on Viatour.

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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 spend a Great British seaside weekend in Southport, Merseyside

To Southport, the Paris of Merseyside for my contribution from the Northwest to a summer series from Telegraph Travel about British seaside towns.

Here’s my take on Southport, including a visit to Southport Market [pictured above].

Southport feels like a resort waiting for something — and preferably not another Poundland.

“But exploring the backstreets offers its reward.

Personally, I could happily spend an afternoon mooching around the Victorian arcades with the twin-level Wayfarers Arcade, built in 1898, a study in wrought iron and glass.

Cambridge Arcade has been restored to its 1850s glory with a glass canopy now shielding local businesses, such as Mersey micropub, the Tap and Bottle.

A craft ale bar and bottle shop, the sign outside proclaims it ‘good enough for John Cooper Clarke and the guy from Countryfile (not John Craven)’.”

Read the full story via Telegraph Travel: Southport feels like a resort waiting for something to happen.

Liked this? Try also: I joined the offical Harry Styles walking tour of his home village.

 

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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