Tag: Chester tourist guide

Dark Chester runs special spooky tours for Chester Heritage Festival

 

Image: Stuart Robinson Photography [www.stuartrobinson.photography] 

Dark Chester ran some special walking tours as part of the Chester Heritage Festival this month.

Each time, we finished the regular tour by doing something we’ve ever done before: going into a Chester building to hear a spooky story first hand.

First up was a visit to the restaurant Carbonara on Bridge Street Row.

Here, the owner, Sam, shared with us his experience of discovering the haunting of the wood-panelled upper room when he first moved into the building.

The second of the special tours took us to Huxley’s, the cafe-bar beside Chester’s famous Eastgate Clock.

Neil, the owner, talked about the history of the building and his family connection to the Freemen of Chester, who had earlier that day joined the city’s Midsummer Watch Parade.

Look out for more Dark Chester special tours coming this autumn as thoughts turn to Halloween.

More from the Chester Heritage Festival in the Our Heritage section.

Liked this? Then read Dark Chester collaborates with My Haunted Hotel.

Dark Chester: a walk through the shadows of our dark-tourism history

We took a walk on the dark side a few days ago.

It was the inaugural outing for my new Dark Chester tour [pictured above], a walking tour through the shadows of Chester’s 2000-year-old history.

Think Horrible Histories meets Inside Number Nine with a dash of the Uncanny podcast.

In other words, an evening storytelling stroll with tales of plague, persecution and poltergeists.

For some more background, read this blog I penned for the British Guild of Tourist Guides:

Chester: take a walk on the dark side.

This first tour was an exclusive event for the Chester Heritage Festival, which runs until July 27 with lots of free activities, as well as paid-for tours.

As well as leading the tour, I also worked with the Heritage Festival team to livestream stories from two of the tour stops.

You can watch the livestream from Chester’s Roman Amphitheatre here.

The livestream from The Bear & Billet is here.

Plus I had some great initial feedback, including this comment:

 

The plan now is to take Dark Chester weekly.

So join me. Let’s take a walk on the dark side.